city council

Sara Burk-Balbi and Marianne Clattenburg

The following videos were shot last night at the WBTA studios.

Frank Ferrando and Phil Ricci

Tonight in the studios of WBTA, Dan Fisher and I interviewed four of the at-large candidates for Batavia City Council.  Even though these races are not head-to-head, we're breaking the interviews up into pairs of one Republican candidate sitting with one Democrat.

First up where Sara Burk-Balbi and Marianne Clattenburg, and then Frank Ferrando and Phil Ricci.

The interviews will air starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday). As soon as possible (it takes time to process the video), the video of the interviews will be posted on The Batavian. Ethan Thompson is producing the videos for us.

Is consolidation a dead issue?

City Council President Charlie Mallow thinks so.

He thinks so after, for a second time, the council tabled "indefiniately" a resolution to hold a public hearing on a proposed joint charter review commission.

“It’s a political maneuver to kill something permanently without actually going on the record and voting against it," Mallow said after the meeting. "We’ve had things in the past, you know, we’ve had all this controversy about that slumlord act that was tabled indefinitely. It’s killed. It means you voted against it but you don’t want the public to recognize it. That’s what happened here tonight.”

The resolution, while moving forward the idea of consolidation of the city and town of Batavia, would hardly have committed either community to joining forces in a single municipal body. It would have simply allowed a joint committee to come up with a plan of what a consolidated Batavia might look like as a legal entity.

It was clear from the motion of of Councilwoman Rose Mary Christian that at least some of the council members who voted to table the motion did so as a maneuver to block further consolidation talk.

"I have a problem with it simply because once it takes effect, there’s no turning back," Christian said. "The fact is that consolidation is good, but, I don’t see why we can’t have shared services. We can share facilities. We can share equipment. Why do we need consolidation?"

Councilwoman Kathy Briggs said after the meeting, however, that most of the council was focused on language in the resolution that would have had the city council president sitting on the committee, and many council members think that job should go to the new council president, whomever that might be, once Mallow is out of office and a new council is seated among a group of people who would appoint committee members. They want the new council president, whomever that might be, be part of that process.

City Manager Jason Molino told the council that Town of Batavia officials are interested in revising the resolution anyway to clarify some of the language and add a little more substance.

"They want to add more specifics on the parameters of what committee with do," Molino said.

Councilman Frank Ferrando didn't sound hopeful that consolidation would move forward.

“I hope that there’s support, because that’s an important move that this community has to make," Ferrando said. "Right now, it’s hard to read."

It was Ferrando who requested the resolution be placed back on the council agenda after it was tabled two business meetings ago.

"When you table something, you don’t table it into perpetuity. It has to come back again," Ferrando said. "I haven’t heard a good reason yet as to why we’re not moving forward."

Ferrando indicated that he'll take the next opportunity -- the next conference meeting -- to get the issue before the council again.

Councilman Bob Bialkowski raised the first procedural question after Ferrando finished speaking. He seemed to think that tabling it previously killed it. City Attorney George Van Nest said there was no procedural reason -- nothing in Roberts Rules of Order or prior council practice -- to prevent the council from taking action on the resolution.

Councilman Bill Cox also raised procedural objections.

Mallow was having none of it and accused his fellow council members of being cowards for not taking a yes or no vote on the resolution.  He said killing consolidation without a vote was a waste of state taxpayers money (a state grant paid for the consolidation study) and that council members owed it to citizens to give them at least a chance to discuss the idea.

"If you don’t want this, vote against it," Mallow said. "Vote against it. We owe that at least to the members of the public, but you don’t even want to give the members of the public and the people in this city the right to even talk about this issue?  That’s stealing the state’s money. That’s stealing taxpayers money. Let them talk about it. Let them come up with a proposal.

"Fear of change," Mallow added. "We all have little seats here on council. Maybe they don’t like us. Maybe they don’t like the idea that we have a city council. Maybe they’ll change it. Maybe they’ll give us a mayor. Who knows what they’ll do? That's the fear. That’s the fear of the unknown."

Christian's motion to table, passed 6-3, with only Mallow, Ferrando and Councilwoman Marianne Clattenburg voting to keep the issue alive.

