Jim McCloat is not going quietly into that good night of retirement as he leaves his position as New Hyde Park Department of Public Works superintendent.
He is raging against a board of trustees that he considers less than competent.
“I wouldn’t let them run a laundrymat,” he said, saying that the board’s intrusive management style tipped the balance in his decision to take early retirement.
There is irony in the fact that he took on a fight with the DPW union in the wake of a garbage strike when he walked in the door 25 years ago, and he’s kicking the door down as he departs.
“They had a war going on,” the former union negotiator said of the first mission on that new job. “I solved that in a hurry.”
Serious health problems also are a factor in the 69-year-old McCloat’s decision to take early retirement based on an incentive the state government offered municipal employees.
A Vietnam veteran who is no stranger to conflict, McCloat said he’s tired of battling the board members. He particularly criticizes the way Mayor Daniel Petruccio and Trustee Robert Lofaro, the board’s DPW liaison, have interacted with him over the past decade.
“I have a difficulty with their ways. They’re micro-managers. They think they know the answers. They only know the questions,” he said. “I don’t like to be micro-managed and I’m out of here. It’s a major reason that I‘m leaving.”
He’s also concerned that the order and efficiency he feels he’s established in the DPW will be in jeopardy after he departs.
“I’m a problem-solver. I’m concerned that this place is liable to really splinter and fall apart,” he said. “I spent a long time building this place up and since they found out I’m leaving, nobody talks to me.”
Among the things he’s established is a snow emergency list of village residents with vital medical needs, residents who are receiving kidney dialysis treatment or cardiac patients who require oxygen tank deliveries. He has made a point of having the streets those people live on plowed first, a practice he said Lofaro questioned in the past.
For his part, Lofaro said McCloat’s criticism of the way the board interacts with him is a matter of perspective.
“That’s his opinion. That’s our responsibility, to oversee his operations,” Lofaro said. “He can call it micro-managing. We call it acting responsibly.”
Lofaro said he was “surprised” at McCloat’s criticism of the board, but suggested that the job had taken its toll.
“We’re still the same board for the past ten years. Maybe after ten years, he’s worn down with people asking what he’s done,” Lofaro said.
Repeated attempts to reach Mayor Petruccio for comment were unsuccessful.
McCloat endorsed the board’s choice of Thomas Gannon, the village’s senior building official, to take over his responsibilities. But he also was critical of the time it took the board to choose his replacement after he told them of his retirement plans in August, and is concerned about preparing his successor adequately in the days before he leaves on Dec. 3.
McCloat suggested that the time it took for the board to interview candidates before settling on Gannon is indicative of what he said he’s experienced: a fractious group of village trustees who have trouble acting decisively.
“I really should have more time, but I’ll do the best I can,” McCloat said.
He credits himself with consistently rising to the occasion in a job that has been a source of pride.
“I like the village. I like helping people. Almost every day I can do something for somebody that I don’t have to do. That’s a great feeling,” McCloat said.
McCloat didn’t expect so much time to elapse before leaving the job.
“I thought I’d be here for a short time,” he recalled.
He had spent nearly 20 years with the AFL-CIO, serving in an elective position as a general chairman handling contract negotiations and arbitration when he left to take the New Hyde Park job in 1985.
His primary motivation at that time was to be closer to his home in Hewlett, and his autistic son, Jimmy.
Among the job accomplishments he cites are creating an improved leaf collection operation with “roll-off” portable metal containers that DPW trucks can fill with leaves, reducing the number of trips needed to transport them to mulching stations. He implemented a weekly leaf collection schedule for the entire village.
“I do the whole village in one day,” he said.
He said he also reduced the cost of the village’s garbage disposal operation by contracting with a private company to dispose of village refuse for $60 per ton – $40 per ton less than what most neighboring municipalities pay for disposing their trash. McCloat also set up a deal for the village to draw on Floral Park’s fuel management system for its vehicles, eliminating the need for New Hyde Park to construct its own system.
McCloat also created a system for cross utilization of the DPW union employees so that they are trained for a variety of jobs, improving the DPW’s efficiency.
“Everybody’s trained in everything,” he said. “When you come from the real world and you see this stuff, you know how things are.”
He won’t be retreating from the real world when he leaves his current job. McCloat be will conducting liability investigations for law firms.
But he also expects to spend more time playing golf. And he will spend more time with his wife Diane and their two sons, Jimmy and Kevin.
