After less than four months on the job as Mayor Warren’s Community Engagement Director and one week as environmental affairs and solid waste manager within Newton’s Department of Public Works, Jacque Goddard has left the city for a job with MassDOT, according to this tweet from the TAB’s Jonathan Dame
Jacque Goddard is leaving Newton to become comm director for MassDOT on Monday. Was community engagement director for Mayor Warren #newtonma
— Jonathan Dame (@JDameTAB) January 1, 2016
What an odd turn of events. Goddard was an excellent Community Engagement Director and added a level of professionalism to the mayor’s office that had been missing in terms of media relations.
Best of luck Jacque on your new position. We will miss you in Newton.
And another one bites the dust. I would really love one of the local news folks to probe into why so many high level staff members have left the City. And why there are still some high level/department head positions unfilled. Something kinda stinks here and it’s not all of the people who have left their jobs.
morale.. interesting to observe at the conclusion of the inauguration which buffet room was more populated (same offerings).
It seems pretty bizarre that she would agree to take a NEW job within the city and leave a week later. Not classy in my book.
@Dan, you are making the assumption it was her decision.
You know what’s really not classy? Questioning the classiness of someone for taking a new job. From all accounts including my personal interactions with her, Ms. Goddard is an extremely competent professional and MassDOT is lucky to have her.
Happy New Year.
@Emily, classy or not, you have to wonder what happened here. I’m not questioning her class or competency, I am simply wondering why she left so suddenly. The change in positions within the City is certainly suspect. She went from a job in the Mayor’s Office to a position that I believe is under the direction of DPW. That’s a step down in my book. It would explain why she left the City entirely but does not explain why she was moved from one job to another within the City. There has to be a reason why SO MANY staff members have left the Mayor’s Office.
Really great managers hire excellent people, outline the goals and tasks at hand, provide nurturing guidance, and then stay out of the way.
@Truth- It’s conjecture, but reasonable to conclude that mayor ordered an immediate change, and was gracious to extend the employee a lifeline until she found a new job. It says good things about her that she found one so quickly.
Another possibility is that she had applied for the MassDOT, never heard back, took the change in jobs for Newton and then was told she’d gotten the MassDOT job. Hiring decisions often fall into black holes in certain sectors (especially gov’t and academia, in my experience) – I’ve had interviews where I got an offer 2 months later with no contact in between.
It’s really a shame that Newton couldn’t keep her here. Wasn’t the Community Engagement Director position vacant for a while before she took the job? From the wording it doesn’t look like there was a switch in positions but an additional one added – that doesn’t seem to have much relation to the other. I agree that a reason is there somewhere to have so many staff jobs vacated and left that way too long. So many “acting” positions. Are they not being paid enough or maybe not given enough responsibility or too much?
I certainly don’t blame her for taking the new job. That’s what people do. I hope she communicates well concerning the MBTA! I wish her well.
Why is this a surprise to anyone? If you had your eyes open, you would have seen that this has been going on for 6-7 years. It started with Meaghan. She left the city to “volunteer” for Joe Kennedy’s campaign. But to my knowledge that never happened or atleast to her liking. She hooked up with Walsh.
Some of the job changes are natural, but there are way too many happening for them all to be natural. Something is wrong and it starts at the top.
I don’t know the particulars of this situation but there are a lot of reasons why people leave jobs. When salaries aren’t competitive, then you can expect a lot of turnover and Newton’s lost isn’t competitive as far as salaries go. Megan makes double her Newton salary in Boston. Why wouldn’t she want to move to a position that’s clearly an advancement in her career? Also, within the public sector, there’s a significant difference between urban, suburban, and exurban cultures. An individual may be well suited in one and not so well suited (or happy) in another.
I recently had a resident tell me that Newton should have a “cracker jack” (you name the municipal department). I replied that Newton doesn’t pay cracker jack salaries. The woman looked at me like I had three heads – as if working in Newton should be a reward in and of itself.
That should have been “it’s competitive…”
As usual, this thread lives up to Newton’s reputation as a city where everyone is an expert on any topic no matter how little folks know about it. In this instance we know (A) Last week it was announced that Goddard was moving from the mayor’s office to DPW and(B) one week later she was leaving for what sounds like a significant job with the state.
We don’t know if it was voluntary or not or if unhappiness about the job change lead to the departure or vice versa. I will say it would be odd to announce or take on a new job if the plan was to leave. But we don’t know.
It’s true that our city has had a unsettling amount of turnover. And as I said earlier I thought Goddard did a terrific job bringing professionalism that was lacking to the city’s media relations.
