Orlando Pacheco during a previous appearance before the Haverhill City Council. (WHAV News photograph.)
Haverhill Purchasing Director and Energy Manager Orlando Pacheco is expected to leave his Haverhill post after Lancaster selectmen voted Thursday to offer him back his old job as town administrator.
Pacheco, who lives in Peabody, must first negotiate a contract with the town.
“I expect it will take at least a month for me to get to Lancaster on a regular basis and then, I’m sure, there will be some longer-term transitioning,” he said.
Pacheco notified Haverhill Mayor James J. Fiorentini of the job offer, but assured him he will be available to complete some energy projects before he leaves. “The street light project is one of the energy initiatives that we’re really focused on and I’d really like to get that situated before the end of April.”
That project would see the conversion of street lights from standard to LED fixtures, projected to save the city at least $100,000 over annual maintenance payments of $525,000 to National Grid. Should the city need more help, Pacheco said, he will be available.
“I’m here for the long term to do whatever the city needs of me if it needs anything.” He explained Lancaster is expected to be understanding of any projects he needs to complete in Haverhill since he continued helping the town after his contract expired there at the end of 2013.
“Lancaster has a certain respect for Haverhill because the mayor has allowed me to help them manage the solar farm there.”
Pacheco came to Haverhill in June, 2014, after being appointed to fill the job of purchasing agent formerly held by Robert J. DeFusco. Before working in Lancaster, Pacheco was the mayor’s aide in Amesbury.
“I’ve really enjoyed my time in Haverhill. I love working with the people here—just great people on all sides,” he said.
Besides Pacheco, David S. Van Dam, Fiorentini’s chief of staff, and Don Lowe of Bolton were finalists for the Lancaster job.
Haverhill switching to LED street lighting will save 30% PLUS the maintenance need of replacing blown lights will be minimized.
Before he leaves someone on the city council should insist that he provide written documentation and proof of the benefits for all the energy saving projects that have been initiated during his time in Haverhill. He made bold public claims for significant savings and someone in city government should demand proof that the money taxpayers have spent on these projects have provided a return on investment, or if they were just blatant lies.
HINT: They were lies.
He instituted a city wide electricity aggregation program where he claimed homeowners would save 30% on their electric bill and instituted a city hall lighting energy retrofit at tremendous expense to taxpayers promising savings of over $100,000 a year.
The aggregation program the city is involved with provides a 30% savings on homeowners “supply services” cost on their monthly bill. “Supply Services” only amounts to 17% of a homeowners monthly bill. That means homeowners actually save 30% of the 17%, which is only 5% of their total bill. But Pacheco and the mayor had bold headlines in the media claiming a savings of 30% on their total bill !!
I called and spoke to Pacheco about this, asking him how he can make that claim. His response was that sometimes things don’t get reported accurately in the local newspapers. (Both WHAV and the ET had huge headlines quoting both the mayor and Pacheco of the 30% figure). When I asked if he is going to contact both papers and have the mayor issue a statement to correct the figure reported there was dead silence on the phone.
Pacheco is nothing more than a lying hack puppet for the mayor. It’s great news for the city he’s leaving.
Interesting he and Vandam wanted to leave. I wonder why he was so anxious to go back to where he was fired ? So now, is Haverhill going to be in “Solar limbo” ? I can see the School committee now, measuring the roof of the high school.