Report on the “Special Town Board Meeting”

By Ray Mooney and Don Johnson

Taxpayers got mugged again yesterday afternoon.

In the face of junk bond ratings, no financial turnaround plan, a non functioning CFAC, our lack of money to properly upgrade the waste treatment plant, our inability to legally pay back our inter fund borrowing, our inability to account for the savings associated with blowing $500,000 of taxpayer’s money, our deceiving taxpayers with paying fines and all the rest of the mess OBrien, Mangold and Malone pretend is governing, we added two new and additional patronage and nepotism jobs to town payroll yesterday.

There is not a taxpayer in our town, who, faced with similar family or personal financial problems, would do what OBrien, Mangold and Malone are doing to us and to our town.

 There is not a business, in our town or anywhere else, that would make the moves that OBrien, Mangold and Malone keep making. In the private sector business world these three individuals would be fired for incompetence and malfeasance.

 Special Meetings, as responsible taxpayers have come to learn, usually means the Town Board majority wants to slip something by citizens and keep things as under the radar as possible.

 This was certainly true for yesterday afternoon’s meeting.

 Yesterday afternoon’s Special Meeting was for OBrien, Mangold and Malone to make two (2) new and additional patronage and nepotism appointments to the DPW in the Highway Department.

There was no public comment portion of the meeting and no opportunity to ask questions. Ray had submitted an e-mail note to the Town Board earlier this week but that e-mail, and its list of questions, went unanswered. There was no indication that the CFAC had provided any input to the Board in making this decision. There was no indication that the staffing, work requirements and work load of the DPW staff was analyzed in any business-like way.

 Voters are left to wonder why these two new and additional patronage and nepotism appointments were left off of last week’s full Town Board meeting, but if you are thinking that deceiving taxpayers and avoiding having to answer obvious questions is a factor you are very probably correct.

 Supervisor Langley, in his legal role as the town’s Chief Financial Officer, spoke to our town’s overall poor financial condition and our debt. He voted against the resolution to add two additional patronage and nepotism appointments. Thank you, Mr. Supervisor.

Board Member Matters spoke to our illegal status in re-paying back inter fund borrowing and our inability to meet the legal requirements of last year’s early retirement resolution that cost taxpayers a cool $500,000. We cannot account for the legally required savings from that expenditure of taxpayer money and by constantly adding staff we are blowing any possibility of ever meeting the legally required savings requirements. Board Member Matters voted against the two additional patronage and nepotism appointments.

Supervisor Langley and Mr. Matters are to be commended for thoughtfully approaching this issue.  They both made it very clear that their decisions had nothing to do with the persons involved, but with what they knew to be the financial realities facing the Town.  We’ve had no evidence of a miraculous financial turn-around. 

In his remarks supporting the hiring, Mr. Malone addressed the need to upgrade the sewer infrastructure.  He remarked that since the EPA was now involved, the fines would be getting higher.  Ms. Obrien mentioned MS-4 obligations.  We thought it strange that sewer and storm water issues would be used to support Personal Service positions in the Highway Department.  Don’t the Sewer and Water Departments have their own Personal Service Rosters?  Ms. Mangold advised that these two permanent positions would mean less seasonal hiring this Summer.  HUH???  What’s the bottom-line financial saving in that?  

Bottom line – the Board majority was unable to make a sound business and financially clear case for hiring two new permanent employees in the Highway Department.  This is the same kind of “thinking” that was behind the cool half million spent on the “retirement incentive.”  What we got out of that was the cost of the incentive, the retirement bill and the cost of some of the newly retired hired back as “consultants.”   

The last Certified Audit look at the financial position of the Town was the UHY audit for 2009.  And it wasn’t good.  We haven’t seen balance sheets for 2010 or 2011 yet.  The majority of Malone, OBrien and Mangold make no reference to necessary resources like these for their business decisions.  This is not competent municipal leadership.  No recovery plan, no knowledge of financial position, no workload analysis……Good Grief.