There's no executive session scheduled for tonight's City Council meeting.

That's not usually noteworthy, except the last time the council met, several members were upset. A citizen complaint about City Manager Jason Molino, including a copy of the letter and the citizen's name, had been leaked to the Daily News.

The leaker has not yet been identified, and some council members have expressed a reluctance to meet in closed session so long as one of their own appears to be untrustworthy.

So, we emailed City Council President Charlie Mallow, who previously vowed "no closed sessions during the remainder of his term" and asked him where he stood on closed sessions now, and the status of the complaint issue.

Here's his response:

I will deal privately with the letter, the review and the citizen complaint. The issue will be closed out by the end of the week. I will not be issuing a press release or discussing this issue further.
 
As I have stated before, a majority of Council is unwilling to speak about these issues in a group setting. Individual Council people have the right to speak to the city manager at any time and I have asked them to do so privately about any matter they wish. If we have need for an executive session about another issue, it will be scheduled. If there are updates in the future of a sensitive nature, that can be done one-on-one. There are no votes that take place in executive session; all decisions are made in public.

Here's what's on the council agenda tonight at 7 o'clock in City Hall:

• A resolution to schedule a public hearing on forming a joint charter commission with the Town of Batavia as a prerequisite to consolidation.
• A resolution to declare three DPW vehicles as surplus.
• A resolution to accept a $20,000 grant appropriated by Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer.
• A resolution to schedule public hearings on CDBG (Community Development Block Grants).

Since Councilman Bob Bialkowski has not returned phone calls nor answered our email, I've been waiting for a chance to talk to him in public.

Tonight, he was outside the Batavia High School auditorium waiting for the meeting on the proposed North Street Extension athletic fields.

I asked him first if he knew who leaked the letter? "What letter?" He said.

I clarified and he said, "Our attorney instructed us not to discuss it." I pointed out that the instruction is not to discuss what happened in closed session, not after. I asked three times, "What happened outside of closed session?" and Bob tried moving away from me saying, "Excuse me,"  "Excuse me."

I asked him if he would release Daily News reporter Joanne Beck from any promise of confidentiality, and Bialkowski said, "I'm not going to discuss it."

Audio: "Interview" with Bob Bialkowski (mp3).

Previously:

• Most council members answer straightforward questions about leak of personnel information
  
• Fellow council members say Bialkowski brought in complaint letter, threatened to release it
• Council members say Bialkowski used his own printer to provide copies of complaint

Editor's Note: The following is an open letter that Councilman Bill Cox sent The Batavian this morning. We likely would have published it then, long before he approached us about the paid post we have on the site now, but the bank robbery took up most of our day.  We make the point to note, we would have published this without the paid sponsorship.

Council members,

Tomorrow evening October 6th at 7 PM the Board of Education will be holding an informational meeting in the high school on State Street about their plans to convert the North Street Extn. property they own into athletic fields.

Well over 100 neighbors, school taxpayers, and voters in this area (East Avenue,  Naramore,  Woodcrest, Hillside Drive,, Garden Drive, Carolwood, Harrold Square, Belvedere, North Street, Elm Street, Clinton Street, and other streets have signed petitions strongly opposing this  school development. These petitions will be presented to the school board tomorrow evening.

They are concerned this development will change their peaceful and quiet neighborhood forever. In particular they are concerned with the fact that school enrollment is going down not up which does not justify more fields, it justifies fewer. The fact that their taxes will be going up to provide funding to maintain this area after it is developed; they are concerned that their school taxes will be used to support adult sports events the school board needs to justify the maintenance costs, that have nothing to do with school activities.

They are concerned with loud noise from fans and participants that occurs at all sporting events; their property being walked on invading their privacy, that property values go down not up  when these kinds of facilities are created, refuge will be deposited in yards, on streets, and blow on other properties. Parking and  traffic will clog streets, and a whole lot more.

I ask for you to come to this meeting and show your support for the city residents who this is being forced upon. A large number of the people who signed petitions stated this one topic alone will decide who they vote for on council and the legislature. Some asked me to contact you to ask you to come to this meeting and speak out on their behalf. They want to know where our council people and legislator candidates stand on this development which is vital to the quality of life in their neighborhood.

