Director of Public Works

The head of Billerica's Department of Public Works, under a series of titles: Superintendent of Public Works (1933-1935 and again in the 1980s), Public Works Administrator (1955-1980, with a brief use of Public Works Superintendent in 1960-1961), and Director of Public Works (from the late 1980s to the present).

Chapter 221 of the Special Acts of 1930 authorized the Select Board to act as a Board of Public Works, taking over the powers of the elected highway surveyor, tree warden, water commissioners and park commissioners, and to appoint a superintendent of public works. The act came before the town in 1932, and the newly elected five-member board organized as the Board of Public Works in 1933. On February 18, 1933 it heard twenty-four applicants, and on March 6, 1933 it unanimously elected Robert E. Wyman of Billerica Superintendent of Public Works. His annual reports covered highways and bridges, parks and playgrounds, tree trimming and the water department.

By 1935 the board reported that the department "has been administered without a superintendent by committees of the board" and recommended continuing that way. A 1935 act of the legislature relative to the appointment of a superintendent was accepted at the 1936 election, but no superintendent was named for twenty years: the selectmen, sitting as the Board of Public Works, ran the department through committees, with day-to-day highway work under a Highway Superintendent. Town meetings in 1949, 1950 and 1953 debated funding a superintendent, complicated by the town's acceptance of civil service for public works employees.

In spring 1955 the selectmen chose Vernon L. Packard, listed as Public Works Administrator, to reorganize the department. Between administrators the selectmen again ran the department themselves; after Oliver E. Strong resigned in April 1959, selectman Stanley J. Bocko served as unpaid acting Public Works Administrator until Armand E. Provost, Jr. was appointed on August 29, 1960. In 1980 town meeting changed the title from Public Works Administrator to Superintendent of Public Works, a charter amendment printed in the 1986 report renamed the post Director of Public Works, appointed by the town administrator as head of the department, and the current charter has the town manager appoint the director for a three-year term. The modern department is organized in divisions (administration, engineering, highway, water, wastewater, and cemetery, parks and trees), each led by a manager reporting to the director.

Acting and interim holders named in the town reports are included: Stanley J. Bocko (1959-1960), Richard A. Bento (acting in 1986 before his appointment), John Sanchez (interim from April 1998), John Livsey (2003-2004) and Arthur Malcuit (2005).