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Date: 3/27/2015
WESTFIELD – Mayor Daniel Knapik has declined interim Department of Public Works Superintendent David Billips’ resignation request, which was announced on March 20.
Billips originally resigned after the March 19 City Council meeting, when the consolidation of Department of Public Works (DPW) was discussed and eventually sent back to the Legislative and Ordinance Committee.
Knapik and Billips met on March 23 to discuss the situation, according to a statement released from the mayor’s office on March 24. They agreed that Billips remaining in the role of acting superintendent was best for the city of Westfield.
“Yesterday afternoon, I met with David Billips, acting superintendent of the Department of Public Works,” the statement read. “Dave and I discussed the concerns he raised in a letter he sent to me on Friday morning, and we agreed it was in the best interest of the department and the city that he continue to serve as acting superintendent in the coming weeks. Particularly, as we enter the construction season, I am very pleased that Dave has agreed to continue in this capacity.
“I share the acting superintendent’s concern relative to the importance of modernizing the DPW’s organizational structure in order to better and more efficiently serve the city’s taxpayers. I am hopeful members of the City Council will take the next ten days to understand the importance of this proposal and take this matter up at their next meeting so that the department and its leadership can focus 100 percent of their efforts on deploying its resources appropriately after this brutal winter.”
Though the Council stalled in approving the ordinance that would move the Water Resources Department and Parks and Recreation Department under the DPW, Billips, also the Water Resources superintendent, said the delay was not the reason for his decision to resign.
“The reason I resigned in the first place was not lack of support for the reorganization. I think it’ll go through,” Billips said. He continued on, saying that his main concern was the funding of the newly formed DPW.
“The DPW has been underfunded for years, and they keep cutting money out of it,” he said. “We have a vision of what they want to do.”
Billips said the conversation with the mayor, the legal department and the personnel director was not “contentious” and that he agreed to stay on as acting superintendent.
“It was very calm and they just basically asked me to stay,” Billips said. “They think that we can still move this forward and it has a lot of merit and they think I’m the person for the job.”
Billips said that the city trusts his experience, having been a part of the Water Resources Department when the water and wastewater departments combined under a similar ordinance in 2004.
Though the city has seen something of this magnitude work in the past, the City Council voted to send it back to committee after receiving a proposed amendment from the mayor.
After meeting with the legal department, Knapik proposed the Parks and Recreation Department be removed from the ordinance. This was sent to the Legislative and Ordinance Committee early in the meeting.
However, this amendment started discussion as the council moved through the agenda to the final reading of DPW ordinance.
Councilor Brent Bean II argued that the consolidation of the DPW was a “complete win for the city” and there was no need to hold on to any longer, encouraging a vote to pass it that night.
Other councilors voiced their concerns that to pass the ordinance with an amendment still being discussed in committee would be redundant.
“You’ve got to let the system work. This will have its day,” Councilor Ralph Figy said of the ordinance. “I think what we need to do is deal with what’s at hand instead of prolonging things, which seems to be what this council likes to do at times, and then go back and look at this and let Legislative and Ordinance do what they’re charged to do.”
Though it was sent back to committee by a vote of 8-5, Billips said that it was the manner in which the councilors spoke of the ordinance that caused him to reconsider his post in the first place.
“I went home and I thought about it,” Billips said. “Again, my concern wasn’t so much that they didn’t approve it that night, it was that in some of the language things like ‘we can improve’ and ‘we’ll revisit these items at budget time.’”
Billips said that he wants the City Council to see and understand his vision for the future of the DPW, which includes less reliance on contracts and outside vendors.
“Going forward, there’s things we have to do that are politically unpopular, but in the end they’re going to save money. I understand that there’s no money, but maybe it’s time do something different,” Billips said. “I appreciate all of the support that we’ve gotten from so many people, and all I can say is we’ve got a proven track record. I want [the City Council] to trust us, give us a chance to show that we can do things differently.”