Bill Cox
Councilman - First Ward

Bob Bialkowski's active role in pushing forward the complaint against City Manager Jason Molino became a little clearer tonight. His participation is at the center of the current kerfuffle over breached confidence at Batavia City Hall.

Weeks ago, when Bialkowski produced a manila envelope with copies of the complaint letter, he told City Councilwoman Marianne Clattenburg that he received the complaint via email and printed it out for the complainant because that person's printer was broken, Clattenberg said.

Clattenburg said she didn't open the envelope and had no knowledge about the specific contents of the letter before handing it over to Council President Charlie Mallow.

However, the fact that this particular person filed the complaint wasn't a surprise to Clattenburg, because the person first asked Clattenburg how to handle the complaint. Clattenburg said she told the person the proper procedure was to take the complaint to the City Council President (Charlie Mallow). She indicated she was surprised when Bialkowski showed up with an envelope full of copies of the letter.

Mallow confirmed that he received the envelope from Clattenburg.

Both Mallow and Clattenburg say that the existence of the letter was revealed during the Council's next closed session, which had been called previously in order to conduct the contractually mandated performance review of the city manager. 

The council agreed to take the complaint up at its next closed session, since the council was obligated to continue with the performance review and vote on Molino's raise.

That next meeting was Sept. 14, which Bialkowski did not attend, and is central to the breach-of-confidence charge by members of the council. The council discussed the complaint against Molino and agreed that the person who made the complaint should be interviewed by the council and that Molino -- who was out of town -- should be given a chance to respond.

When the council came out of executive session, it voted 7-1 to give Molino a 2.8 percent raise. Councilman Bill Cox cast the lone no vote and after the meeting cited a "personnel" matter, which he wouldn't discuss further, as the reason for his "no" vote.

After that meeting, Mallow, Clattenburg and council members Rose Mary Christian and Kathy Briggs received phone calls from the person who filed the complaint. That person had just enough details of the closed discussion to make it clear to council members, Mallow and Clattenburg said, that somebody on the council spoke freely, either directly to the person who filed the complaint or to another party who then spoke to the complainant immediately after the meeting.

But not all of the details were right. There were also misrepresentations and exaggerations.

"I don't think the public understands," said Clattenburg, "that one of the reasons the council is so upset is that the person was feeding back a lot of misinformation about what was said and we didn't like how the council was being portrayed. This wasn't just a breach of trust. This person (the leaker) was making stuff up, saying stuff that was never said."

Mallow didn't speak directly to the complainant that night (he only received a voice mail), but after he spoke to the other council members, it was clear to him that whoever called the complainant got enough of the facts right that a council person had to be the leaker.

"It was enough of the truth to see that it was somebody who was in the room," Mallow said. "There were enough tidbits of truth, but it wasn't the whole truth. It was just twisted and it was exaggerated."

Neither Mallow nor Clattenburg could say whether the letter as produced by Bialkowski was actually signed by the person making the complaint. The Batavian's news partner WBTA asked Mallow yesterday if the letter was signed, and Mallow said he thought it was. Tonight, The Batavian pointed out that it didn't seem likely that a letter that Bialkowski provided several copies of -- all coming from his printer -- would be signed. Mallow admitted that maybe it wasn't and said City Attorney George Van Nest had his only copy and he would have to check with Van Nest.

Clattenburg also couldn't remember if it was signed and didn't have her copy available.

If the letter wasn't signed, it would call into doubt, at least partially, the veracity of the letter because it would suggest the letter wasn't reviewed by the complainant before it was presented to council.

Mallow was quick to point out that there is no doubt the complainant is a real person and that this person has a complaint he or she considers legitimate. Mallow said that based on an email exchange with the complainant, he's sure the writing styles are the same, but admitted he can't be sure the letter is entirely written by the complainant.

"We don't know that the end-result that we got was the same end-result that Bob got," Mallow said. "I don't know and I can't say for sure."

He then added, almost under his breath, "That would be really devious."

"I can't say for certain that it's the same letter, but I believe the person wanted the council to have the letter," Mallow said.

