Chicopee City Council rejects request to restore mayor's chief of staff

The 6-5 votes was the 3rd time the City Council has voted against funding the position of mayor's chief of staff.

File photo | The RepublicanChicopee City Hall.

CHICOPEE – The City Council has rejected a request to restore the position of mayor’s chief of staff for the third time.

After a back-and-forth debate Tuesday about the restoring the $47,000 salary to the budget, the City Council first voted to study the idea more in subcommittee.

Councilor Frank N. LaFlamme said he was willing to listen to Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette’s reasons for asking to restore the position, but later reversed his position and asked for a reconsideration vote on placing the item in committee.

The vote to reconsider placing it in finance committee passed 6-5. Then the City Council voted 6-5 to reject the request to restore the job.

George Moreau

“I just don’t believe it needs to be in that office,” Councilor George R. Moreau said. He argued that past Chicopee mayors did not have a chief of staff.

Councilor Dino A. Brunetti agreed, saying he believed the city’s emergency management director also serves as the mayor’s chief of staff.

But Councilor James K. Tillotson said other mayors have had the position, but have given it different titles. He said he believes it is wrong to try to run the mayor’s office with the current two employees.

“I do believe this position is necessary,” he said.

James Tillotson

During budget deliberations in June, the City Council voted 7-6 to eliminate the chief of staff job and the about $28,000-a-year administrative assistant position, and made several other last-minute cuts before adopting the city’s $158 million budget for this fiscal year. Bissonnette has asked at least twice previously for the council to reconsider all the cuts.

On Tuesday he took a different tack and asked for the restoration of only one position.

The City Council's finance committee previously agreed to study two other cuts that reduced the city solicitor’s job to a part-time position and eliminated a proposal to create a grant-writer job. It has not had a meeting on those positions yet.

Tillotson argued that Bissonnette has already given up efforts to restore the administrative assistant job.