Marblehead Town Engineer retiring

MARBLEHEAD-Town Engineer Douglas Saal has given notice that he will retire from his $80,000 post June 5, 2009, after nearly 30 years on the job.Saal?s announcement to the selectmen during Friday morning?s budget meeting made him the fourth town executive to leave in the next year.Library Director Bonnie Strong is scheduled to retire June 2, Fire Chief Barry Dixey and Recreation, Parks and Forestry Superintendent R. Thomas Hamond are already scheduled to retire next year.Town Administrator Tony Sasso said Saal discussed the decision with him prior to Friday?s meeting. Sasso has included $110,700 in the selectmen?s budget for Fiscal Year 2009 to take care of expenses associated with the retirements of Dixey, Hamond and Saal.Saal was hired by selectmen Nov. 14, 1979, the week before Thanksgiving, and he took office Dec. 3. He left an engineering consultant business to replace longtime Town Engineer George Clark. Clark had retired a year before and selectmen went through a lengthy search process before settling on Saal.He said his experience as a consultant indicated to him that a lot of communities hired consulting firms to do projects they could have done in-house, and he wanted to make sure that Marblehead didn?t make that error.One of his first tasks was to design specifications for the repair of Blizzard of 1978 damage to the Marblehead Causeway seawall, and to supervise the repairs. An outside firm made mistakes in their design for the project and Saal was glad to take over. The repairs lasted until this year?s seawall replacement project.Saal was also quick to initiate working relationships with the Planning Board, Conservation Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals – relationships that endured to this day and made him an important figure in deliberations on the KSS Realty Partners 45-unit condominium project on the Salem-Marblehead line.When he took the engineering office over, his staff included an assistant engineer, a draftsman, a secretary and a part-time aide. Today the office includes Saal and Special Clerk Andrea Flaxer.