Peabody facing year-long loss of public services director

PEABODY – The city’s director of public services, Dick Carnevale, will be taking a leave of absence to fulfill his obligation as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.Mayor Michael Bonfanti said Wednesday that Carnevale will most likely leave his office sometime next week to prepare for his start of duty in Mississippi Sept. 15.Carnevale will work as part of a medical regiment and head a military hospital that both prepares troops leaving for Iraq and treats those arriving home from their deployment. He’s expected to stay down south for approximately a year.This isn’t the first time Carnevale has been called to duty. In 2003, he supervised the construction of MASH (mobile army surgical hospital) units in Kuwait. He was 45 years old at the time.In 1991, Carnevale served in Desert Storm. He’s been a member of the Army Reserves ever since.For Bonfanti, the recent news comes as a surprise, but he is confident the city will carry on while they await his return.”We were faced with the same thing back in 2003,” he said. “Is it disruptive? Absolutely. Dick ? has got a lot of irons in the fire, as they say, so in that respect, things will be impacted. But, we’ll get through it as we have in the past.”Bonfanti said there are a number of qualified staffers in the public services department who are able to fill Carnevale’s shoes for the time being.”We have strong lieutenants and they’ll, as they did in the past, step up and do their job,” he said.The mayor also said Bob Langley, the city’s engineer, will serve as the acting director.”He has able assistants,” said Bonfanti.With the many projects in the works, such as fixing the Coolidge Avenue Water Treatment Plant and Lower Spring Pond, installing a water tank off Route 1 and tackling the never-ending flood issues, Bonfanti said the absence of Carnevale will surely be noticed, but he remains optimistic everything will continue as planned.”People will have to be a little on the tolerant side,” he said. “But again, our streets will still get plowed.”