City Councilor Susan Albright says Newton's Department of Public Works is the wrong home for the city's gas-transition agreement with Eversource and National Grid.
The critique adds a legislative voice to a growing dispute over Mayor Marc Laredo's reorganization of the city's climate office, which also resulted in the departure of longtime sustainability co-director Ann Berwick.
"The Department of Public Works deals with gas lines under our streets in Newton. They do not deal with how to replace gas infrastructure with other forms of energy," Albright told Fig City News. "That is not their calling."
Albright said she would have preferred to see the gas-transition memorandum of understanding housed within the Department of Planning and Development. National Grid originally brought the idea of developing the MOU when she chaired the Zoning and Planning Committee, she said, and the project requires extensive planning, data analysis, funding considerations and coordination between the city and the utilities.
Newton signed the gas-transition MOU with both National Grid and Eversource in May to develop a joint plan for moving neighborhoods away from natural gas, according to a CommonWealth Beacon report published in July. National Grid spent $27 million through the state's Gas System Enhancement Plan in Newton last year alone.
Albright also raised concerns about losing Berwick's relationships with the utilities. Berwick, a former chair of the state Department of Public Utilities, had served as Newton's sustainability co-director for about a decade.
Berwick disputes departure
Berwick has pushed back on the administration's description of her exit. In Mayor Laredo's Aug. 13 letter to councilors announcing the restructuring, he described her as "transitioning from her position." Berwick told Fig City News that Chief Operating Officer Josh Morse called her and told her she was being fired, that the call came "absolutely out of the blue" and that she was given no reason.
"I want to set the record straight that I did not resign," Berwick said. "I had no intention whatsoever of resigning, and Josh Morse called me to tell me I was being fired."
Morse did not explicitly call it a firing. He described the decision as part of the restructuring and said the city wanted to redirect the resources tied to her position toward its next phase of climate work.
Morse told Fig City News the city has shifted from developing climate policies to carrying them out. He said Berwick was integral to the policy work but that the administration believes it is now entering an implementation phase.
New structure, no new positions
Under the reorganization, the city will create a Sustainability and Materials Management Division within DPW. Caroline Weiss, currently climate action coordinator, will lead a new Climate and Energy branch overseeing climate policy, clean energy and building decarbonization.
Waneta Trabert will become deputy commissioner of sustainability and administration. Sam Nighman, Berwick's co-director, will move to a new role as director of organizational performance.
The restructuring requires no additional budgeted positions. The city plans to fill gaps using existing DPW resources freed by vacancies.
In an Aug. 31 report, the Newton Beacon quoted former City Councilor Deb Crossley praising Berwick's credentials, calling her "a star" who understands the difficulty of turning policy into action.
Morse said the MOU with Eversource and National Grid remains in place and that the city maintains frequent meetings with its utility partners on gas leaks, double utility poles and the transition agreement. No council hearing or formal review deadline for the reorganization has been announced.
