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Date: 10/13/2020
WESTFIELD – After rejecting the current job description for the personnel director at its last meeting, the Westfield City Council hosted a special meeting on Oct. 8 to attempt to remedy some of the concerns with the current document.
Council President Brent Bean started the conversation by saying that he would be in favor of including a lawyer requirement for the personnel director position.
“I think our Law Department is getting taxed and having someone with a legal mind could be a positive thing. I’m seeing more and more that the Law Department is seeping into our decisions, on the personnel side I would like to have someone that speaks their language,” he said.
He added that he was in favor of having cross field experience because of how well it worked with the Department of Public Works (DPW).
“I like different departments having similar skillsets so there is some overlap. It worked with Dave Billups with the DPW and his engineering degree. He was able to double team projects with Mark Cressoti and that was something we never had and I think it helped us,” Bean said.
Councilor Bill Onyski said that having an attorney requirement for the job could make the search too narrow.
“I think the job description is fair. The personnel director really covers such a wide range of skillsets. I wouldn’t want to pigeonhole it with making an attorney part of it. It would be great if that did happen, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” he said.
Councilor Ralph Figy said it was important to move the job description forward and have them work on updating job descriptions throughout the city.
“I would say if we want to tweak this job in the future, it might be a great job for our personnel director to go through all of our job descriptions and look at them and update them. I think we need to move this process forward tonight,” he said.
While he agreed with including a potential attorney requirement, Councilor Dave Flaherty said municipal experience should be required in the description as well.
“Municipal experience should be absolutely, positively be required. Just by having five years’ experience in a personnel role in a company. City government is different than a parts store or a Walmart and it should be required they have municipal experience,” he said.
By voting against the job description for a second time the council would be delaying the process, but Bean said it falls on city hall for not working on it sooner.
“This position’s been vacant for months with no urgency from city hall, I think it’s fair for the council to take nine days. Maybe I’m wrong but it’s not on us this is on city hall for dragging their feet on this one,” he said.
Figy said that the description should stay as is because the committee selecting the candidates will pick the best person for the job based on the applicants they receive.
“If we do any changes to this, all the candidates who have already applied and already been interviewed have to start over from scratch. I come off the Auditor Search Committee, there’s no way that committee would recommend somebody who wasn’t qualified for the job. I think we have to trust the committee looking at these applicants to do the same,” he said.
Ultimately the council turned down the job description despite a six to five vote in favor of it because in order to pass it required seven affirmative votes.