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City faces grievance on beach cleaning

A grievance over beach cleaning, filed by the union that represents city of Dunkirk employees, is headed to arbitration. However, the Common Council failed a resolution to hire an outside counsel over the matter.

The council voted against, by a 3-2 count, a resolution Tuesday authorizing Buffalo law firm Hurwitz and Fine, P.C., to represent city interests in the arbitration with AFSCME Local 912. The grievance is over the city’s hiring of a private contractor, Pierce Services, to clean up beaches prior to Memorial Day weekend.

Council members Don Williams, Jim Stoyle and Nancy Nichols voted “no” on the measure, while Marty Bamonto and Paul VanDenVouver voted “yes.”

“It should have been handled with our local attorney (City Attorney Richard Morrisroe) first,” Nichols said Wednesday. “We’re always told there’s no money… There’s a way to settle it internally.”

Nichols said that when situations like the city faced with its beaches arise, the council, mayor and employees’ unions should all work together to find a solution internally. If outside personnel are needed for a job, it should get bid out, she said. The beach cleaning in May was not bid out as Mayor Willie Rosas made an executive decision to hire Pierce Services, to quickly ensure that beachgoers would not face unsafe conditions left over from the winter.

“It could have been more tastefully done than it was,” Nichols said of the situation. She added that if Hurwitz and Fine had been hired for the grievance, their services could easily cost the city more money than it would have to pay in any settlement.

The failed resolution to hire Hurwitz and Fine stated, “The parties have reached impasse, because the City maintains it lacks the proper equipment to do the job, and use of County equipment through shared services was not possible at that point in time, due to a back-up of projects because of COVID-19 related shutdowns over the past 18 months.”

The measure went on to note that Morrisroe vetted several law firms “for expertise, price and availability to handle the arbitration.” It also stated that under New York law and the city’s own procurement policy, Dunkirk can hire professional services without a formal bidding process.

Nichols said she expects that with the failure of the resolution, Morrisroe and other city employees will now handle the grievance themselves.

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