ORDER-2017-5 : Appointment of Neal Ellis, 17 Pine St., Wakefield, to the position of Information Technology Director.

Transcript (~12 min @ 1:43)

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▶ 1:28 Peter D. Mortimer: We have one order this evening. It is order number 2017-5. It is the appointment of Neil Ellis of 17 Pine Street, Wakefield to the position of Information Technology Director. Who would like to go first?

▶ 1:47 Speaker 2: Motion to suspend the rules.

▶ 1:48 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to suspend the rules. Made by Alderman Inferno, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. We are under suspension, so we will hear from our Human Resources Director, Marianne Long. Please proceed, Ms. Long.

▶ 2:06 Speaker 3: Hello, everyone. Thank you for your patience with us. I have the distinct pleasure of introducing our new IT director, Neil Ellis. However, before I do that, I would like to acknowledge members of the IT department who rose to the occasion over the last four to five months in the absence of George Pesos, our IT director for 15 years in Melrose. Over these last four months, both Colby Cousins and Brian Green, along with Frank Sorrenti, Nate Atwater, and Jimmy Ho, maintained normal daily operations, and in addition, they kept critical projects on time and on budget. So I think it's worth mentioning. Just some of the projects that they've been working on is Learning Commons Technology Center project, desktop replacements in all city departments, city and school firewall and content filter replacement, city and school internet bandwidth upgrade. And when you have questions about these things, you'll direct them to Mr. Neil Ellis. And then public safety computer aided dispatch software upgrade. And those are just a few of the many projects that we have happening within IT. So now let me focus on our IT director on behalf of Mayor Dolan and Superintendent Taymor, neither of whom were able to be here this evening. Neil is the IT director for all municipal departments, including the school department. He will manage a staff of approximately five to six people. Neil began his IT career in the city of Peabody, actually, in 1998 as a systems administrator, GIS manager, and then was soon promoted to administrator. In 2005, he was hired by the town of Wilmington School Department as the IT director, and he has been there since. leaving the town of Wilmington to join the city of Melrose and Neal will begin employment on September 6th 2016 before I hand it over to Neal I want to read a very brief statement from superintendent a more on Neal's behalf on behalf of the Melrose public schools I first want to thank Colby cousins and Brian green for outstanding work they have provided the schools in the last five months they have been both proactive and responsive to our needs and it is much appreciated the melrose public schools is eagerly awaiting the start date for mr ellis neil brings to the i.t director's position a unique combination of experience both in city systems and educational technology he was highly recommended by the previous superintendent in wilmington where he played a critical role in the building of their new high school and in expanding instructional technology through the wilmington district as we continue in melrose to integrate the 1.5 million dollars of new technology provided by the city and we bring new learning commons online we believe that neil will provide the staff with the critical knowledge skills and support we need for continued success and now i'll hand it over to you well i'm not sure how much more i can

▶ 5:53 Peter D. Mortimer: say about myself thank you very much mrs long uh mr ellis would you proceed please sure uh yeah i'm

▶ 5:58 Speaker 4: really excited to start uh in melrose uh i'm really looking forward to it everyone i've i've um had the pleasure to meet in melrose it's just been fantastic the culture here is uh just just it seems so supportive and and as it's great to be a part of the team and really try to help melrose as much as i can in in the schools too so yeah thank you thank you very much mr ellis first in

▶ 6:26 Peter D. Mortimer: queue some colloquy is alderman Medeiros police thank you thank you very much uh i think one thing

▶ 6:31 Monica C. Medeiros: that ms long kind of left out was that for a little bit of time there you were a programmer and for the boston water and sewer commission and i just think that's that's important to point that out as we're relevant embarking on a lot of gis projects especially as they relate to water and sewer and so sure hope that you can bring some of your knowledge and expertise oh i'll try yeah

▶ 7:00 Speaker 4: in that endeavor as well yeah that a lot of the um actually the more of the um water and sewer was i did was um with the gis really that's where i really went through we had like about 15 000 engineering plans and in pb that we had to go through and pick out all the data and get it into a database and map it all out so it was tedious but i learned a lot about gis and in municipal water and sewer systems so very good thank you i know definitely uh we have a lengthy

