Politics & Government

Scenna to Lead DPW, Beshara Moves to City Engineer

Current Melrose Public Works Superintendent Bob Beshara would step into a less demanding role as Assistant Superintendent John Scenna would oversee a reorganized department.

The two top men in the will essentially switch roles after July 1 as the current superintendent steps into a less demanding role and the department continues to transform and reorganize.

Current Melrose DPW Superintendent Bob Beshara will step down into a city engineer and director of projects position, managing day-to-day operations of the DPW's Engineering Division, Mayor Rob Dolan said at a press conference on Monday.

"Bob is entering a new stage in his life where he's starting to think about his own quality of life, but he's too talented not to work," Dolan said.

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John Scenna, current Melrose DPW assistant superintendent, will step into a director of public works role, which would replace the superintendent position. Scenna has been with the department since 1995, when he started as a co-op student at Merrimack before being hired full-time in 1997, became the deputy city engineer three years later and then promoted to director of operations in 2003.

"Bob does all the designs and manages all these contractors—John gets the job done every day," Dolan said. "John's the field general ... he has studied under Bob and without question is ready to take this job over."

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City Ordinance Change Needed First

Promoting Scenna to DPW director requires a change in the city ordinance, which currently requires that role to be filled by a registered professional engineer, a requirement that Beshara said most communities have done away with. Wakefield, Reading, Saugus, Malden and 21 other nearby communities have separate positions for DPW superintendent and engineer, according to a handout from city officials.

"It's very difficult to find a top quality engineer who also wants to be administrating DPW," Beshara said. "It's a difficult task to fill for a single person."

Dolan added, "Our DPW, engineering is a facet of it, but it's really an operations department."

The aldermen's Appropriations Committee gave an initial OK to that ordinance change on Monday night; it will go before the full Board of Aldermen on May 7 for final approval.

Reorganized Department, Management Structure

The city is rounding out the DPW management team with the hiring of Nick Gove, who returns to Melrose as the DPW operations director. Gove previously worked as the Melrose Park Department director for three years until mid-way through 2008, when he took a job with the state Department of Conservation and Recreation's urban parks division as the northern coastal region district manager.

Beshara said while he focuses on design and engineering aspects of DPW, Gove will be focused on maintenance, with Scenna overseeing the operation and help implement projects.

Scenna said the reorganization of DPW management will save $40,000-45,000 in next year's budget.

"In fiscal 2012 there was a superintendent and city engineer position, there was an assistant superintendent, and there was a deputy city engineer position," he said. "The deputy city engineer position has been cut, and those other two were replaced with director of public works, and city engineer."

The DPW has been reorganizing ever since , and public workers employees were redeployed as part of a 'green team' that .

Also ongoing are negotiations to merge the School Maintenance Department with the DPW, which Dolan said are in the "final innings" to create one combined union with a contract extension for all members. Current School Maintenance Director Bob Ciampi will not have his contract renewed, and added that Ciampi can apply for the new municipal facilities manager position.

With the reorganization, Scenna said the DPW has become "four distinct working groups" that he would oversee: the engineering group led by Beshara; the business-administrative and customer service office led by Business Manager Ann Waitt; the traditional operations group led by Gove; and the new facilities group led by the municipal facilities manager.

Mayor: Beshara 'Greatest DPW Director'

Dolan also lauded the work Beshara has done as head of the DPW, saying, "Bob is without question, and I don't like to throw these things around, he’s the greatest DPW director in the history of the city of Melrose—there's no debate about that. Bob through his engineering has corrected problems in this city that were over 100 years old."

Among the issues Beshara has addressed, Dolan said, are flooding around the city—including at the Roosevelt School, on the high school ball fields and in Wards 2 and 5—inoperable hydrants, and coming up with definitive, forward-looking plans for roads, drainage and sewer improvements.

Beshara said Dolan's words were "humbling" and credited both the mayor and the Board of Aldermen for supporting his initiatives and projects even though they might have been "uncomfortable," for Dolan because "he didn't know me very well" when Beshara first came on, and for the aldermen because of the associated costs with those projects. He added that Melrose has "spent a lot of money doing studies" before he came on board that turned into the DPW's action plans under his stewardship.

He also took the opportunity to praise Scenna.

"He's highly talented, very, very smart, and got a memory, like, forget it man— it's crazy," Beshara said with a smile. "And he cares and he has a good eye for detail. He's very good at the work he does."

In his new role, Beshara said he's looking forward to restudying the water and sewer systems, along with the city's roads, adding out that over the past decade half the city's infrastructure has been addressed.

"I'm looking forward to the future, and a little bit less stress," he said. "The department's really growing big and it takes two guys now. It's not a one man job anymore."

Scenna thanked Dolan for his support and said he's looking forward to refocusing the department on its capital improvement programs over the next six months and going back before the aldermen in the fall with plans for roads, water and sewer. He also stressed that the reorganized DPW is a maintenance-driven department and that the management structure would stress customer service.

"We owe Bob a lot for what he’s done, how he's done it and how much he's built," he said. "The way I look at it, half the city is done and there’s another half left to go. I’m very, very thankful we can continue to work together and start to conquer this other half of the city."


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