As we noted in our previous story, The Batavian has offered Bialkowski several opportunities to comment on this matter and he has yet to respond. Mr. Bialkowski has several options available to him to tell his side of the story: He can call us; he can email us a statement which we will post without editing; he can post his own post; he can make a video and post it to YouTube; or he can leave a comment on this or any other post. The Batavian is an open forum and Mr. Bialkowski has all the freedom in the world to tell his story without editorial interference. The same goes for any other council member who has additional information to share on this or any other matter.

Previously:

• Mallow: Council member who leaked document should resign
• Today's Poll: Should the council member(s) who leaked personnel information from a closed session resign?
• 'Council antics' don't pass 'smell test,' asserts Councilman Cox
• Most council members answer straightforward questions about leak of personnel information
• The power of Grand Juries in New York to investigate government actions
• Fellow council members say Bialkowski brought in complaint letter, threatened to release it

I know there has been a lot of talk about the City of Batavia saving money. Here is an idea that seems to be going around Erie county, lets downsize Council. Batavia seems to have a large council considering the times, maybe eliminating the two "at large"  positions to cut more fat from the city budget might be a good idea. Not sure if it has been looked at, but if we are looking to save money in the city, why not start at the top? Maybe its just me, but wouldnt that be responsible government?

Taxes are going up, and salaries are doing the same for non-union and part-time city employees, as reported by Daily News reporter Joanne Beck.

City Council approved the budget 2009-2010 by a slim 5-4 vote.

Councilmen Tim Buckley, Marianne Clattenburg, Kathy Briggs, Frank Ferrando and Charlie Mallow voted yes for both resolutions. Councilmen Bill Cox, Bob Bialkowski, Sam Barone and Rose Mary Christian voted no to both.

Taxes will be raised by 2.17 percent, with $216,733 coming from the increase. $5,264,769 of the $23.3 million budget will be raised by taxes.

 I fully understand the feelings of the EMTs and no one on Council was happy to have to come to a decision to end county wide ambulance service as of September 1st. There is no question that our city medics have provided and continue to provide a high quality service for all county residents. Although, recently the union has brought forth information from a questionable paid source that they describe as "fact". I want the public to understand that the use of fabricated information, fear tactics and targeting of Council is not going to shake our resolve. Council has taken every imaginable step we could find to make the city based service viable. This financial decision was made based on years of public discussions as well as input, with all the information we required being presented. 

The county has made it clear that they have a process in place to see that the entire county will have ambulance service by September 1st. There is no reason to believe the hysteria being asserted by the union that there will be no one to provide ambulance service after September 1st. Moreover, there have been at least five ambulance providers that have contacted the County or the City that are interested to providing ambulance service to this region.  Should one of these providers be selected they would be responding to ambulance calls from within the City just as they currently do now. 

As directed by Council, I have sent a letter to all county municipalities terminating all our inter-municipal ambulance agreements as of September 1^st. These are the agreements that allowed the city to provide ambulance service county-wide. During the last public meeting of the GAM, Council as a whole publicly informed all the members that the city is not getting back into the business of providing ambulance service. Council has made it clear that we will not under any circumstances "go at it alone" by entering into an agreement with a private provider. The city is just one of many municipalities that is looking to the county to provide a county wide ambulance service and that decision about a provider is one for the county as a whole to make.

Could the city's claims that the ambulance service was losing money and had to be nixed have been a "deceitful attempt" to get rid of some of the city's firefighters? That's the conclusion following an independent audit of the city's finances that allegedly shows that the ambulance has been in the black every year except one for the past five years. The decision to end the city ambulance service as of September 1 was made at a City Council meeting last month. The vote was unanimous.

Greg Ireland, president of the Firefighters Local 896, met with us today outside the city fire hall to talk about that audit.

"It's plain and simple: the numbers don't lie," he said. "Revenues exceeded expenditures, period."

If you visit the new Batavia ambulance Web site you can get a closer look at those numbers. Ireland had the audit put together by Kevin Decker, president of the Albany-based independent firm, Decker Economics. In his report, summarized in a memo that Ireland gave to us today, Decker shows that in the fiscal year 2003-04, the city ambulance fund "recorded an operating surplus (revenues minus expenses) of $529,766." In 2004-05, the fund posted a surplus of $414,006. In 2005-06, the fund posted a surplus of $570,807.

