Saugus will fund parking clerk

SAUGUS – Angelo Serino and Ellen Faiella will keep their jobs after Town Meeting members agreed to fund a parking patrol clerk and a temporary records clerk to the tune of $10,000.The Finance Committee voted to refer the article that sought $4,000 for a temporary clerk and $6,000 for a parking control officer to the next special Town Meeting. The committee felt the article should be split into two individual articles, but others felt otherwise and argued favorably for the article.Town Meeting member Jean Bartolo urged Police Chief Domenic DiMella to find the money within his department’s budget, but he told meeting members that wouldn’t happen.”My budget was just cut from the state in community policing and the drug unit,” he said.DiMella said when he started as chief in August, there was already a backlog in the records department. The problem was due to the loss of two clerks to budget cuts and the third and final clerk had been out on medical leave for nearly six months. The result was the records department was open only a few sporadic hours per week.Town Manager Andrew Bisignani said his office had begun receiving calls from attorneys and insurance companies that hadn’t been able to get copies of needed records.”The records department is the first contact people have with the Police Department,” DiMella said.”It’s frustrating when it’s closed. It’s like shutting down the customer service department. I think the citizens deserve better.”Police Lt. Stephen Sweezey, who is the Traffic Safety officer as well as a Town Meeting member, said his job has become much easier since Angelo Serino was made parking clerk.”Putting in a parking control officer has made a big dent in the number of calls I get and it’s not just about parking in the fire lane or handicap spots,” he said.Sweezey said people who block driveways and intersections, park facing the wrong way or on the sidewalks are also targets of the parking control officer.Maureen Dever argued that the town should not be spending when Bisignani has instituted a hiring freeze.She also pointed out that the Fire Department seems to do just fine with only one records clerk.Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian also wondered why the clerks who worked for the town couldn’t be used more creatively.DiMella, however, said plugging any clerk into the position is not realistic.He said there is a fairly steep training curve that involves issues of privacy and learning what information can be given out and what can’t be.While Dever called for a roll call vote on the issue, she could not muster the 15 colleagues needed to make such a vote happen.Meeting members, including both Faiella and Serino, then approved the article 32-10.