Town Board Meeting 1/22/24 Summary & Key Takeaways

Town Board Meeting 1/22/24 Summary & Key Takeaways 

Who is the Comptroller?  Uhhhhhhhhh…….

The 4th consecutive standing room only town board meeting was also the most well attended. The YouTube video also has already over 2.1k views. At least two news stations were there, plus reporters and bloggers. Despite all of the eyes watching… Supervisor Brian Kulpa & the town board still could not maintain professionalism as is expected of elected public officials, representatives of the community, faces of the town, and those that signed up for the job. Over and over the public demanded they all resign due to them causing Amherst to be an embarrassment, their unethical & fiscally irresponsible behavior, and their lack of transparency. A huge standing ovation and loud support came behind these demands.

Good Board

·       In the very beginning of the meeting the board members seemed to be presenting themselves professionally. Councilmember Szukala asked two questions to a presentation in the opening public hearing and he also closed his laptop once public expression started.

Bad Board

·       After only the first two public expression speakers, Supervisor Kulpa went back to his disrespectful behavior, expressions of disdain, eye rolling, interruptions, and wiggling around questions to avoid giving transparent answers. The other board members said virtually nothing, adding no value to the community to which they serve and are being paid by. Less answers were given this meeting than the last meeting (1/2) and in a worse/more runaround manner.

·       Solution to fix this to be a Good Board: Please give respect to the residents and it will be given in return (you are the elected officials that signed up for this job and the face of the town), listen to residents & actively consider their concerns and how to come to a solution or compromise, provide thoughtful answers, give clear and easily understandable answers, do not interrupt, respond when asked a valid question, don’t scream and don’t point fingers in scolding fashions, and instead of jumping to ‘rule them out of order’ or telling people ‘thanks, enough, sit down’… work with them and explain the situation honestly and provide a solution and dialogue to move forward. Open, transparent, honest, and meaningful dialogue is needed.

Supervisor Key Moments: Antics continue, less answers given to residents than the 1/2/24 meeting.

Brian Kulpa screamed at the top of his lungs (even louder and more aggressively than his outburst at the 1/2/24 meeting) at residents before storming out of the room. This was in the same meeting that the town attorney began by scolding residents on how to behave, but not also publicly acknowledging the same expectations from the board members. It also came after Kulpa preached to residents to be cautious about saying that he or boardmembers are unethical. Kulpa is out of control and clearly not fit for the job.

Councilmember Key Moments: Why is only Brian Kulpa talking?

Jacqui Berger once again told councilmembers what to do, telling them to rule people out of order (to which Kulpa obeyed), grabbed arms, held her hand in front of Kulpa to tell him not to speak, and talked down to residents saying they have been driving under new ($51 million) LED streetlights. Berger still couldn’t answer questions about the LED project she claims to have led since 2018 and had no idea what neighborhoods/districts in the town the contracts were working on or the schedule.

Michael Szukala said nothing besides speaking a total of 17 seconds in the 3.5hour meeting, and remained stiff as a rock when asked to apologize for telling residents that their beliefs are irrelevant (twice), but his are. I guess he stands by that statement. Szukala also works in finance for the county as his full-time job and is the ethics board liaison, yet didn’t help answer any questions regarding the ethics board or comptroller/finances.

Shawn Lavin also said nothing besides after Kulpa left the room, Lavin then spoke up to tell a resident to sit down, a warning, and then to tell the police to ‘get him [resident] out of here’. His laptop remained open all 3.5hrs and looked to be nothing more than a stage prop to act as a barrier between residents. So much for Mr. “Transparency”.

Angela Marinucci said not one single word. So much for working with residents. Sad.

Who is the comptroller?

No one was able to answer the question “who is the town comptroller?”. Not one of 5 elected officials. One 6 year supervisor, two 6 year councilmembers, two recently elected members, even the clerks or the attorneys couldn’t help. Lavin didn’t even use his laptop and google it. And the department heads, ie: comptroller, weren’t there. This should be an eye opener to every resident in the town the next time they hear the Supervisor act confident in the financial decisions/state of the town. How can anyone trust what they say or claim to know now? They have been heavily under the eyes of the public for the last three months about financial actions and they couldn’t even name the comptroller. Answer: Daryl Bramer.

