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Date: 5/18/2022
NORTHAMPTON – At the end of April, Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra appointed Patrick McCarthy as the new central services director.
McCarthy, who has been the city’s facilities project coordinator since 2015, is the successor to former Central Services Director David Pomerantz who officially retired from the position at the beginning of 2022. The position has been vacant since January.
Northampton’s Central Services was officially formed in 1997 under leadership that decided to combine school maintenance and city maintenance to help reduce costs and make operations more efficient. The department manages and oversees grounds, maintenance, heating/cooling, plumbing, electrical, security, fire detection/protection, custodial, renovations, and construction operations for city and school buildings. Central Services also is responsible for the maintenance and operation of multiple parking lots, the parking meter system, and two parking garages. Additionally, the department manages the internal municipal mail delivery and processing program, and all energy contracts for the city with the city’s Energy and Sustainability Officer.
McCarthy said he is excited to take on this next adventure as the central services director and told Reminder Publishing that he worked closely with Pomerantz over the years before Pomerantz retired.
“We’ve got a good group of people working in the department, and I’m excited,” McCarthy told Reminder Publishing, in an interview.
McCarthy began his career in the trades, working 10 years as an HVAC technician before segueing into community development work. In this field, he produced housing for a non-profit agency for close to 26 years, serving in construction project management while developing real estate.
As facilities projects coordinator, McCarthy handled several key capital improvement projects throughout the city, including a $700,000 refurbishment of the Academy of Music Theatre’s bathrooms in the basement. Within this position, McCarthy follows all the procurement rules and oversees contractual minutiae while going through the process of these projects, among other duties.
“There’s several capital improvement projects that happen to get funded every spring,” said McCarthy, when explaining his role as facilities projects coordinator. “As well as that, just coordinating and overseeing all the maintenance contracts for various equipment.”
Over the next few months, McCarthy’s primary goal is to “get organized” as he settles into the new position. Aside from that, he said that he also needs to hire someone for his former position as facilities projects coordinator.
“One of the main goals is [former] Mayor David Narkewicz in 2018 proclaimed that the city will be carbon net neutral by 2050, and anything related to the schools and city buildings, they would be carbon net neutral by 2030” McCarthy added. “That’s a pretty herculean task … We’re going to be working on that a lot … just planning, setting realistic goals.”