That's the year that things start to change, according to the report.

"To compensate the General fund for resources expended by fire department personnel directly related to ambulance services, the City provided for a transfer from the Ambulance fund to the General fund (of) $921,609."

This shift of expenses from one fund to another—a typical city budget includes several funds, including: general, fire, sewer and water—is known as an interfund transfer, by which expenses or revenues generated within one fund are used to offset those of another.

So, in the following year, 2006-07, Decker's report explains that the ambulance fund posted a deficit of $454,799. That deficit is explained in these terms on the Web site:

"Since people were beginning to question the inter-fund transfers, the city created a better way to hide their ambulance money.  Instead of just picking a number out of the sky, City Hall decided to remove 35% (approximately $1 million) of Firefighter's wages and benefits from the General Fund and put those expenses against the Ambulance Fund.  So without the "transfer", but adding $1 million of "false" expenses, the Ambulance Fund showed a deficit of $454,799."

The interfund transfers continued in 2007-08, but the ambulance fund still posted a surplus of $286,038, according to the report.

The bottom line is that the ambulance service helps subsidize the cost of the City's fire department. In fact, in FY 2007-08, the City's Ambulance fund generated an operating surplus even with a significant portion of fire department wages and salaries included.

If we assume that the level of staffing for fire suppression personnel cannot be reduced any further, eliminating the ambulance service will require the City to come up with other sources of revenue to finance the payroll costs for City firefighters that are currently being subsidized by the Ambulance Fund. This fact has been recognized, and reported to the City, by both the City's auditors and the State Comptroller's Office.

In conclusion:

Absent a complete lack of understanding on the part of City leaders, it would appear that this move to eliminate the ambulance service is a back door and deceitful attempt to reduce the size of the City's firefighting force.

"We want a new vote taken," said Ireland. "We want to educate the public. Then we want a new vote taken."

In a video interview with Ireland taken at the union's informational picket outside City Hall last week, he said that the city rushed the decision to end ambulance service before anyone had a chance to speak out on it.

Ireland said he is open to negotiations with the city. Of course, that would all take place "behind closed doors."

"I'm more than willing to sit down and talk openly with anyone," he said.

On a side note, our appointment this afternoon was to meet with Ireland at the city fire hall on Evans Street. We had to conduct that meeting outside on the sidewalk. Not a bad situation on a nice day like today. But you may ask why. Well, Ireland apologized and explained that the city manager, Jason Molino, called this morning and told him not to meet with the press inside the fire hall. In fact, Ireland's meeting earlier with Dan Fischer of WBTA and Joanne Beck of the Daily News had to be moved to the WBTA studios, he said.

Another Daily News article by Joanne Beck that takes up the issue of the assistant city manager's salary has got tempers flaring on the newspaper's Web site. Beck authored an article a couple weeks back in which she was accused of sexism for questioning why Sally Kuzon is being paid $24,000 more per year than past assistants.

In today's article, Beck writes:

City Councilmen Bob Bialkowski, Bill Cox and Rose Mary Christian say they want answers about how the assistant manager's salary was established. The total of about $84,000 includes a $2,820 car allowance, according to information provided to The Daily News.

There has never been a car allowance for an assistant manager before, Christian said. She questions why there's one for Assistant Manager Sally Kuzon, a Williamsville resident who was granted a residency waiver.

The article, which is interesting and well-written, has already garnered more than a dozen comments (and climbing) on the site.

We have still not received the information we requested from the city two weeks ago, when we filed a Freedom of Information Law request to view the salaries for all city employees for the current year, the project year and the past year. We were informed that it would take until March 30 to compile the information.

Several city leaders are in Albany today, where Council President Charlie Mallow hopes to swing a couple deals for future grants. In an e-mail to local media outlets, Mallow said that he and Councilwoman Marianne Clattenburg "were able to secure private meetings with some very influential people and there are several issues the city is looking to move forward on." As a result, Mallow requested City Manager Jason Molino and Assistant City Manager Sally Kuzon, to join them in the capital for help with "this very important lobbying effort." mallow and Clattenburg have been there since last week.

Tonight's council meeting has subsequently been cancelled.

