Hawke reflects on first 100 days in office

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — Although it’s a mark that he doesn’t endorse as being particularly important, Mayor Mark Hawke has completed his first 100 days in office, a benchmark that grants local voters the opportunity to see what he has accomplished thus far, and ask what his plans are for the future. According to Mr. Hawke, the first 100 days of his mayoral term were spent making the necessary preparations for endeavors that the city will see results of in the coming fiscal year. These projects included hiring an economic development coordinator and scheduling a free state Department of Revenue financial management review for June. Although he is encouraged by the amount of progress that has been made during his time at the helm, Mr. Hawke noted that his first 100 days in office have been full of unexpected problems as well, such as the scheduled closure of the H&R 1871 manufacturing plant by the Remington Arms Company and the temporary closing of Pine Street because of a renovation project on the building that previously housed the Heywood-Wakefield Furniture Company. “Reopening Pine Street and the completion of Heywood-Wakefield phase three have been unexpected problems we’ve had to deal with,” said Mr. Hawke. “Just getting the one lane of Pine Street reopened took a lot of effort.” When completed, the former furniture factory will house a 78-unit affordable assisted living complex, which the mayor hopes will give the downtown area an economic boost it needs. Although the closing of the H&R 1871 plant came as a surprise to both Mr. Hawke and the more than 200 employees that are currently facing unemployment, he remains optimistic about the efforts he has made towards assisting their transition from one job to another. “I think we have gotten a lot of things rolling with both the officials at Remington and the employees at H&R,” said Mr. Hawke, “these efforts are going to help the people over at H&R in order to lay the foundation for going forward.” Mr. Hawke, whose term began Jan. 7, added that the majority of a politician’s first 100 days in office are spent reworking an inherited budget from the previous administration. “It’s a difficult process with only a two-year term,” said Mr. Hawke. “You come into office and you have one-half of the prior administration’s budget to deal with, and then you have a very short time to put a budget together for the coming fiscal year.” Mr. Hawke said that because of this politically inherited budget, many political officials say that the first official budget a mayor can make is the budget Mr. Hawke will be creating next year in June, because by then, he will have implemented the necessary changes, and those changes will impact the following fiscal budget. The mayor is particularly interested to see how the financial management review for the city turns out, because he hopes that it will reveal areas of the city’s budget where changes can be made that will help reduce the impact of the looming budget crisis. “The financial management review will shed some light on the changes we need to make,” said Mr. Hawke. “Unfortunately the review is scheduled for sometime in June, which doesn’t leave us enough time to put everything in place for the next fiscal year. However over the course of that year we will use the information from the financial management review to look at our current situation- and hopefully stream-line the way that we do things in the city.” oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 4/22/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 96)