There are a lot of rare and unusual things that can happen in local politics, but none more so than for someone to be chosen to lead a committee to which they’ve just been elected.
That’s the situation on the newly constituted Greenfield School Committee, which recently voted 4-3 to elect new member Amy Proietti to succeed Adrienne Nunez as the board’s chairwoman.
“I’m certainly pleased to get the opportunity,” Proietti said. “I also would have been fine had it gone the other way.”
I’m sure Proietti’s election was a surprise to many, but maybe shouldn’t have been. Proietti had mentioned privately during the election of her interest in the position, to which, at that point, there was no obvious or apparent successor.
The other candidate for the chair’s position was Susan Eckstrom, who served on the previous committee and was elected by write-in to another term this past November. Eckstrom was eventually elected to serve as the committee’s vice chair, which Proietti says is the best possible scenario.
“I like Susan and I think we will have a great working relationship,” Proietti said. “She’s been very positive and encouraging.”
That’s going to be helpful, especially considering the changes Proietti is planning for how that committee conducts its business.
“I want to move us forward in a way that allows us to conduct business more efficiently,” Proietti said. “The biggest thing is to put us in a position to be as prepared as possible for each meeting, without getting constantly bogged down by process arguments.”
Proietti said she watched the previous committee get snarled in ad nauseum policy debates, which sometimes led to disagreements that prevented certain work from getting completed in a timely fashion.
“Policy is important, but those types of endless discussions don’t benefit anyone,” Proietti said. “I’m not going to be shy about cutting off debates if they go off on a tangent, because we need to stay focused.”
One person who probably isn’t going to like that is committee member and former superintendent Susan Hollins, who has banged the policy drum the loudest since her election. Hollins was also the only committee member to speak against Proietti’s election, arguing that it may not be the best idea to appoint a chair who had never served a day on the committee — which Proietti clearly feels is a specious argument.
“It’s not like it’s unprecedented,” Proietti said. “It happened with John Lunt and Tim Farrell, and I didn’t hear a lot of complaints then.”
I’m guessing Proietti hasn’t heard the last of Hollins, with whom she has a bit of history that dates back to the fall, when Proietti suggested that Hollins’ work on trying to help bring a Horace Mann Charter School to Warwick while serving on the Greenfield committee might be a conflict of interest.
Nothing came of it, but I’m pretty sure the good doctor didn’t appreciate being called out like that, and isn’t going to be shy about returning the favor if Proietti decides to venture into areas she feels aren’t “best practices” for the board.
Proietti says one of her main goals as chair is to make the school committee more accessible to the community it serves.
“That’s the key, and it starts with understanding to go about business and communicating that to the public,” Proietti said.
This might wind up being the most challenging part of the job for Proietti. I’ve heard a lot of people over the years preaching about the need to “change the culture” on that school committee, only to fall into the same “bunker mentality” exhibited by their predecessors.
Proietti says she wants a more open relationship, both with the public and the city side of government.
“It’s a new era, here,” she said. “We have a new mayor and a city council with a lot of good people, many of whom I’m friends with, and our priorities aren’t all that different.”
It’s also a city council which has, for years, not been given the chance to vote on the school department’s full budget request because the mayor sent in his own number, something Proietti believes won’t be an issue moving forward.
“I think having served on the school committee before, Mayor Wedegartner has a good understanding of the system,” Proietti said, adding that re-establishing the finance subcommittee will go a long way toward ensuring that the district remains on budget terra firma moving forward.
“I think we are all in this to succeed and create the best possible school system for Greenfield,” Proietti said. “That’s what I’m hoping to help achieve in this new role.”
I doubt there are many in this city who will be rooting against her on that score.
Chris Collins has been covering local and regional politics for over two decades on a variety of media platforms. He can be reached at sourcechris.collins@gmail.com