New Recreation Director Looks to Develop a Strong Sense of Community

One of the things that attracted David Burnes to the town of Westwood was not only its strong sense of community, but how much it reminded him of his hometown of Milton.

“Education and sports were premium (in Milton), and I noticed that Westwood had the same values," Burnes said in a recent interview with Westwood Patch. "I was the youngest of six kids, we all played sports in high school and college, and everyone did well educationally.

"I saw that Westwood was a town that was very similar to Milton, in something where I can notice the outcomes in programs, and I guess that was my main attraction, the fact that traditionally, it is a great town for education and sports, and that you can really realize program outcomes,” he added.

Burnes began work as last month, as of February 14, filling the shoes of Interim Director Sue Perry, whom he will be working with moving forward. Burnes comes to Westwood after serving as Deputy Director of Recreation, Sports and Fitness for the City of Boston for several years, having worked with Mayor Tom Menino since 1999.

Educated at BC High, Burnes went on to Boston College to receive his degree in Sociology and Political Science. Burnes also played baseball at Boston College, and was a coach at BC and Harvard before working for in Boston's recreation's department.

As for future plans for Westwood, Burnes is looking to improve on the already-solid foundation that exists for Westwood's recreation programs.

“This is really a big assessment period for me," Burnes said. "What I’m going to try to do is use a lot of my connections that I’ve made over the years in coaching and working in the city of Boston to try to enhance any existing program.”

Adding to that, Burnes said he's confident with the way a lot of the current programs are working in town, and wants to be sure to preserve the ones that are working best.

“What I don’t want to do is break anything that works well," he said. "In the summer I’ll get to see what’s working well. A lot of these programs are great, and the staff that I’ve inherited are tremendous, they’ve all been excellent. So, I’m really looking to find out what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and how I can help enhance and bring some new creative ideas to the town.”

In the long term, after the assessment period, Burnes said he will develop a strategic plan on how to move forward with the department's programs. He said he believes it'ss important to have the whole town involved in any way possible, as it helps to strengthen the town's sense of community.

“I want input from the people of the town," said Burnes. "I want to make them a part of it; it’s their program,."

Another area he hopes to focus on is becoming even more environmentally friendly.

“We’re going green,” Burnes said. “We want to save paper. We really want to get people signed up on our email list so that we can get all the up to date information out to them, because I think that the more people that sign up, the better informed they’ll be, and the more effective we’ll all be as a town."