Several R.I. towns run public works differently than Block Island By Abby Fox

Councilor Mary Jane Balser has declared recently at Town Council meetings that the town needs a director of public works, while other council members and Town Manager Nancy Dodge haven't definitively agreed with her.

Dodge, the island's town solicitor in the late ‘80s and formerly a Westerly lawyer, also serves as director of public works in her position as town manager. But as interviews with several public works directors in Rhode Island have made plain, the island's situation is rather unusual. Many public works directors said they have backgrounds in engineering or construction, and all of them coordinate public works separately from their town's mayor or town manager.

What exactly a public works director does isn't set in stone; it varies from town to town. In general, though, directors are in charge of their town's infrastructure, both the day-to-day maintenance of the town's buildings and systems and its larger activities, such as a new construction project, a new water main, or a new drainage system.

Many of them oversee the roads, streets and signs; the sewer and water departments; trash collection and recycling programs; and parks and recreation. They can review developments for their town's planning boards, and sometimes they design developments on their own. Others oversee water and sewer systems, while some have water and sewer managed separately.

Engineers

"If you could get somebody in the engineering field to fill that gap, I would highly recommend that," said Joseph Nield, Central Falls public works director and an electrical engineer. Having a civil engineer do the work would be "utopia," but someone "that has experience in construction or private enterprise," would also be qualified, he said.

Joseph Duarte, the director in East Greenwich, said "Not every public works director is an engineer, but I would highly recommend that they be an engineer, and certified in the state as a professional civil engineer." Duarte is a civil engineer.

Sheila Patnode, a civil engineer, is the public works director and the town engineer in Coventry. She said she oversees engineers, building inspectors, roads and bridges, garbage, building maintenance, and vehicle maintenance. She also reviews zoning applications, makes drainage calculations, designs public works projects, and writes up bids for projects.

Alan Corvi, the public works director in Barrington and a civil engineer, said a good director is "a well-rounded person that knows a lot about" the different public works departments.

Fred Serbst, Bristol's public works director, is a telecommunications engineer who has done some roadwork and construction. In addition to the usual oversight of trash collection, roads, drainage, and streetlights, Bristol's public works department organizes the annual Fourth of July Parade, as well as the Boston Philharmonic concert over Labor Day weekend. "There's a lot of functions we handle here," he said, and added that ideally, a public works director would be a civil engineer.

Alan Brodd, Johnston's director, said he has a degree in civil engineering, and has been involved in public works for a decade. A qualified public works director has technical skills, but also people skills, he said. When answering phone calls or advising the planning board or the town planner, he said, "You have to be able to speak effectively," and "you have to be able to supervise people."

Brodd said he liked the fact Johnston has one elected mayor and one public works director. "You can't supervise 30 people," he said. "No one person can really supervise more than five to seven people." He prefers an organization where one person is in charge of five or so department heads, rather than having one manager with "15 or 20 different people reporting to him," he said.

Non-engineers

Richard Iverson, the director in Scituate, takes a different tack. He has a background in business management. "Management experience is the most important factor," he said. Scituate doesn't have a town manager, so Iverson and other town officials simply report directly to the seven-member town council. "We don't have that intermediate level of administration," he said. "It works very well, as long as you have good department heads."

Henry Girard, the head of public works in Warren, said he's in charge of the roads, recreation, recycling, and the transfer station, but not sewer and water. He said it's important that there's one person in Warren who concentrates on public works because "I'm constantly with the men all the time," he said.

David Ousterhout, Narragansett's public works director, used to work in landscape construction and management. Before working in Narragansett, he was the grounds manager at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and was responsible for the campus grounds, athletic fields, streets and sidewalks.

He said he doesn't need an engineering background to manage public works, because Narragansett has a town engineer and an engineering staff, and also because his public works department doesn't manage water or sewer operations. "A public works director needs to be first and foremost a good manager, a manager of people and resources," he said. "My biggest job is to support their [department heads] efforts and to be a resource for them to help them do their job."

The other aspect of the job is communication, he said. "I'm a point of contact with the public," he said. "People call all the time with just about any kind of request."

Alan Whitford, Glocester's director, said, "Every town is a little bit different." He said he used to be a manager of a manufacturing firm, with experience in construction. In Glocester, there is no town manager, but there is a town planner, a town building official, and a town council. Each official "runs their own thing," while the council "sits down with us to iron out any problems," he said. "It's the department heads that do most of the priority and routine decisions."

John MacQueen Jr., director of public works in Lincoln, said he was an assistant vice president of Rhode Island Hospital Trust National Bank before coming to his current job. He suggested that if Block Island isn't ready to hire a full-time public works director, it could have a part-time "clerk of the works" with engineering experience. He said a good director knows a lot about buildings and contracts, but also, "you've got to make sure you communicate," he said. "I communicate with everyone over here."

Exceptions

Little Compton, an unusual town in that it has no town manager or town public works director, does nevertheless have Bob Mushen, a mechanical engineer overseeing the public works. Mushen is also president of the town council. He works with Michael Mello, who is both town building inspector and highways supervisor, and with a three-person maintenance department.

Mushen said the council ended up with an engineer familiar with technical matters in charge of public works by luck, not by ordinance. Previous council presidents who have influenced public works there include a mathematician and an engineer.

Providence-based engineer Jim Geremia has been the town's engineer for several years. His latest project was the drainage and water main work, as well as the rehabilitation and sidewalk project for High Street. He and Town Manager Nancy Dodge didn't return calls by press time.