We sent an e-mail to Mallow this morning to see if he could supply us with any more details about these "private meetings." We also asked why he felt the presence of Molino and Kuzon was required.

His response:

Being successful and keeping the tax rate down requires us to obtain grants.This year city taxpayers were subsidized $580,000 by state grants. in prior years we were only able to secure a small fraction of that money. That is a number that was unthinkable in past years and it comes from a lot of hard work and a professional staff. We have made a conscious effort to go out and get what our city needs instead of relying on that money to come from local taxpayers pockets.

I was able to setup several meetings with key individuals in the governor’s office. I asked Jason how we could use this time and these contacts to our best advantage. Sally and Jason's knowledge on the specifics of our requests are needed on an informational basis to those we are meeting with. The more successful we are in making our case for funding the higher the probability we will be successful with future grant opportunities, that is our ultimate goal and the reason we are here in Albany.

BATAVIA, N.Y. — Three potential ambulance providers are being talked about to replace the city of Batavia ambulance service, which will cease to operate as of September 1, according to the Daily News.

Genesee County Manager Jay Gsell told a group of municipal representatives from across the county last night that Rural Metro Corp., Twin City Ambulance and Monroe Ambulance would "likely" submit proposals to the county to take over service.

Explains Joanne Beck in that article:

Volunteer fire companies would still have a role ... and would be able to respond to emergencies and do some transports unless the provider specifically asks for every transport. UMMC has offered space to house ambulances of the future provider and that provider would set itself up as a business, Gsell said. It would make its money by charging customers for each service call. There isn't to be any type of fee charged to the municipality, he said.

Rural Metro is a nationwide corporation whose stock currently trades at $1.25 per share with a six-month high of $2.50 coming at the end of September. The company operates out of 22 states in the continental U.S.

From the company's Web site:

What began with one man's vision has grown today into a company with approximately $500 million in annual revenues and more than 8,000 employees who provide health and safety services throughout the United States. Annually, Rural/Metro's employees respond to more than 1 million calls for assistance.

Monroe Ambulance is a 34-year-old service that operates out of Rochester. From the mission statement:

Monroe Ambulance provides Advanced Life Support with area volunteer ambulance and fire departments, ensuring that patients who live in outlying areas have access to all of our life saving paramedic services. This includes back-up Advanced Life Support to area volunteer agencies, fire departments, and ambulance corps.

We provide medically supervised transports for patients needing transport with minimal assistance (i.e., patients able to move, sit, and walk on their own with slight assistance, such as those traveling home from same day surgery).

We are seeking information on staffing levels for Monroe.

Twin City Ambulance is based in Erie County and serves the suburban Buffalo area. More than 200 technicians make up its core staff.

Twin City was in the news a few years back over a controversial call not to send an ambulance to assist two policemen who had been shot in Buffalo. Critics claimed the call was a callous rejection. Company representatives said that the call was outside the ambulance crew's service area. That report:

We're seeking further information from Gsell on the logistics of having an outside company take over the ambulance service for the county. We will provide those details as they become available.

A constant chorus of car horns sounded support of the protestors circling the walk out front of City Hall this morning. Some two dozen members of Firefighters Local 896 braved the bitter winds to picket the City Council's recent decision to end its ambulance service by fall.

Some of the signs read: "Think! Where's your ambulance coming from?" and "Chest Pain? How long will you wait?" Such statements punctuated the argument that the gap in service could have quite dire consequences. Union President Greg Ireland spoke of a past incident, before the city had instituted its own ambulance service, when a man in arrest lay in the street with no transport available to get him to a hospital. In another instance, a victim suffering from third-degree burns had to drive himself to the hospital.

The occasion was also used to get out the word on a new Web site the union has launched at www.bataviaambulance.com.

Overall, the mood was civil yet determined as union members stalked the ground with purpose. Ireland stepped aside to speak with the media during the protest. We will post his comments in a video within the hour.

A union of Batavia firefighters will set up outside City Hall "later this morning" to protest the City Council's decision to end the city-supported ambulance service this fall, WBTA's Dan Fischer reports. No time is given for when members of Fire Fighters Local 896 will hold the rally, which is being called an "informational picket."