CINDY HARRIS
WESTFIELD – The City Council voted unanimously to appoint Personnel Director Karin Decker to serve as a voting member of the city’s Commission for Citizens with Disabilities Thursday night.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik submitted the name of Decker to the council for its confirmation after questions were raised about his status as a voting member of the commission.
MARY L. O’CONNELL
Decker appeared before the council’s Personnel Action Committee Thursday night prior to the full City Council session where she was interviewed by the committee member and other City Councilors present at that meeting.
Decker, previous to her March 20, 2013 appointment in Westfield, served seven years as personnel director and American with Disabilities Act coordinator in Pittsfield. Decker currently performs the same duties here.
PAC Chairwoman Cindy Harris said that participation “as a full voting member on the Citizens with Disabilities Commission is a requirement of the personnel director job description. The Law Department, in an opinion written by Peter Martin, said the city has designated the personnel director as the city’s ADA coordinator.”
RALPH FIGY
“The personnel director, as the ADA coordinator, is required to attend the monthly (Citizen with Disabilities Commission) meetings to ensure the city meets the requirements of the state and federal ADA laws,” Harris said.
Decker has refrained from voting after the legal status of her confirmation to the Citizen with Disabilities Commission was questioned.
“This (appointment confirmation process) was merely an oversight,” Harris said. “It is in the ordinance and job description.”
MAYOR DANIEL M. KNAPIK
Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell questioned the Law Department opinion that Decker is “not required to be a voting member.”
Ward 2 Councilor Ralph Figy, a PAC member said “that’s not how I read it.”
“Karin was told by the appointing authority, the mayor, so your beef is with the mayor, not Karin,” Figy said to O’Connell.
Harris said that Massachusetts General Law (MGL) requires that personnel directors and ADA coordinators be “full voting members.”
“The job description says unequivocally that she is the ADA coordinator and a full voting member, and the City Council voted to approve that job description,” Harris said.
Harris, during discussion of Decker’s nomination during the full City Council session, said that none of the people who held that position of personnel director and ADA coordinator was confirmed by the City Council.
“It was just assumed because it was in the job description,” Harris said. “This is just an incident of administrative oversight.”
