Town Board Summary: 12/4/23
12/4/23 - Town Board Meeting: Summary & Key Notes
For over 3 hours, a standing room only of concerned Amherst residents saw Brian Kulpa act like an immature high school teenager with a bad attitude. Kulpa spent the 3 hours looking down, moping & groaning, head-in-his-hands, rolling his eyes, doodling, interrupting senior citizens, giving condescending looks of disinterest, and other gestures of annoyance.
Meanwhile, Kulpa’s sidekick, Jacqualine Berger, had many unsynchronized moments of loud outbursts, with a smirk on her face the entire time, only to try and act like little-miss-goody-two-shoes to help people sign their names on a piece of paper or move a microphone. Newsflash! The residents don’t need her help to sign their names, they need her to do a job and be fiscally responsible.
Shawn Lavin was slouched in his chair, appearing to look like he was on his phone, and that this was just a ‘check-in, check-out’ chore. Deborah Bucki and Michael Szukala had no material impact.
Amherst Central “Park”
Westwood (Amherst Central “Park” or ACP) is currently zoned for ‘recreation & conservation’ use, acceptable for a traditional passive park with active recreational pieces. However, the Town Board wants to build two new 30,000sq/ft buildings, move up to 10 buildings from the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village, pave roads & parking lots, build amphitheaters, and bring livestock to live on this land – all of which are far from a traditional park and much more like a college campus activity center. The Town Board plans to bypass the standard planning/development procedures to run roughshod over the residents to get what they want for their dream of an Amherst Central “Park”. The Town appears to be using ‘Planned Unit Development’ (PUD) in order to need no Planning Board process/approval or have any conversation with residents – an open buffet for the board members’ orders.
A community representative noted that Kulpa said ‘he was not even going to pretend that he shared their (residents/ACP task force) ideas with the architects’.
The Town Board only provides a concept plan of this “park” which dumps all of the buildings, roads, structures, livestock, etc. onto a fragment of the property on the South end along Sheridan Drive. It was made clear, the Town Board is concocting a long-term strategy using PUD as their tool to set-up the property to be a development heavy plot for many years/decades to come and to sell it off for future construction – everything beyond what resembles a park.
Two residents mentioned there being a lack of a cost benefit analysis being done on Amherst Central “Park”. When asked if one had been done for the budgeted $45+ million price of ACP, Kulpa nervously answered, ‘Yes..’, only to then have Town Board members quickly come to his rescue and tell him “don’t answer, don’t answer, don’t answer!”.
See video clip here: https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxUGDoZJOS9XDvF5RQZ6CbsZogQK39BEgy
Taxes
Brian Kulpa and the Town Board blamed everything and everyone for the 11.42% tax increase, except for themselves and their grandiose resume building projects. They could’ve cut budget spending on the Boulevard Mall and Amherst Central Park by $30-$60 million (especially since the public has been clear they are not onboard with these ideas), or phased in projects overtime, or not given Kulpa’s ‘Chief of Staff’ Joe McMahon a raise to $105,523.79 (more than Kulpa himself), etc.
However, it was made clear at the meeting that Kulpa never seriously considered reducing spending on his desires or putting the people’s lives first. This was evident when one woman, nearly in tears, mentioned she may lose her house and need to move out of Amherst due to the huge tax increase. Brian Kulpa, without hesitation, turned all of the attention to himself and went on a personal ‘woah is me’ speech of how he too is struggling and that he was ‘physically sick’ about the tax increase.
This is Brian Kulpa – it’s not about you, it’s all about him.
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Other moments to note:
A gentlemen mentioned that he, a former police detective, and Kulpa were having a conversation about a meeting that was not open to the public to watch or speak being against the law/constitution – to which Brian Kulpa looked him straight in the eyes and said “I can do whatever the hell I want to”.
Brian Kulpa repeatedly in the meeting and in the Amherst Bee says the budget is a tough thing and a chore and very difficult (despite being in the position for nearly 6 years), to which a resident clearly conveyed; if it is so difficult for you and not up your alley, then do us all a favor and resign.
Kulpa also made comment that the tax increase had nothing to do with Amherst Central Park or the Boulevard Mall, despite articles and budget details showing that is exactly a culprit of the tax increase.
