SOUTH HADLEY — Sitting at her desk in Town Hall, Lisa Wong smiled as she showed off the two items her predecessor, longtime town administrator Michael Sullivan, had left behind for her: a toilet plunger and a shovel. They were reminders of the kind of roll-up-your-sleeves work municipal leaders often do, she said.
“I’m sure he’s used both,” Wong said. She said the wide-ranging work of a town executive is what makes working in local government so fun for her. She added, matter-of-factly, “I’m sure Mike has had to unplug toilets.”
Sworn into the town administrator job on Nov. 1, Wong said she’s had a good first month on the job. She has a few Select Board meetings under her belt, she said, and already has a calendar filled with events. On a recent morning, she was wrapping up a renovation-project closeout meeting at the new Senior Center, and she is booked for everything from the yearly tree lighting at the town commons to a speech before the town’s chamber of commerce.
“The community is very warm and welcoming,” Wong said. “There’s a lot of really great people that work here who have a lot of deep-rooted community ties and professional expertise”
There is a small learning curve for Wong as she discovers the unique aspects of South Hadley, she said. For example, South Hadley is home to two independently run fire districts, which is a change for Wong, who has previously worked in municipal roles that required her to work closely with a town-run fire department.
“It’s very different for me to not work directly with a fire department,” she said.
But those small differences haven’t slowed her down any, she said. That’s because the work of being a municipal leader is hardly new to Wong, 42, who was the town manager of Winchester prior to coming to South Hadley. She was elected mayor of Fitchburg from 2008 to 2016 — the first Asian American woman to become a mayor in Massachusetts history.
Wong said that when she arrived in South Hadley, she was excited to see so many of the initiatives already underway. She was impressed, for example, with how much focus the town’s leaders have placed on making their community friendly to older residents.
“I’m thrilled about that,” Wong said, adding that she would continue to work with others to expand upon that work. “We also need to take care of caretakers as well.”
Of course, there’s the typical work of a town administrator at this time of year. Wong has been meeting with department heads to discuss the upcoming budget season. She also has been going over the town’s new master plan with them.
An early priority for Wong is strengthening the town’s capital process, ensuring that South Hadley is keeping up with maintenance on its buildings and setting aside money for any possible emergencies.
Nothing has been too unexpected for Wong. She said that the supply chain issues many are experiencing now are, unsurprisingly, affecting municipalities too. As winter approaches, she said she has been helping ensure that the town has the equipment it needs and the people to fix it.
“This is just the work we do,” she said.
Though most days are occupied with that kind of work — from keeping roads repaired to preparing for emergencies — Wong has bigger ambitions for her time in office too, of course.
Wong said it is important for her to make sure that the town is equitable, ensuring that lower-income neighborhoods have just as much access to the town’s assets, from its senior center to its parks. In previous jobs, she also has worked to address inadequate access to healthy food and health care, something she said she wants to make a long-term goal in South Hadley, too.
Hearkening back to those previous jobs, Wong noted that her first municipal job — as a 22-year-old who had recently finished earning three degrees from Boston University — was with the Fitchburg Redevelopment Authority, which she joined as an economic development assistant in 2001 before becoming executive director in 2004.
Wong said that she looks forward to embracing the redevelopment of the Falls section of South Hadley, helping to eliminate blight and bring in a more vibrant core. She noted that in a community as dependent on residential property taxes as South Hadley, bringing in “appropriate” industrial and commercial investment helps build and maintain the tax base.
Other work Wong looks forward to includes creating an inventory of the town’s sidewalks and roads to determine where to make repairs, expanding the job base in town, and working with other regional leaders cooperatively.
Wong said that although the town doesn’t have a specific grant writer position, departments have done good work writing their own grants to address important issues in town. She said it has been a pleasure to work with such a proactive and talented team in South Hadley.
“I’m already starting off with a huge advantage,” she said.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.