WESTFIELD – After serving two terms (2007-2011) as an At-Large City Councilor, Nick Morganelli has decided that it’s time to try and re-claim his old seat.
Locally known for being a television meteorologist, in his prior time as councilor Morganelli found it hard to be able to continue to serve with his work responsibilities.
After leaving the local news stations as a meteorologist, Morganelli has been working part time at WTNH in New Haven and is currently working on launching his own weather consulting business.
Having the time to now to be fully committed to City Council, it’s pretty simple as to why Morganelli decided to run once again.
“People have been asking me again,” said Morganelli. “The reason I ran the first time was that I was asked by a lot of people.”
Being married with four children and an active resident in the community, Morganelli wants to generate the same type of involvement he had previously on the City Council.
2017 City Council At-Large candidate Nick Morganelli.
During his time on the council and also as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Lung Association, Morganelli helped draft the Clean Air Act of Westfield, which is still in effect today. Since the state of Massachusetts already had a law prohibiting smoking on school grounds, Morganelli thought they could strengthen that law locally in Westfield by prohibiting smoking in parks. Now, areas in town like Park Square are smoke-free.
Serving on numerous sub-committees, including Health and Public Safety, Natural Resources, and Legislative Ordinance, Morganelli sees the importance of sub-committee meetings.
“Those meetings are really important to be at,” said Morganelli.
Discussing how City Hall can get filled with people interested in an important topic in the community, Morganelli notes that having more people attend sub-committee meetings could be a benefit for the city when attacking these issues.
“A lot of it has already been debated at sub-committee (meetings),” said Morganelli. “I just want to see a change in that and I want to be an advocate for that.”
According to Morganelli, he attended every single Finance Committee meeting while serving on City Council, and is planning on being just as involved with Westfield’s finances moving forward. Westfield has a rather large budget and Morganelli wants to dig more into what the city is spending the most on and give taxpayers a better idea of where their money is going.
“We have to be really careful with how we’re spending your money,” said Morganelli. “I want to make sure that there’s no unnecessary spending.”
