Planning director steps down to battle cancer
N. David Bouley, 68, a longtime Woonsocket public servant, leaving post to fight life-threatening illness
WOONSOCKET – As he faces an uncertain future, Planning Director N. David Bouley has resigned from his post at City Hall to devote his time to battle an unexpected and daunting foe: cancer.
A lifelong resident whose tenure with the city dates back to the 1970s, Bouley, 68, has been diagnosed with inoperable, stage four pancreatic can- cer that has spread to his stomach and esophagus. Bouley, who got the news from his doctors in late November, was still showing up at the office until a few days ago and may do so yet again to tie up some loose ends – if he can bear the worsening pain in his upper body. Officially, he steps aside on Dec. 22.
“Every night I go to bed with the full intention of getting up the next morning and feeling better,” Bouley said. “It’s not working out that way.”
Bouley, who is also a Roman Catholic church deacon, realizes he’s being unusually candid about his medical condition, but he says it’s something he wants to do. Citing his faith, Bouley says he doesn’t want to die and he’s going to do everything medically possible to forestall the inevitable, but “it’s reality” and he wants others to know what he’s dealing with.
“It’s like I tell my wife,” said Bouley. “We hope for the best, and brace for the worst. As far as I’m concerned, people shouldn’t feel sorry for me. Whether its now or 10 or 20 years from now, it has to be done the right way.”
Without disclosing the details, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt visibly broke down in front of a crowd of spectators in Harris Hall last Friday when she asked for prayers for Bouley. He was among those in the
“There’s nobody who can replicate N. David Bouley.”
crowd, who’d gathered for a fundraising event.
“There’s nobody who can replicate N. David Bouley,” says the mayor. “First and foremost he was a friend and I’ve been honored to be able to work with him over the last four years. My hope was to work with him longer than what we’re expecting at this point.”
Known for his playful sense of humor, a keen intellect and his easy friendships on all sides of the political aisle, Bouley was a fountain of “institutional knowledge” about the issues that have shaped the city over the years, the mayor said. His recollection of the regulatory history of various projects and other civic assets is typically detailed and accurate – important information that’s helped steer policy and decisions in her administration.
Bouley’s first job in local government was with the little-known Woonsocket Redevelopment Agency back in the early 1970s, when the board was in charge of relocating businesses and families out of the flood-ravaged Social District. He later landed a job in the planning department as a federal grants administrator, but it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that he came into his own as director of planning under another Baldelli – former Mayor Charles Baldelli – uncle of Baldelli-Hunt.
“He’s my dearest friend,” Baldelli said. “I can’t fathom losing this man.”
Few may recall the history now, says Baldelli, but were it not for Bouley’s tireless efforts, it’s highly unlikely CVS Health, founded in the city in 1963, would have remained here or expanded to its current scale. With 5,300 people employed at its headquarters in Highland Corporate Park, the company is already the nation’s seventh-largest corporation, and if its recently announced plans to acquire Connecticut-based Aetna go through, it will become the second-largest – bigger than Apple, Exxon and Berkshire Hathaway.
The reason Bouley deserves so much credit is that he was instrumental in bringing to fruition Route 99, a strip of highway that’s as short as it is critical to bringing the interstate highway system to the doorstep of Highland Corporate Park. Getting the road from paper to pavement was a feat of political salesmanship and bureaucratic finesse in which Bouley played a major role, according to Baldelli.
“He was dogged about pursuing that thing for the longest time,” said Baldelli. “I remember it vividly. I was on vacation in Aruba and he called me. He said, ‘Congratulations. We got the funding. We’re building Route 99.’”
But Bouley “had a hand in everything,” said Baldelli, including the creation of the nonprofit affordable housing developer now known as NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley. The organization spun out of the planning department in the mid-1980s as the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation and has become a potent force throughout the Blackstone Valley.
Bouley worked as planning director in Woonsocket until 1990, shortly after the election of the late Mayor Francis Lanctot, but he wasn’t unemployed long – a few hours, in fact. When former Mayor Frank Stetkiewicz of Cumberland found out Bouley needed a job, he offered him one as deputy planning director of the neighboring town.
While Bouley was working for the town, he pur- sued another passion – for spreading the word of God. He went to Providence College to complete studies that led him to become an ordained deacon within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. In 1998, he became the parish administrator at the fledgling All Saints Parish, a new flock formed by the merger of the former St. Ann’s, St. Louis and Our Lady of Victories parishes.
He officially retired from that position in 2010, though he continued serving as a deacon until recently at St. Teresa’s Parish in Pawtucket. Much like a priest, Bouley donned his ceremonial cloak on Sundays and assisted the priest in saying Mass.
Feeling restless, Bouley began volunteering in the planning department not long after he retired, while former Mayor Leo T. Fontaine was still in office. After Baldelli-Hunt defeated Fontaine in 2013, the new mayor once again seated N. David (the “N” stands for Normand) as the director of planning.
“At that point in time he was still willing to volunteer,” said Baldelli-Hunt. “Which is a testament a testament to the love and commitment that he has had for the city of Woonsocket all these years. He wasn’t reaching out and saying, ‘Will you consider me for a position in your administration?’ He just wanted to volunteer.”
THE SON of a plumber, Bouley still lives in the house he was raised in on Cato Hill, with his wife Susanne, a nurse. They have three grown children, Elizabeth, Catherine and Charles.
His brother Christopher Bouley – one of N. David’s five siblings – says the family is devastated by the news of his brother’s illness.
“I think we’re just numb,” he said. “And we’re kind of looking for guidance from Normand. He’s a man of faith, so if anyone can handle it, it’s him.”
A wealth management specialist at UBS Financial Services, the younger Bouley said it’s not just relatives who are staggered by news of his broth er’s illness, but just about everyone who’s interacted with him over the years in his circle of friends and colleagues. They see he’s just a genuinely good-natured person who lives the Christian credo of treating others the way he’d want them to treat him – with kindness and compassion.
For N. David, the journey that led to the devastating diagnosis began months ago, with a slow but steady loss of weight. He mysteriously dropped nearly 50 pounds since late summer without following any sort of diet.
Doctors initially thought the problem might be associated with a medication he takes for diabetes, but when he began experiencing excruciating pain in his back and stomach recently, a gastroenterologist decided a closer look was in order.
A CAT-scan raised suspicions. A biopsy confirmed the worst.
Without treatment, Bouley said, doctors predict he might survive comfortably – with painkillers – about three months. He’s opted for chemotherapy, however, holding out hope that the spread of the disease can be held in check. The best-case scenario, Bouley says, is that the treatments will be effective enough to allow him to live for another year – maybe even two.
As his brother says, faith will lead him on.
“Death is a part of life,” he says. “Death is not the end of life. It’s the end of your physical body.”
The spirit, he says, is forever.