Solar “Farm”

The opening presentation for public hearing was regarding a Solar “Farm” to plug into the electric grid. The presenters seemed to feel confident and like this would be a slam dunk win – after all, for 6 years the board has not really challenged similar projects too much nor had residents been there to ask questions in times past. The public started asking relevant and valid questions, which residents should do so for all public hearings moving forward. Residents asked to hear more about the project, details, who will maintain the solar panels, how long will it be there, costs, size, drainage issues for flooding, who will take care of the sheep, who will clean up after the sheep, etc. The presenters started talking in circles regarding the drainage study and said they never had the question about the sheep clean up come up. The telling thing was that the board hadn’t asked or seemingly thought of most of these questions before residents had to do so themselves. This is why it is so important to increase public awareness for public hearings and meetings, beyond a legal public notice behind the paywall of the Amherst Bee or on difficult to find ‘track us’ Amherst website (which you have to seek out rather than it seeks out the public). After all, Kulpa’s Facebook page posts 47+ weather related updates since the last meeting, but nothing calling attention to the budget, meetings, or hearings.

Reassessments – Commercial vs Residential?

Attorney Jeff Palumbo said that “Office buildings (Commercial real estate) have been in a rough term for the last couple of years and they are not going to get better in the next few years”. Why is this of importance? Supervisor Kulpa keeps saying that he needs to do a reassessment of properties to make the commercial sector pay more to help offset the residential sector that has been and continues to pick up a huge portion of the tax bill. However, how will that happen if the commercial (office buildings are less valuable now after COVID than before, due to work from home options and remote hiring practices) real estate market value has been and is projected to continue to decline. This was stated from a long term, well-practiced attorney, specializing in this field. So, it begs the question… how does Kulpa’s excuse for the 11.4% being a ‘bite bullet’ (as he has said in 2018 and during the other 3 times he overrode the NYS tax levy cap) until the commercial sector is reassessed make sense if that market is declining from the last time it was appraised?

Gleason’s

The Gleason’s vote was once again delayed. Remember earlier meetings, Kulpa teased the audience (that doesn’t want the project to happen in their neighborhood) by saying “you don’t even know how we are going to vote”. This hints that they would vote ‘No’. Residents concerned about that project should come back Feb. 5th to continue making their voices heard before the board votes.

Blvd. Mall

A resident mentioned Supervisor Brian Kulpa said to WGRZ that the Blvd. Mall impacted the tax increase. Kulpa confidently said that he never said that to a reporter and that is something he would never say. Here is one article showing WGRZ said Kulpa said exactly that. It also noted Kulpa said the Westwood project is impacting the tax increase. To which Kulpa went on Channel 7 interview that evening said the Westwood project is not impacting the tax increase. Why does this story keep flip flopping? What is the truth?  How can residents trust anything Kulpa says when simple explanations for what caused the tax increase keep changing?

Conclusion

This board is an embarrassment to the Town of Amherst. Councils across the county are talking about ‘what the heck is going on with that board?’. Other towns like residents in Lancaster and Tonawanda are commenting on the absurd nature of how the board is handling (or not handling) the situation.

The town board needs to realize three things:

1)     People aren’t going away, in fact more neighbors are coming together.

2)     There are consequences for their actions.

3)     The Westwood project needs to be paused and they need to hold a meeting regarding the project with the community (yes, I know Kulpa says they already held public hearings… well, it’s time to reevaluate and reopen them).

In summary, DING! Your time is up!

Come early to the next town board meeting. Next meeting will be Feb. 5th at 7pm, get there early! Agenda will be posted on the Amherst Budget Minder Facebook and Website. Expect a Lavin “Transparency” presentation, Gleason’s, and Westwood discussions at a minimum.