Town names longtime employee as new public works director
By Emmy Errante
Staff Writer
Wrightsville Beach announced the promotion of longtime employee William “Buck” Squires as public works director April 12, and with the title he inherits several major ongoing projects and a relatively young staff.
Squires has been with the town for 14 years, most recently as the building inspector. He will start his new role April 18.
Public works is a wide-ranging department, Mayor Bill Blair said, handling everything from street paving to sanitation to the water and sewer system. But for the past two months, the department has been functioning with vacancies in its two key leadership positions.
Former public works director Mike Vukelich retired in January and assistant public works director Steve Dellies resigned in November 2015 after serving a two and one-half day suspension for sending an email to Vukelich citing frustrations like low staffing, low pay and a lack of support from town leaders. Storm water manager Jonathan Babin has been serving as interim public works director.
What the department needs now, Blair said, is consistency and stability, and he believes Squires will bring that.
“My impression of him is that he’s very consistent and very detailed,” Blair said during an April 12 interview. “I think that’s a great trait to have in public works because there are a lot of moving parts.”
While Squires has worked as building inspector in the planning department for the last nine years, he also has public works experience. His first five years with the town were spent in the public works’ water and sewer division. Before that, he worked for 20 years as a paving, excavation and utilities contractor and spent five years in the residential construction industry.
Running Wrightsville Beach’s public works department presents unique challenges, Vukelich noted before he left, like operating the town’s water, sewer and storm water systems in a very low-elevation area. The department is currently undertaking several major projects related to those challenges, so town manager Tim Owens said it’s beneficial for the department leader to have a thorough understanding of Wrightsville Beach-specific issues.
“We had a lot of qualified applicants, but he was certainly the right choice at the right time,” Owens said. “He’s very familiar with the town, very familiar with the residents.”
One of those projects concerns the future of the town’s aging water and sewer system. Squires will take over guidance of an ad hoc committee tasked with determining how to improve the town’s water — whether that means selling the system to Cape Fear Public Utility Authority or implementing costly techniques of water storage and filtering.
Vukelich and Dellies previously led the committee, but Squires said he sat in on the last few meetings and he’s prepared to take over.
In addition to a number of significant projects, Squires also inherits personnel challenges. Several of the department’s most experienced employees have left recently, Squires said, and the current staff is very young. There is also a discrimination lawsuit pending.
“I think moral is one of the big things,” he said, adding that he plans to improve moral through training and team building. “They’ve had a few tough years over there.”
Blair believes Squires will be able to improve moral with his leadership style.
“Being consistent and having transparent expectations, those are the sorts of things that are important to employees,” he said. “We’ve had some issues in that department in the past, so I think he’ll bring some consistent leadership.”
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