LARRY SMITH
WESTFIELD – Community Development Director and Senior Planner Larry Smith’s tenure with Westfield is remembered by Planning Board members as a time of pride for the community.
Smith’s appointment was not renewed by Mayor Daniel Knapik last month and several board members sang his praises as they discussed his career here.
“Larry Smith was one of the most outstanding assets to the city of Westfield,” said Board Chairman Anthony Petrucelli. “In my time on the board, I’ve lived through at least two planners and Larry was the most knowledgeable and non-political person I’ve ever met.”
Petrucelli called Smith “a great guy” and said that although Smith was not a resident of the city, he had “Westfield’s best interest at heart.”
Planning Board member Dori-Ann Ference echoed those sentiments.
“He did what he thought was best for the city,” Ference said of Smith. “I thought he did a good job in the 10 years that I worked with him.”
Ference said Smith “didn’t let people push him around.”
“We had huge corporations come before us, and Mom and Pop companies, and Larry was a professional, no matter who it was,” Ference said.
Smith served as community development director for 12 years, also serving as the senior planner for the past four years. His term expired Dec. 4.
In a Nov. 23 letter to the mayor requesting reappointment, Smith listed numerous accomplishments, including exposing fatal flaws in the proposed Pavilion Mall project; exposing the flaws in the city’s attempted sale of an airport parcel worth over $800,000 for only $220,000; preventing unnecessary delays in the new elementary school project by solving the setback issues and ensuring that the ZBA issued a proper and legally defensible decision; obtaining the city’s highest-ever Commonwealth Capital score; and overseeing the successful negotiation of several TIF projects, among others.