Also @Tom: It’s particularly pathetic they way you callously besmirch someone’s career, although Megan Costello certainly doesn’t need anyone to stick up for her. After leaving Newton City Hall she became a regional field organizer for Obama in Iowa, worked for Ed Markey, then on the Marty Walsh’s campaign and now runs the Mayor’s Office for Woman’s Advancement. We should be proud that she got her first political job in Newton, not spreading gossip.
As Greg said, there’s not much value in speculating as to why Jacque specifically or others in general are leaving the current administration at arguably record levels. Given what appears to be an unusually high turnover rate, I’d be more concerned with the degree to which our city government is maximizing its effectiveness. If our city government is not operating near its true capacity, then that would mean that we are being sold short and not accomplishing all that we could otherwise accomplish. If that’s the case, in my opinion, that’s a real problem that we should speculate about as sometimes it takes people from the outside asking the right questions to produce results from the inside.
Who in the world besmirched Meghans career? What planet are you from???? Are you drunk???? The reason Meghan gave us was to why she left Newton was that she was volunteering for Kennedy (not my words, hers). Why would one do that unless you were unhappy with where you were. I didn’t criticize her choice at all.
saying one is unhappy where they work is not a criticism of their work
In the past, there was an aldermanic “Post Audit & Oversight Committee” with somewhat undefined powers.
Since there is no local press interested in asking tough questions and risk drawing the ire of those in power, perhaps the committee is once again needed. In theory, we have two branches of government to provide checks and balances.
Nobody knows the real story, but some educated guesses can be made. One thing is clear:
This type of turnover is more than unsettling, it’s detrimental and costly to a smooth operation of the city, earns us a negative reputation, and makes it harder for Newton to recruit top talent in the future.
Gee Tom, I remember talking to Megan when she left about her decision. What stuck out in my mind was her commitment to the Democratic Party and her desire to help get good candidates elected when she was young enough to not have a lot of financial obligations. Working for Obama in Iowa was a big deal for her. She expressed a lot of gratitude to Mayor Warren for the experience she got working for him. I will grant you that she might not have told me if she were unhappy, but it’s not true that people don”t leave jobs when they’re happy. They leave for better opportunities — and that means something different for everyone –all the time.
That said, I’m sorry to see Jackie go. I didn’t have much interaction with her but I’ve only heard good things.
Gail, you might be right….I remember it differently.
My political days are behind me, so I have nothing to gain by saying this. Looking back, my biggest mistake in politics was helping the Mayor win in 2009. I didn’t listen to people who told me I was making a mistake and I didn’t see the signs in front of me. I let my emotions for him takeover my objective side. I’m back. There are many people on this board who are still at that emotional stage.
There are too many coincidences with this issue to deny the fact that there is a problem between the Mayor and the employees. That being said, I am sure that not every loss is due to the Mayor, but you can be sure many are.
Newton teachers like and support this Mayor and we are city employees.
Megan left because she saw several opportunities for herself in the 2012 election campaigns. She was young and could move to Iowa to work for Obama for a brief period and she seized the moment. Good for her.
It’s tricky explaining why people leave jobs to people who don’t have one
… and conveniently top boss Stephanie Pollack, DOT Secretary & Chief Executive Officer resides a mere few blocks from the Hall to answer any difficult assumptions.
There obviously is a serious issue in retaining and recruiting for municipal positions. The TAB shows no interest in doing a story so I agree with Charlie Shapiro in having the Post Audit Committee review the situation. Maybe the BOA needs to show “courage” and find out why recruitment and retention is such a major problem.
Doug and Charlie, perhaps your memory has failed you on this occasion.
http://newton.wickedlocal.com/article/20150416/NEWS/150417046
Andy, with all due respect, one article over 9 months isn’t really covering a huge issue. Allowing Maureen to spew out nonsense without really hitting her with tough follow up questions isn’t really the angle we were looking for. What about talking to the Mayor and quoting him: he once said, during the last mayors race Ted brought up the issue, he said that he was going to hire the best of the best and we are going to have (his words not mine) the greatest municipal team in the history of municipal teams. ask him what exactly happened to that?
He says stuff like that to appease people, everyone is happy and everyone forgets about it. Lets see a followup article
@Andy-
It’s a perfectly fine article, but seems weak. There was no interview with the mayor and nothing even moderately hard hitting that would force or nudge a response.
“…told anecdotally…” (Uhm… we…uh, like heard… it’s hard to find good people…?)
Was there any followup? Please send link, if so. Thanks.
@Andy
I agree with Charlie and Tom that your article was weak. Time for a follow-up. I have spoken with a few Aldermen that are in complete agreement that there is a problem of filling positions and keeping staff. Not everyone is leaving to have a baby. I think if you go fishing and ask the right questions you will be surprised. One issue worth exploring is why the Mayor seems to fire Department Heads and why so many staff changes.