Many people in Hoboken think the director of environmental services is relegated to the unglamorous job of supervising the collection of garbage and the maintenance of public buildings. While the department is saddled with such tasks, its new director, Cassandra Wilday, 54, feels there is more to it than that. She realizes trash collection is important part of her job, but has faith that she can help enact other polices, such as helping to create open space and forming a Shade Tree Commission.
"This job really exists on two major levels," she said from her City Hall office Tuesday afternoon. "In one capacity there’s the day-to-day running of the public works, things such as collecting recycling and trash and the maintenance of buildings. While this aspect is very important to running the city, it isn’t the most glamorous part of the job. We know we’re doing a good job in garbage collection when nobody is talking about it."
The second mission of this department is the advancement of quality-of-life issues, such as creating open space and forming a shade tree commission, she added. "Projects that really improve life for the residents of Hoboken," she said. "These are the types of things that make my job exciting."
Wilday has lived in Hoboken since 1988 and has a degree in Landscaping Architecture from Rutgers University. Before being hired by the city, her most indelible mark was her assistance in creating Pier A Park on the city’s South Waterfront. In the mid-1990s, the city, along with several community groups, sought out and formed a group of local architects, planners and other professionals to develop a plan that preserved the water’s edge as a public park.
Wilday was one of the professionals involved in the planning and was hired by the city, along with landscape architect Henry Arnold, to design Pier A park. Last year, the American Society of Landscape Architects bestowed an award upon the park for its design.
Wilday brings 17 years of experience working in the private sector as a landscaping architect, and she has worked with municipalities throughout the tri-state area to create parks and open space. But this is the first time she has held a position in municipal government.
While most of her professional career has been in landscaping architecture, she also has experience in waste management. Wilday spent four years working for the Meadowlands Commission as part of a multi-disciplinary team involved in decommissioning landfills in New Jersey.
Since beginning her job July 1, she has already made several policy decisions, including the hiring of 20 part-time employees for what the city deems "Operation Clean Up." The program has the new workers augmenting the progress of street sweeping machines by following them and sweeping by hand areas where the machines cannot get to, such as where cars are parked.
She has also worked closely in a $400,000 project to create a new park, the Jackson Street Garage Park, at 116 Jackson St. The project was announced Oct. 18 and it will be funded by state Green Acres grants. It is slated to have a lawn area, an area for game tables, and a fountain for children. The city will break ground in spring and the park will take seven to nine months to complete. Arnold was hired to design this park as well.
In the future, Wilday has big plans for her department and the city. "We are three years from having a completed waterfront walkway," she said. "We will in the near future form a Shade Tree Commission that will be responsible for the caring for and planting of shade trees in the city."
She added, "Also, we would like to see the doubling or tripling of open space in the city. One of the projects that we are most excited about is the prospect of turning Weehawken Cove into a public park and a waterfront walkway to link Hoboken to Weehawken – in that park we would like to see some type of small boat marina and possibly even a trailer launch."
As a resident, Wilday had been lobbying for a Shade Tree Commission for over a decade and it now looks like a city ordinance to form the commission could go before the City Council as soon as its meeting on Nov. 21. The Weehawken Cove project is still several years down the road, but it is a high priority for Wilday.
In her brief time working for the city, Wilday is already very appreciative of the city’s workers and feels they are working hard and doing a good job. "I could not do this job all by myself," she said. "I have some of the best people working in this department and they make it a pleasure for me to come to work every day."