Last day with the city is Jan. 7
CARIBOU, Maine — Caribou’s Assistant City Manager Tony Mazzucco will be leaving the nation’s most northeastern city and heading down to Adams, Massachusetts, where he will take the helm as town administrator.
Mazzucco’s been an advocate for Caribou since January of 2012 and though his last day with the city will be Wednesday, Jan. 7, he’s already planning a summer visit.
During his time as assistant city manager, Mazzucco’s favorite facet of municipal management was the implementation of an idea he had even before the city hired him.
“I drove around the downtown and kept thinking ‘there’s this really great core here — the traditional downtown — that you don’t see in a lot of communities,’ and that’s when I said ‘I want to close down this downtown and throw a party,” he recalled. Two days after starting the job, Mazzucco walked into City Manager Austin Bleess’ office and pitched the downtown party idea, only to find that Bleess was already thinking the same thing.
Thursdays on Sweden gave Mazzucco one memory that will stay with him for a long time; last year a man approached the assistant city manager during one of the downtown events.
“It was one of those great pink sunsets you have here in Aroostook County; he’d been there all day, it was his second or third event, and almost with tears in his eyes he told me ‘I never in my life thought I’d see Caribou like this again — everyone is just together and we’re out on the street having a good time, relaxing and enjoying each other,’” Mazzucco remembers being told.
The man didn’t know if Caribou was really like that during his adolescence or if it was just nostalgia. “By my memory of what it was like growing up here, this is what it was like if not better,” he’d said.
For Mazzucco, that’s what the field of local government is all about.
“All the budgets in the world and all the cost-savings, and restructurings and shuffling — that’s all part of the job, but it’s just paperwork,” he said. “Knowing that you’ve actually made a difference in people’s communities, even if it’s a couple of hours a week a few times in the summer, and made their community a better place to live … I think it’s the single greatest reward.”
Adams has a population of about 8,300 and Mazzucco looks forward to bringing the lessons he’s learned from The County to the Massachusetts community — like a strong sense of community and a diligent work ethic.
“Everything from how far public works is able to stretch a dollar or how unique our fire and ambulance service is, something I’ve really learned — and something I think you’re always going to see in The County — is how to do more with less,” Mazzucco commented. “And I’ve learned that sometimes you’ve just got to grin and bear it and get it done — that’s The County work ethic that you see and I hope the workforce I have has that same ethic.”
For example, one of the questions Mazzucco was asked during the interview process didn’t make sense because of the years he’s spent in Aroostook.
A different kind of government than standard in Maine, Adams oversees services to the aging community; Mazzucco was asked if Caribou had a program in place to help senior folks shovel out their homes in the winter.
“I couldn’t figure out what it was that struck me as odd at first, then I realized you wouldn’t need a program like that up here because if someone was having trouble getting out of their driveway, someone would just go over and shovel, plow or snow-blow them out — up here, that’s just normal,” he said with a laugh.
Mazzucco has worn different hats as the assistant city manager; he hasn’t particularly wanted all of the hats, but he feels he’s better for having worn them.
Planning was always one of those things Mazzucco never wanted to do in local government, “but that’s part of that County workforce,” he said. “You’ve got to rise to the challenge and do it because it needs to be done.”
“Now we have a planning board that has experience, staying power, we’ve got new people involved in the community through it and we’ve written a 120-plus page comprehensive plan that the planning board took the lead in, and a lot of public engagement sessions in that,” Mazzucco added with pride.
Moving to western Massachusetts puts Mazzucco within a three-hour drive of his family, his hometown and his old school, but that doesn’t mean Caribou’s losing its place in his heart.
“(Living here) was a great opportunity professionally and personally, I’m glad I got to spend a part of my life in Aroostook County — a part of the country not a lot of people get to see. It’s beautiful up here and the people are beautiful up here,” he said. “I’m relocating to be closer to my family, but if I could pack Caribou up and take it with me I certainly would.”
