Mayor Assumes Control of 'Unforeseen' Emergencies

Remember the 58-car pileup on Route 110 in Dec. 2009? Or, imagine raw sewage is flooding your basement, or that your house is slipping down a hill because of a mudslide. Few would disagree that a bit of urgency is required in these kinds of matters.

That’s why the Board of Aldermen voted 5-1 in favor of giving Mayor Mark A. Lauretti the power to take immediate action in unforeseen emergencies, skipping over the process of bidding on any goods necessary to remedy the situation and eliminating the use of a purchasing agent.

Discussing this new legislative proposal during last week’s meeting at , aldermanic president John Anglace, Jr. said that should the mayor determine an immediate threat, the Board waives bids. The mayor then “immediately forwards all reports to [the Board] including what was purchased, the nature of the emergency and what the cost was.”

Recalling an incident at the last year where a pipe broke and flooded the day care center, Lauretti said the floor buckled, the place had to be dried out and cleaned, and sheet rock and carpet had to be replaced.

Though he said 80 – 90 percent of emergency response work is done in-house, in the case of the day care flooding, Lauretti had to buy materials immediately.

“If they have business interruption, are we liable? There is no time to go out to bid in these type of situations,” Lauretti said.

John “Jack” Finn, the single member to oppose the motion, suggested that each of the city’s departments, like Public Works, should propose a bid and go-to contractors to “be locked in for one year.” This would mean that the Board of Aldermen would departmentalize action to certain situations – a protocol not favored by the rest of the Board.

“If you put everything in the hands of departments, everything will become an emergency, and we’ll have people arguing over who claims what,” Anglace said.

Noreen McGorty agreed that because “there are too many unforeseens,” categorizing emergencies and divvying them amongst departments is not practical.

Finn was also against the elimination of a purchasing agent, but Lauretti said that in most cases such consultation would waste time in fixing the problem at hand.

“I’m not going to converse with the purchasing agent at four in the morning; I have to get it done immediately,” Lauretti said. “You’ve got to jump on these situations and resolve them; that’s part of the public service we provide.”

John Papa prompted that the city’s has a lot of trucks and tools, making Lauretti’s request for control one that could lead to unnecessary spending.

“You have that stuff already in place and the personnel to do it,” Papa said.

Anthony Simonetti said that although this is true to an extent, “we don’t keep supplies of every kind in stock. It’s important to have some leeway in emergency situations.” He later added that “in most emergency situations, there will be insurance to back it up,” which will alleviate the financial impact of sudden spending.