OBSERVER Photo Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas appeared to have support from Common Council on the day of the State of the City address Jan. 31.

Everyone was seemingly getting along on Jan. 31 in Dunkirk City Hall. Council members Donald Williams Jr., Martin Bamonto, J.J. Stoyle and Nancy Nichols were in attendance and applauding Mayor Wilfred Rosas during his State of the City address.

Rosas, for his part, highlighted a number of initiatives and investments within the past year to help move the municipality forward. He also talked about cutting some expenses while bringing in revenues.

It was a welcome sight — and appeared to signal the end of some significant discord between the two factions. Earlier that month, it was a tad bitter. Council approved the removal of David Campola as human resources director and Vicki Westling as an administrative assistant.

Rosas vetoed the measure to no avail. Council had the final say, overriding the mayor’s wishes by a 5-0 vote on Jan. 21.

Since then, meetings have appeared to be a bit tamer. No one has lost a job while the council and Rosas appeared to be moving in a better direction.

Then came a Personnel Committee meeting last month. While the topic of filling open positions was discussed, there is no question who the real target of the gathering was — the Rosas family.

At one point, Councilman At-Large Paul VanDenVouver listed every Rosas family member, with the exception of the mayor, who was on the city payroll last year. All told, the wages for the five family members equaled $107,890. Take out Hector Rosas, a longtime city employee who collected $73,245 in 2019, and that figure drops to $34,645.

Dunkirk’s total operating budget for 2020 is more than $24 million. According to the packet provided to the OBSERVER, city salaries in 2019 totaled more than $11 million. With council cutting out Campola and Westling, that saved a whopping $57,000 for 2020. Add the other Rosas salaries — minus Hector Rosas who is a longtime union employee — and the six positions cost a combined $92,000.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is where council is putting its attention. They are wasting time debating less than $100,000 of your tax money in a $24 million budget.

Is this the type of city government residents deserve? One that is fighting over pennies when there are significant dollars at stake? If so, you can now see why this city has been its own worst enemy during five decades of decline.

By the way, Rosas is not the first — and won’t be the last politician — to participate in a friends and family plan. Our president has relatives working at the White House while previous city mayors have played the same game with very little pushback.

Besides, this $92,000 in salaries is a drop in the bucket compared to the major issues.

In recent weeks, the city has met with the school district to discuss the urgency of job creation for the Athenex plant since the construction phase is winding down. That is one step forward but what else is happening?

¯ There has been not one bit of discussion regarding the massive, empty NRG power plant.

¯ Central Avenue is still desolate. What’s the plan to revive it?

¯ How about the Brooks Memorial Hospital? It’s either moving or closing. What will happen to the mammoth complex?

¯ Dunkirk’s Senior Center is also in flux regarding a possible expansion. Where’s the council chatter on this?

So far, in the first two months with this new council, all these major campaign issues have brought silence. Of course they are all legitimate problems with no easy solution.

The Rosas witch hunt? That provides an easy distraction and appears to rally the community even though it barely moves the needle when looking at total city payroll.

This corner won’t get as personal as VanDenVouver did because almost all the payroll records are online at seethroughny.net but at the top of the 2019 city payroll is an employee who earned more than $143,000. The second highest-paid employee collected $140,000.

By the way, the top 10 city workers made up more than 11 percent of the city payroll — without counting benefits.

On Tuesday, council began taking a closer look at having more control over the mayoral appointees — another non-issue compared to Dunkirk’s current problems. If you want to hear a voice of reason on this topic, consider the city’s development director.

“If these resolutions pass, good luck with hiring any professional that wants to take on this appointed position,” Rebecca Wurster said. “This is job security for people like us and I take this very personally. … 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.”

Wurster has excelled in her position while in Dunkirk, working on more than $100 million in projects and investments tied to this city since September 2016. She is not likely the target of council’s angst, but she understands the ramifications.

Even of more importance is that she is not from here so she does not care about the city’s tradition of petty loyalties and disagreements. Wurster is just making things happen.

At this point, you cannot say the same for Common Council. It appears to be more focused on a war of personalities. Going forward, no one wins — especially Dunkirk’s future — in this battle.

John D’Agostino is the OBSERVER publisher. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 366-3000, ext. 401.