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Making
Government Work
Methuen Mayor Billy Manzi
(07/03/07)
 First as a City Councilor, and
now as a Mayor, I have always realized the importance of
being able to build coalitions and forge compromise, even
in the face of widely disparate viewpoints. My ability to
work well with others is reflected in my record of having
been elected President of the Methuen City Council on
seven occasions, as well as the regional approach I have
taken as Mayor, working in concert with my colleagues
from the Merrimack Valley to form the Merrimack Valley
Mayor’s coalition. I firmly believe that the best
way to avoid paralyzing political gridlock is to put
aside ego and work for the best solution possible. In
this City Council session we have managed to do just
that, achieving success and relative political harmony.
Now lets talk issues.
The Methuen City Council, in its budget deliberations,
cut out the position of Human Resources Director. While I
disagree with this cut, it now presents Methuen with an
opportunity to achieve a management synergy that we had
talked of during the last Mayoral campaign. At the July
9th City Council meeting I will propose a Joint Human
Resources Office, creating one Director for the Methuen
Public Schools as well as the City. Where we have had two
Department heads we will now have one. Where we ran two
separate departments we will now run one.
Where we spent taxpayer money needlessly on redundant
administrative functions we will create management
efficiency. The cost for this new position will be split
equally between City and School, with the Superintendent
participating in the decision-making relative to the new
director. The Superintendent and I have authorized the
joint purchase of Human Resources software, eliminating
the past practice of each side buying expensive and
non-interchangeable software. We examined software that
works for both sides, and the School side as well as the
City side will benefit at half the cost. Superintendent
Whitten and I will continue, using best management
practices, to evaluate further administrative synergies
between school and City. In this age of limited resources
we must examine ways to reduce administrative duplication
and find further ways to share items that can easily be
used across artificial boundaries.
The Merrimack Valley Mayor’s Coalition is an effort
to find similar synergies, but across city borders. This
effort joins Newburyport, Amesbury, Haverhill, Lawrence,
Lowell and Methuen. Our initial effort, managed by the
Merrimack Valley Planning Agency Executive Director
Dennis DiZoglio, is to find ways to share expensive DPW
equipment and it includes the possibility of joint
purchase of some equipment by the coalition. We have just
begun, but the promise is there, and I firmly believe
that regionalizing some municipal efforts will bring
savings to our taxpayers. While we have come out as a
group in favor of the Municipal Partnership Act, I
believe it is incumbent on us to look at the other side
of the ledger as well, taking bold steps to reduce
governmental duplication and administrative waste.
At the July 9th Methuen City Council meeting I will
present a resolution of support for the concept of
regional 911. Fire Chief Cliff Gallant has represented
Methuen at the regional meetings that have made great
progress in creating such a system. Methuen is one of the
charter members of the Essex County group studying such a
possibility, and I am committed to doing everything we
can to achieve this goal. This is yet again another case
of a potential reduction in operating costs to the
taxpayers of Methuen without any reduction in service.
Finally I would like to talk about something that
happened a few months ago, but is significant to this
story. Methuen, Lawrence, Andover and North Andover were
presented with the MMA Innovation in Government award for
the Merrimack Valley Means Business program, sponsored by
the Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce. The MMA has
said, “The business-assistance program, involving
Methuen, Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, as well as
the Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce, has three basic
goals: to attract new businesses, to retain existing
businesses, and to encourage those businesses to
expand.” We have worked together across this
regional economy to protect the jobs of all Merrimack
Valley residents, and have achieved success by economic
cooperation which is unprecedented.
The prospect for municipal finance is bleak statewide,
and we must, as managers, seek to find efficiency and
synergies where we can. Building relationships, and
achieving results with people that may have a different
perspective, is a critical part of this job. I will
continue to work in this direction in a second term.
Bill Manzi is the mayor of Methuen and is in his first
two year term. He served previously as the city council
president and is seeking reelection this November. You
can email him at wmmanzi@ci.methuen.ma.us.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The July 2007 Edition of
the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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