Fredonia’s proposed 2024-25 budget contains a plan to shift oversight of village building and code enforcement to the Fredonia Fire Department.

“As far as the building, fire and code enforcement, many communities have those tasks fall under the fire department,” Trustee Jon Espersen said at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting. “When we were at (the recent New York Conference of Mayors), we canvassed 20 mayors or so, and the majority have those duties falling under the fire department, Jamestown has those duties falling under the fire department. We are not reinventing the wheel. It’s a common practice among municipalities.”

Trustee Michelle Twichell was critical of the plan.

“You keep saying you’ve spoken to other people and Jamestown does it, but I haven’t seen any written proof,” she said to Espersen. “To me, I just feel like this isn’t going to save us money, either. What we have right now works, and if we need to make improvements, we can do that by looking for a full time (building, zoning and code) department head. There hasn’t been much discussion on that, it’s just pretty much ‘We’re going to do it this way.'”

She added, “We haven’t even changed the charter yet. We do need a public hearing in order to do that… You can’t just automatically do these things without engaging the public.”

“We aren’t really changing anybody’s role,” said Trustee Nicole Siracuse. “Building inspectors will still be doing building inspections, fire will still be doing fire inspections… And it is looking at saving some money, I think, this year. I believe the (fire) chief (Joshua Myers), in doing both budgets, slated about a $10,000 savings this year and more potential for revenue over the next fiscal year, as well as more savings after this fiscal year.”

Trustee Twichell’s husband, Mark, also criticized the plan during the public comments portion earlier in the meeting.

“There has been no public engagement so far, other than the budget hearing, to know how many people in Fredonia actually want the fire department to be responsible for examining their homes and their businesses,” he said. “I understand the fire inspection is kind of a separate issue, I don’t have a problem with that…but now you’re actually asking fire department personnel to sit in at zoning and planning board meetings and help the zoning and planning boards do their job. I don’t think they quite have the background for that.

“I really am critical of the approach here, which is to make changes and then later go back and follow the law,” he concluded.