Richard M. Palanzo Public Buildings Superintendent
Address:	Newtown Road Danbury, CT 06810
Telephone:	203-797-4584

About us: 

          The Public Buildings Division of the Public Works Department is entrusted with the responsibility for “maintenance, construction and repair of municipal buildings.” This comprehensive duty encompasses a total of 60 active buildings, and over 7,000 pieces of mechanical equipment. The Public Buildings Division strives to provide a pleasant and comfortable environment for the operation of government, education, and public safety. Our goal is to provide facility services in a timely and effective manner.

          The major public buildings served by this division include: city hall, police and fire headquarters, public schools, the public library, the senior center, the public works complex , the old library, union station railway museum, metro-north railroad station, and the shelter at 41 New Street; just to name a few. The staffing for this division includes the Superintendent, Foreman, state licensed trades personnel (1 Electrician, 1 Steamfitter, 3 Plumbers), 1 Mason- Carpenter, 2 general maintenance Mechanics, 1 Custodian for City Hall, 1 Custodian, 1 Secretary-Bookkeeper and a part-time Clerk-typist; we currently have 2 vacant positions. This small but dedicated staff provides 24/7 facility services to municipal departments and tenants housed in city buildings and schools.

Our accomplishments: 

           Our small staff has done a tremendous job of keeping up with work orders and responding to emergencies. Despite being understaffed, the Public Buildings Division was able to respond to all work orders by working long hours and on weekends.  

            In this fiscal year, the Public Buildings employees completed 2,197 special requests for service in addition to preventative maintenance work. The division attempts to perform all maintenance and repair work in-house with its licensed staff.  Additional assistance for major repairs and some tasks that cannot be handled by in-house staff is provided through contractual arrangement with local professional contractors.

            In addition to repair and maintenance services, the staff of Public Buildings performs minor in-house alteration projects that save the City of Danbury significant dollars.  Examples of more recent in-house projects, which vary in size and scope, are the replacement of kitchen plumbing and gas piping at Danbury High School, refurbishment of plumbing and heating in the Main House of our newly acquired Westside open space property, and the preparation of the Old Jail’s main floor for the WIC program relocation.

            As the division is responsible for facilities services it also strives to achieve energy efficient buildings. The Public Buildings Division operates and maintains building energy management systems for public buildings and public schools, as well as communications, telephone, cell phone and voice mail services.

            In 2010 our conservation and energy management efforts earned the city recognition for its green efforts as we increased our use of renewable energy to a total of 20% by purchasing wind energy credits.   The city was awarded a $775,000 Energy Efficiency Grant from the Department of Energy to perform enhancements to our buildings and structures that will reduce our energy consumption and lessen our carbon footprint. These projects were managed by the Public Buildings Division.  EECBG projects completed in 2010 included the installation of a high efficiency condensing boiler at the Old Library and Old Jail buildings, the installation of high efficiency roof top heating and cooling units at the Elmwood Hall Senior Center, and magnetic induction lighting retrofit of the decorative street lamps in downtown Danbury. EECBG projects planned for 2011 include a demand control ventilation at City Hall, da igital building management system at City Hall, and energy efficient IR heaters at the Highway Division building.

            There are several Pubic Building projects that were planned in 2010 that will be managed by this division and executed in 2011.  Many of these projects have been designed to make city owned public areas available to persons with disabilities. Some projects include the creation of a disabled person accessible lavatory on the third floor of City Hall, renovation of Hatters Park Pavilion with disabled person accessible lavatories, and disabled person access to Hatters Park Bowling Lanes with an accessible lavatory.

            I am pleased to report that our on-line computerized building management system continues to provide a quick and simple method for requesting maintenance and repair service. City department heads and authorized school personnel have the ability to electronically send work requests to our maintenance management server and schedule their work. Authorized personnel may enter work requests into our system, track their progress, and receive custom status reports. This has increased divisional responsiveness, accountability and productivity while reducing downtime.