WESTFIELD – Two Planning Board meetings have been cancelled this month while Mayor Daniel M. Knapik seeks to fill the position of city planner vacated on Dec. 5 when Larry Smith was not reinstated for another three-year term as community development director.
Both regular board session of Dec. 6 and 20 have been cancelled. A special session, slated for this evening was also cancelled.
City Advancement Officer Jeff Daley said Tuesday that the Human Resources Department is writing a new job description for this positions and will begin advertising the post in January. The time line for filling the principal city planner post is to advertise the position in January, interview candidates in February and make the appointment by early March.
Knapik also plans to appoint a new community development director. The time line for that appointment is to advertise the post in April, interview candidates in May and nominate a candidate to the City Council in June, with the successful candidate assuming the post after the 2013 fiscal year budget begins on July 1, 2012.
“The city is hiring consultants to provide the Planning Board with technical assistance in the interim,” Daley said. “We didn’t want the board to meet without technical assistance.”
The challenge facing the administration extends beyond hiring a new city planner/community development director. There were vacancies on the board prior to Smith’s termination and several long-term board members have either resigned or declined to continue serving on the board after their appointed term ends.
“A couple of Planning Board members have resigned,” Daley said.
Board Chairman Anthony J. Petrucelli Jr. and Andrew Denardo have both resigned, while Dori-Ann Ference’s term is set to expire and she has indicated she does not wish to be reappointed.
Filling those seats on the board is even more complicated because membership is based on the city’s ward structure.
That situation creates a problem for the Planning Board which is currently left with only four active members, Vice Chairman Philip McEwan, Matthew VanHeynigen, William Onyski and Christopher Wilkie.
The problem is that there several special permit petitions pending before the Planning Board, a process that requires a super majority, or a minimum of five affirmative votes, to gain approval.
The board is comprised seven full members, six ward representatives and one At-large member, and two alternate members who are eligible to vote in place of a full member who is not present that the public hearing(s) for that specific special permit petition.
Daley said the administration has already begun the process of filling vacancies on the board. Knapik nominated Peter S. Fiordalice of Wildflower Circle to fill the vacancy created this fall when Casey Berube resigned to take a full-time position as the deputy superintendent of the Public Works Department. Fiordalice’s nomination is currently in the City Council Personal Action Committee.
“We will be putting a total of five names in for appointment, one is already in the PAC,” Daley said.
The City Council amended a motion at its Dec. 15 meeting made by Ward 2 Councilor James E. Brown Jr., to establish a sign ordinance for the C.O.R.E. district. That process requires Planning Board review and a recommendation of the proposed ordinance.
This would be the second time the C.O.R.E. sign ordinance has been through that Planning Board/City Council public hearing and review process. It failed to gain approval within the legal timeline because of the scope of change made to the original proposed ordinance. City law requires the two boards to have public hearings within 65 days and to act on a proposed ordinance amendment within 90 days, the time line that expired before the council approved the original C.O.R.E. sign ordinance.
Brown’s original motion was to slate a Jan. 5th, 2012 public hearing for the City Council, but was amended at the suggestion of Ward 3 Councilor Peter J. Miller Jr., who suggested that the Council wait until, February to conduct its hearing to allow time for the Planning Board to be reorganized.
