The Dunkirk City Charter may see some changes. At the city’s Common Council meeting Tuesday, two new resolutions for law changes were on the docket.

First was one to reintroduce the appointive officer removal section in the charter that allows the Council to remove any mayoral appointed position with a supermajority vote. The current charter entry in the books has been argued recently as not being ratified correctly in 1985, since no public referendum was had at that time. This resolution therefore would begin the process over again.

“I’m against this resolution, like I said before when this came up, for us to get rid of somebody, it’s kind of hard for the mayor to find somebody to come in and do the job and we of course approve of that and six months later, a year later we can get rid of them with very little just cause,” Second Ward Councilman Marty Bamonto said. “I’m totally against that. It’s going to be hard to find somebody to replace these people knowing that they’re coming into that situation.”

Another resolution put forth is one that has really raised some worries in people and that one would amend the mayor’s section of the charter, in particular if he or she is a re-elected individual with a standing cabinet. This law change would make it so that reappointments have to be done every other year when councilmember elections occur. The positions that would have to be reappointed would be the department of public works director, the fiscal affairs officer, the development director, the city attorney, the city clerk and the human resources director. Each of these positions would have to be detailed out with hours and detailed compensation packages and each individual would be subject to council approval.

The goal, according to the resolution, is to “rebalance power between the legislative branch and the executive branch, as the city has favored a strong mayor form of government since its full revision in 1977.

“We’re going to have new Council coming in every two years and whoever is doing the job in the mayor’s cabinet, they don’t like them for some such reason or not they can get rid of them,” Bamonto stated. “I think this is totally wrong, we’re going down the wrong path, it’s going to hurt how the city runs on a day-to-day basis.”

Both resolutions were met with a 4-1 vote to table them until the following council meeting to allow for public hearings.

“What I believe they are in the beginning stages of doing is changing the form of government we have in the city, we have a strong mayor form of government and this form of government, in my opinion, is best for the city,” Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas told the OBSERVER after the meeting. “This change will require a mandated referendum and the people will ultimately get to choose what form of government they would like. I don’t think that it’s in the city’s best interest to change the kind of government we have, I think they (the council) have their own personal reasons for doing that and it’s not in the city’s best interest to move forward in that direction.”

When asked about if the charter talks were stalling momentum in the city, Rosas replied, “I think that they’re doing that because they put the city in a libel position by terminating two people without cause using this clause that’s in the charter after being informed that this clause has been improperly put into the charter. So that’s what I believe the hold-up may be. Again, I don’t know, only they know. It’s too bad that it’s come down to this, the city has had much momentum, as mayor I did a term of four years, in these four years we have had millions of dollars of updated equipment being brought in, we have increased our fund balance by almost $1.5 million in that same four year period and we’ve also spent millions of dollars upgrading our city parks, including our city pier and all the while, never had to increase taxes, water rates or sewer fees. That means we’re doing a pretty good job. What they’ve done, is they’ve stopped this momentum, we now focus on changing the charter and the form of government that we have. As opposed to continuing to work in finding more funds to bring into the city because although we’ve done a lot of work, there’s still much work to be done. In my opinion this is not in the city’s best interest. Good things are happening if they just pay attention and become part of it I think the city would be better off.”

Planning and Development Director Rebecca Wurster felt deeply that this advance on appointed officers would hurt the city and the appointed individuals immensely.

“If these resolutions pass, good luck with hiring any professional that wants to take on this appointed position,” Wurster commented. “This is job security for people like us and I take this very personal and I really want to speak on behalf of the appointed positions because if the mayor had offered me this appointed position and this resolution was in, knowing that the council could get rid of me at any point. I probably wouldn’t have taken this position and I wouldn’t be here right now. So the community and the council needs to rethink this.”

“There’s no job security there, this is unprecedented anywhere I’ve heard of before in city or village government, where the council can, with no just cause, just excuse people,” Bamonto added. “I don’t think that’s right, I don’t think that’s a good road to go down with the city of Dunkirk. We have to get qualified people here and we get qualified people in and they’re gone in six to eight months isn’t really the greatest job security. So I think that’s going in the wrong direction and I think that’s going to affect the day-to-day operations of the city.”

The next Common Council meeting will be held, Monday, March 16 at 5:30 p.m. with public hearings starting at 5:20 p.m.