HOLYOKE – Former Chicopee Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette has joined the legal department in the neighboring and sometimes rival town of Holyoke to help rebuild that department that was left with only one attorney.
“The fact that he has community experience is a home game for us,” said Terrance Murphy, the incumbent mayor of Holyoke, who appointed Bissonnette to complete the division.
When Mayor Alex B. Morse left half-time and resigned on March 26 to become Provincetown’s city manager, the city was left with several senior positions including treasurer, tax collector and human resources director. At about the same time, Crystal Barnes, the acting city attorney, resigned.
City Council President Todd McGee, who served as interim mayor for two weeks until Murphy was selected to take the lead, took the first step to rebuild the attorney’s office, hiring Lisa Ball as acting city attorney on May 3.
Ball said the offer came at a time when her practice had slowed due to delays and court closings from the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving her feeling safe to accept the position.
“I worked with (former mayor) Elaine Pluta and I really respected her and I really liked the job,” she said.
But when she started in the position, she found assistant attorney Jenna Wellhoff essentially doing the triage, taking on the most urgent jobs and putting off others when she could. There were some outside part-time attorneys to help, but department heads were forced to be very patient because there was so much work, Ball said.
For comparison, when Ball was a city attorney 10 years ago, there were four attorneys, two paralegals, and one administrative assistant in the office, and everyone was busy all the time.
“We only had one lawyer and she did the job of a yeoman,” Murphy said, thanking Wellhoff for her hard work in the three to four weeks she’d left alone in the office.
When Murphy took over the office of deputy mayor – a position he holds until a new mayor is sworn in after the November elections – he and his staff were working on rebuilding the office.
Salaries were raised to $ 91,000 for the acting city attorney, $ 78,000 for the assistant attorney, and $ 67,000 for the assistant attorney to keep staff and stabilize the department, he said.
In late June, Bissonnette was hired for the vacant law firm, which is a full-time position, Murphy said.
“I am grateful to be returning to the civil service and contributing to Holyoke during the current transition period. I really appreciate the challenge and opportunity that Mayor Murphy and the city attorney presented, ”said Bissonnette.
Bissonnette said he recently sold his office building and that the courts had closed mainly because of the pandemic.
“I have a lot of respect for Lisa Ball, who I think Holyoke is lucky enough to take on this role. I look forward to working with her and helping the city over the coming months, ”he said.
“They are able to complement each other,” Murphy said. “I am pleased that you are working as a team, that everything is going well and smoothly.”
Bissonnette was mayor of Chicopee for eight years between 2006 and 2013 and has decades of experience as a lawyer, so he’s currently working a lot on planning and development issues and also collaborates with the city council, Ball said.
“He’s got a lot of real estate experience and we do a lot of it, so he works a lot with the planning department,” she said.
Ball and Bissonnette know each other too. Ball was serving as the former mayor’s attorney when he met Police Lt. John Pronovost, with whom he had been very critical during his time as mayor, got into hot water. The charges, which included the attack on a police officer, were later dismissed in an agreement that required Bissonnette not to post anything about the lieutenant on social media. Pronovost is now retired.
One of Bissonnette’s top projects in Chicopee was to begin the complex work of acquiring the abandoned 72 acre Uniroyal and Facemate factory property by tax and then the long process of cleaning up the hazardous waste from the 23 buildings and surrounding property to start and refurbish the property. All early work was done with state and federal grants.
The first package was cleaned during Bissonnette’s office and used for the new RiverMills Senior Center. Work on the second property was completed in 2017 and sold to a developer for an assisted living facility. The third parcel was sold this year and is used for a sports arena, a restaurant and a brewery, as well as a residential complex. The cleanup of the rest of the site will continue.
Bissonnette also tackled the complex sewage and storm drainage separation project required by the federal environmental agency, and spent years changing agreements to distribute the work longer in order to cut costs for tariff payers.
During his tenure he was also involved in several large school construction projects, including the completion of the Comprehensive High School, the conversion of the former Chicopee High School into today’s Dupont Middle School, the purchase of the former St. Patrick’s School to replace the aging Belcher School .
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