▶ 7:28 Monica C. Medeiros: and impressive resume and oh thank you we uh appreciate hearing how welcomed you've been and and you're oh yeah it's been fantastic yeah wishing you well thank you thank you alderman

▶ 7:43 Peter D. Mortimer: maderos any other alderman alderman mary beth mcintyre my goal is please thank you um also

▶ 7:46 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: want to welcome you to melrose um you're coming from wakefield so it's a little shorter commute for you i guess um i just wondered if you'd had an opportunity to review the technology for the

▶ 8:03 Speaker 4: learning commons at the high school i have uh a bit not fully um i did get a tour with with superintendent taymor of the whole learning commons it was still kind of in construction probably around probably the early june time frame uh from i've been in touch with colby and frank and they've uh given me updates on how how far it's come so it sounds like it's almost ready to open i've seen all the technology they were putting in there i reviewed all the documents with colby ahead of time just as a you know second pair of eyes to look over what was was going to be be done and it it it's gonna be a fantastic place for kids to go and learn and use technology for instructional purposes it's fantastic yeah it looks it

▶ 8:48 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: looks fabulous the last time I saw it I know the mayor put some information out on his blog so just wishing you luck hit the ground running you'll have probably a lot of those new machines that they'll have somebody won't know how to do something with them so i just want to wish you luck and hope that you'll have an opportunity to you know just review things and make sure we have the right kind of um you know service agreements and contracts and that type of stuff going forward and i think you have a great background combining both schools and cities so i'm sure you'll be very successful thank you thank you thank you alderman

▶ 9:23 Peter D. Mortimer: MacMaster margolis alderman lemmerman please thank you mr chairman thank you very much for coming

▶ 9:27 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: down this evening um i actually graduated from wilmington public schools so it was before you got there and i know that there's been a lot of growth there over uh over the years which you've overseen including that beautiful new high school yeah so um so i just wanted to give you a chance if if you wanted it as much as you've had the chance to re to review what's been happening in melrose are there any overall goals for the technology systems here that you want to share or

▶ 9:57 Speaker 4: well I I certainly would like to get in and kind of do a needs assessment of the entire city the schools and in all the department heads try to figure out where things could be improved or where we could increase communication and maybe efficiency procedures and systems so I can't really speak to any thing that I necessarily want to attack first because I I still have to want to prioritize everything and look at look at the whole before I start to dig in too much but certainly I think maybe a combination of the work order systems is between school and city so we can kind of streamline that process and and maybe bridge the gap a little more between the schools in the city but so far I'll have to

▶ 10:49 Speaker 5: prioritize and look into it well thank you very much thank you mr. chairman

▶ 10:51 Speaker 6: Thank you, Alderman Lemmerman.

▶ 10:54 Peter D. Mortimer: Seeing no further, Alderman, wishing to be heard. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend by Alderman Inferna. That motion was duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. On further discussion, Alderman Boycelle, please.

▶ 11:08 Speaker 1: Thank you for coming this evening.

▶ 11:12 Robert A. Boisselle: You've done a lot of work in the school environment from what I see in your resume and so forth, and you're looking forward to meeting with the department heads within the city hall itself and other public works department the department or the city hall itself within the past few years has been getting a new type of software which incorporates data from other departments so if you're in inspectorial services you can look at the assessor's office you can look at public works you can look at complaints and so forth even public health this is looking at forward as you get into your employment the integration of information within this building is becoming very important the integration within the school department has really jumped forward with the 1.5 million technology project that we've initiated within the past year but i'm looking for is basically the integration of the information within this building so the right hand knows what the left hand is doing and if you're the finance office or the treasurer's office needs information concerning properties along in within the building and so forth and expectorial even the engineering office uh it's starting to be like that but i'm I'm looking forward to having come under your control or your command to integrate as best as you can and try to get the best efficient operation of information that the public wants and also we want to make decisions on future budgets and so forth. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 13:03 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. We have a motion to recommend this order for passage duly made by Alderman Inferna and Seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be recommended to the full board for passage. We are having a full board meeting immediately following this appropriations meeting. I fully expect it will be passed since it was discussed and I don't think anything's going to come up in the next 20 to 30 minutes that would change anyone's mind. So you may go for the evening. You need not stick around any longer. Thank you, as always, to you, Mrs. Long. You're welcome. Great to see you.