MAYOR DANIEL M. KNAPIK
WESTFIELD – Rumors have circulated throughout the city for months that Mayor Daniel M. Knapik would be resigning as mayor before his current term expired.
The departure of Jeff Daley from the position of Westfield’s City Advancement Officer at the end of March quelled the gossip as an example of people having their signals crossed, but the rumors have started again, this time with a departure date of July 1, 2014.
If true, Westfield City Clerk Karen Fanion says that the city council president would then take over as mayor, with some stipulations.
“If the mayor resigns within the last six months of their term, the city council president takes over and there is no special election,” she said. “However, if the mayor resigns prior to six months, then that would require a special municipal election. In the meantime, the city council president would become acting mayor until that special election.”
BRENT BEAN II
According to Westfield’s charter, the city council president would do double-duty, serving as both acting mayor and council president. In the event that the acting mayor runs and isn’t elected to a full term, they would then return to their previous capacity on the council.
“Mayor (Richard) Sullivan left prior to his term ending, and Charlie Medeiros took over that July,” she said. “So it has happened.”
Sullivan was tapped by then-rookie Governor Deval L. Patrick in May 2007 to become the Commonwealth’s Commission of Conservation and Recreation. Sullivan, now the State’s Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, left the position to Medeiros, then the city council president.
Medeiros declined to run in the special election that fall, a race that was won by Michael Boulanger, who defeated City Councilor Brent B. Bean II for the full two-year term.
Bean, the current city council president, would be the heir-apparent in the event that Knapik were to step down as mayor. Bean was elected to serve as city council president as the city’s legislative body began its current term in January. Councilor Brian Sullivan served as city council president prior to that election.
“The next person would be the highest ranking at-large candidate,” Bean said regarding who fills the acting mayor’s old seat on the council. “The council may appoint a pro-temp person in the meantime, but they would then elect a new city council president, should the acting mayor win a full term.”
Knapik won his third term as mayor in a hotly contested race against a challenger new to city politics, Michael L. Roeder, LTC, US Army retired. Knapik’s margin of victory was only 333 out of the 9,048 ballots cast by the eligible 23,882 voters in the city. The 37.89 percent voter turnout was the highest for a mayoral contest since 2007 when 41 percent of voters turned out for the mayoral contest between Bean and Boulanger.
Play of this particularly parochial parlor game may be moot.
“To partially quote the great satirist of the 20th century, William Safire,” said Knapik this morning. “Much to the chagrin of the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ in town, and to the delight of my legion of supporters, I have no plans to resign and may, in fact, decide to run again.”
