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Date: 12/8/2017
WEST SPRINGFIELD – As he approaches 2018 and the city’s first four-year mayoral term, Mayor William Reichelt said the five-point plan he ran on in his very first bid for mayor remains the focus.
“In a way, the goals haven’t really changed that much,” he told Reminder Publications during a recent interview.
In discussing public safety, Reichelt noted the recent addition of eight firefighters and 10 police officers was a big boost, but in the coming year, the changing landscape of law enforcement in the Pioneer Valley – ranging from the unknown impact the 2018 MGM Springfield opening will have on crime and the increased drug problems plaguing the area – would force a review of the city’s approach.
“Our goal is to reshape the structure of the department – more so for Police than Fire – to prepare for 21st century policing in that we have a casino coming in, we have the 20 hotels and motels, we have crime that is evolving and we’re starting to react and see the results of the opioid crisis,” he explained.
Among the changes being considered is the creation of a traffic bureau, noting that has been one of the biggest public safety complaints he has received during his first term.
“Part of it is selling the idea that we’re a cut-through community,” Reichelt said. “The traffic is always going to be there. We’re going to work the best way we can to deal with it.”
He also noted a traffic division would free up officers who would normally have to respond to such calls to focus on other duties.
Further addressing infrastructure-wise, Reichelt said the city has begun to take a look at where money can be spent wisely to realize the greatest improvements to traffic flow, traffic safety and “whatever the future of travel is going to be.”
He noted, “We have intersections and a lot of roads that were designed 100 years ago and built 100 years ago when they had horse and buggy.”
The Morgan Sullivan Bridge project, which is slated to begin in the spring will also have significant impacts that will have to be mitigated.
Along with road work, Reichelt noted West Springfield will embark on $15 million worth of sewer and water infrastructure projects in 2018, something he said he hopes to do annually
“The council just increased the sewer rate fees, so we’re going to have more money now,” he said. “We have probably $125 million – in today’s dollars – of critical infrastructure we need to work on and we’re taking a stab at it with $15 million, but as we move forward, that dollar figure keeps increasing and the need for work to be done increases.”
While the city has been successful in its battle against blight in the wake of what Reichelt described as a “triple disaster” with the housing crisis, the June 1, 2011 tornado and October 2011 snowstorm, he stressed the need to complete the Property Maintenance Ordinance that has been worked on for the past several months. The City Council recently voted to send the proposal back to committee for more changes.
“There were over 100 [blighted properties] at one point and now we’re at less than 50,” Reichelt said. “We have work to do with getting the Property Maintenance Ordinance in place and also work to get rid of those last 50 then put preventative measures in place so this doesn’t happen again.
“In a lot of ways [the disasters] caught us off guard, but there were issues that existed anyway that we weren’t really dealing with. We didn’t have procedures in place to deal with vacant houses and we didn’t have procedures in place to deal with receiverships. Those tools existed, but we weren’t using them.”
The blight ordinance would help prevent the ”exhausting” and expensive process of taking property owners to court, he added.
“We’re close,” he said. “I introduced this in the summer and thought it would be done in September, but it’s taken a little more education than I thought – which is good because the council has gotten really involved.”
Reichelt said the schools would undergo a review in the next couple of years to review current spending and how to best allocate funding in the future.
“We are going to look at how to incorporate cost-saving measures while at the same time continuing to invest in the schools,” he said.
He noted the town is on the cusp of being classified a Level 2 district.
“We’re currently level 3 because of the high school and we’re two points away from being a Level 1 at the high school, so depending on how we test this year, we could possibly bounce definitely to Level 2 and maybe to Level 1, which would be huge,” he said.
The Coburn Elementary School project will be the largest physical representation of investment in the district’s school buildings and one Reichelt considers a “huge factor” in the continued improvement of the city’s educational system. The $40 million building project is supported by the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which is giving West Springfield a 75-cent return on every dollar spent.
“We’re lucky that within a year of finishing the high school, we’re going to get another school,” he said.
Reichelt added that while it is unlikely the city would build another school once Coburn is completed, there are significant investments to be made in other buildings to prepare them for 21st century learning.
The creation of a Central Maintenance Department under Mayor Edward Sullivan, he said, streamlined the process through which the schools and other buildings are upkept, which helps protect those investments.
“In the past one of the things we had been guilty of as a community was not maintaining what we have,” he said. “We’ve addressed that by creating this department and they’ve done a terrific job.”
With all of the potential projects on the horizon, Reichelt stressed it his administration’s focus on keeping the budget under control.
“It’s easy to see these projects and begin wildly spending and one thing we’ve done the past two years and we’ve continued to do is look at ways we’re spending money and try to figure out where the waste is and try to cut it out,” he said. “That’s how we’ve been able to go three years without raising taxes.”
He admitted that while he hopes to avoid raising taxes again, Sharon Wilcox, the city’s CFO and town accountant, warned him the chances of that are “dwindling.”