Baldwinsville — I reside in the Town of Lysander, but this is an issue in Van Buren also. Our town governments are looking into appointing certain elected positions in our towns. This will come to a public vote for both towns probably this fall, and I have reservations about appointing these positions. I am not affiliated with any political party.
I can only speak for my dealings with the Lysander Town Board, but I do not trust our town board to appoint the "most qualified" person for the position, if either town clerk or town highway super becomes an appointed position. Three people that ran together last year have the controlling majority on our town board, and those three people have voted together all year. Given that track record, I expect more of the same. They voted to add two members to the planning board two weeks into office, immediately after a public hearing where a majority were against it. They also appointed a person to the town board that they bought signs from for their election. They met with many people so they could "hit the ground running" between their election win in November and Dec. 31, in my opinion, to get around open meetings laws. John Salisbury appointed Art Levy Deputy Town Supervisor in January as a sign of bipartisanship, only to remove him a mere six months later and replace him with Melinda Shimer, part of his JAM team. Their track record shows nothing of appointing the most qualified people to a position. They have control of the board and they want to have more control of all town business.
If the appointment referendum passes, I hope they make the official reside within the town. When someone lives in your town, you feel like they understand your issues. Someone driving in and out of your town every day may be just working for a paycheck. Appointments could also open a "revolving door" of officials. If the board doesn't get along with who they hired, they may just replace them.
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Mixologist 10 months ago
Mr Rode, You said and I quote " Appointments could also open a "revolving door" of officials. If the board doesn't get along with who they hired, they may just replace them." So isn't that like a real job ? You have someone to be accountable to and if your not doing a good job you are removed? This couldn't possibly work. No business I know of would ever think of operating in this manor.
Tell me this, If elected is so all fired up good, What about the past oh lets say, 3 terms, of elected officials in various positions just in our community. How well has that really worked? Would seem to me we need accountability and the ability to remove those not able to do the job when needed and not have to wait for the next election. Running a town is a business and needs to be treated as such. We elect our board and hope we have made the best choice. They run things, Lets stop tying their hands and allow them to do the job we elected them to do. This new board walked into a bees nest in January. They wanted to work with the others. It's the others that are making it EXTRA hard for them to get things done. With the present system we are stuck with the problem makers until their term ends and they can be voted out. That's not good business sense at all. Recipe for failure, and the community is the ultimate loser.
jmsml 10 months ago
With all due respect Mr. Rode, the fact that the "majority" of the people at a Town Board meeting are against any one particular issue is not significant. Since day 1 of the new administration the Lysander Republican Committee has loaded the audience with a bunch of sour grapes losers that would complain NO MATTER WHAT. They complain about the "Open Meetings" law that they ignored when they held the controls, but NOW its criminal. They complain about the "Dog Control" situation, although while they owned the office the incumbent repeatedly failed to live up to his contract. The fact that anyone shows up at all means that they have an issue to moan about, but in fact 99%+ of the voters DO NOT ATTEND, therefore no issue with the current Board.
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