In a unanimous vote by the City of Salem Board of Aldermen Sept. 10, Mark Nash was awarded the duties of public works director for the city. His duties officially began Sept. 13 with everything it entails, including reports, the supervision of crews and the direction of projects.
Now a month into his new position and several projects already under his belt, The Salem news talked with Nash about the position he now calls his own.
Nash, a 59-year-old Salemite born and raised here, owns and lives on a farm with his wife Tammy. He is father to two children, Justin Nash and Jessica Parker, and grandfather to four with another on the way. His resume includes work with Intercounty Electric that spanned 38 years as a lineman and technician, as well as a district superintendent.
In city code the position of director of public works has multiple facets. These include supervision of outside departments of the city, proper upkeep of equipment, maintenance of streets and city buildings, bid duties and more.
“I am responsible for the crews outside; the streets department, the electric department, the water and sewer department and the cemetery department,” Nash said. “I am in charge of those guys, and I try to make sure that I keep them at work. I am also responsible for and make sure that their equipment is in shape.”
In addition to these day-to-day duties are his responsibilities to report to the board of aldermen at bi-monthly meetings. This includes a public works director report which goes over the projects of the city that are taken on each month, as well as the status of various departments.
At the Oct. 2 board of aldermen meeting, Nash’s first, he spoke about his crews’ work of maintaining city-owned property after complaints of it being unkept. He complimented his crews for their work and made suggestions to the board so that the level of disrepair could be avoided in the future.
“That was one of the issues that was brought up to me when I accepted this job, which is that (the city) wanted to get caught up on property they owned being cleaned up,” Nash said. “We have, as far as I know, cleaned everything up so far. There may be little pieces here and there that we have gone over, but the biggest issues we have taken care of.”
Another issue is the city’s inaction on the deteriorating old middle school property. Nash explained that crews were, as of Friday, actively working on cleaning the property so the city could further their plan on what to do with the empty facility. Other projects include concrete and road work that are also actively being maintained.
“We are trying to finish up all concrete projects right now before winter comes and the weather changes, including sidewalks, curbing and stuff like that. We are going to try and get that caught up as much as we can along with our street projects,” Nash said.
He explained that the colder weather doesn’t allow crews to work on street projects as effectively, so the catch-up already done must last over the winter. Street projects being looked at and worked on now include Park Street behind the SBU campus. This project is in conjunction with an engineering firm that will be replacing a water pipe and other projects to improve the area.
“We are hopping on that as soon as possible,” Nash said. “We are meeting with the engineering firm next week to get this going. We also have a lot of other projects like patching of the roads that we are also going to try and get through.”
One of Nash’s goals is to prioritize a list of projects he hopes to oversee in his new position.
“That priority list may not be the most traveled roads, but it may be those in the worst shape,” Nash said. “We are going to look at all the streets in town to figure that out. We also have a priority list for our departments of things that need to be upgraded. We also have to make sure the funds are there, which is another reason the priority list is important, so we can get the most important things done and then add to the list later.”
Duties of the public works director include organization and prioritization, Nash says.
“I just want to try and make sure that we stay on top of our projects and get them done on a timeline,” he said. “I realize a lot of projects won’t work perfectly because you are working with other agencies, but we want to try and make a timeline so we can stay on top of it. I want to make our town as presentable as possible.”
Nash can be located at his city office located in the City Administrative Offices, 400 N. Iron St. He may also be contacted by calling (573) 729-4811.
