PEABODY — The city is set to add a new position tasked with crisis management.
The role of safety and security director is expected to be added to the city’s staff as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget and will likely be manned by current City Hall Security Director Keith Bloom.
“This position really allows the city to be proactive,” Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt Jr. during the June 20 meeting of the Finance Committee.
Bettencourt said in the meeting that Bloom, who has around 30 years of experience in security and crisis management, would have a specialized city position focused on coordination, communication, and preparedness for emergency situations.
He stressed that although many other public-safety officials in the city have stipend roles that deal with public safety, the safety-security director role would allow for the city to have a position with a singular focus on crisis management.
“Those are department heads and they have their specific backgrounds,” he said. “He brings a different set of abilities and expertise that is difficult to replicate.”
Bettencourt said the idea for the position was something he had been pondering for a long time.
“I felt I needed to give it more thought,” he said.
However, Bettencourt decided it was time to create the role as a direct response to the St. John’s Prep swatting incident in May.
“I think all of us were concerned and rattled by this,” he said. “As I thought on that and reflected on that situation, I came to the decision that this was the right time to bring it forward now.”
The mayor also pointed to increasing concerns statewide about school violence and threats made toward government buildings and officials as reasons he felt the role was needed.
The safety and security director will have a salary of $90,000 and will oversee a part-time staff of less than 10 employees.
Councilors-at-Large Jon Turco and Tom Rossignoll were among the many councilors who supported the creation of the role.
“It really gets us all prepared for a number of different situations that could arise,” Rossignoll said.
Councilor-at-Large Anne Manning-Martin did not support the creation of the position, citing concerns with funding, redundancy, and where the position would fit into the crisis-management infrastructure the city already has in place with the police and fire departments.
“It’s duplicative and it’s fragmenting public safety,” Manning-Marting said. “I truly believe the police and fire have a good handle on crisis management.”
Manning-Martin was not alone in her concerns about the costs of the position, with Ward 3 City Councilor Stephanie Peach and Ward 1 City Councilor Craig Welton also expressing cost concerns and urging the city to evaluate the worth of new and existing positions in the city going forward.
Regardless, both Peach and Welton voted in favor of the position’s creation, with the council as a whole voting 10-1 to approve the city ordinance to create the position and salary for FY25.
