WESTFIELD—City council is expected to have a new at-large councilor this week.
Current at-large city councilor, Daniel Knapik, is expected to officially resign from his elected position in the city during the city council’s meeting at city hall on Thursday. The resignation comes as part of Knapik’s condition of employment for his new position of town administrator of Yarmouth. With the loss of Knapik, allies and adversaries alike are happy for him but realize they will be losing someone whose knowledge of Westfield is unparalleled and has come to be a prized possession of the city.
Daniel M. Knapik
“His institutional knowledge will certainly be missed, his service as mayor and as city councilor, his sheer amount of history will be missed,” fellow at-large councilor Matt VanHeynigen said.
Knapik has served in a number of positions in local and state-wide politics, gathering experience and knowledge that had served him along the way.
He first started by being an environmental and health consultant for employers and eventually had his own business. Then in 2002, he ran for and won the ward 2 council position, which he served in until he ran against then-Westfield Mayor Michael Boulanger in 2009 and won that election, as well. He then served as mayor until 2015 when he stepped down before his term ended, taking a position under Gov. Charlie Baker as the director of Green Communities in Massachusetts.
Ward 2 councilor Ralph Figy said that the loss of Knapik will be difficult for the city, since he was one of the few “veterans,” or those with extensive Westfield political experience, left on city council.
RALPH FIGY
“I found [Knapik] to be a wealth of historical knowledge that came in very handy with the loss of all the veterans that didn’t run for re-election,” Figy said. “His overall historical knowledge was really needed. When you lose veterans like we did, you lose a lot of institutional knowledge.”
In addition to his institutional knowledge, council president Brent Bean—who were both freshmen councilors in the same year—said that Knapik focused on projects that weren’t flashy but were needed, both as mayor and as a city councilor.
“Some of the things that he was advocating for was infrastructure,” Bean said. “Those infrastructure projects aren’t really a sexy thing to spend money on, it’s not something that is seen throughout the city but [Knapik] saw how important those things are and he took some heat to do those.”
And for Knapik, those infrastructure projects were incredibly important.
“Probably the single largest thing [for me] was the infrastructure improvements, to make sure all of those projects that you see today, to make sure that they came over the finish line,” Knapik said.
John J. Beltrandi, III
To replace Knapik, city clerk Karen Fanion said that city ordinance states that the council seat would be offered to the second-highest vote-getter in the most recent election barring city council vote, once council is officially notified of the resignation. Knapik is expected to officially announce his resignation this Thursday, Feb. 2, during the regularly scheduled city council meeting. After that, council will vote on John J. Beltrandi, III, who was the next highest At Large vote getter in the November 2015 election.
Beltrandi has committed to taking the seat and wishes Knapik well on his career going forward, but will not comment further until the resignation and his appointment are official.
Knapik, who said that the position of city councilor was the “best part-time job” he could have, believes that as long as those elected focus on the residents, a positive impact will occur.
“You can accomplish great things on the city council if you remember to be patient and work with your fellow colleagues for the common good of the people,” he said.
