The Dunkirk Common Council has apparently returned a city part-time cleaner to the Senior Center, over the objections of Mayor Kate Wdowiasz.

A resolution passed by the council Tuesday mandates that Dunkirk “designate the amount of $9,360 yearly to the Senior Center in order they may find a person to clean their center for 10 hours a week.” The measure also calls for the city to rent out empty office space in the building, and use a portion of the proceeds to pay for the cleaner.

The cleaner was reassigned to properties administered by official city departments in January, as part of the Wdowiasz administration’s fiscal belt-tightening.

The mayor threatened to veto Tuesday’s resolution, stating the city can’t pay for sending the cleaner to the center. However, if council stuck to its 4-1 vote approving the resolution, it could override her veto with a supermajority.

Councilwoman Abigail Zatorski was the lone councilor to vote “no.” She began a short discussion about the resolution by asking the mayor, “Do we have the money to do this?”

“We do not,” Wdowiasz replied.

“I didn’t think so,” said Zatorski.

“I don’t know where this resolution came from,” Wdowiasz said. “I saw it today, and I just want to put it out there that if this resolution does pass, I will be issuing a veto notice by attaching the budget.”

The mayor continued, “There is no money for this — which is why the part time cleaner was stopped from working at the senior center. We do have documentation going back over 30 years where the senior center, at this point and time, should have been self-sufficient to be able to pay for their own cleaner.

“If we find somebody to rent that space out, we can certainly work on terms that would address the cleaning of the space, but at this moment, we do not have the money to hire a cleaner.”

Councilwoman Natalie Luczkowiak responded: “It wasn’t addressed in the budget that it should be eliminated, so there’s no reason why we can’t continue. We’ve been doing it for decades, therefore it’s kind of a binding agreement, unsaid agreement. The baby boomers are the biggest population in the United States and Dunkirk and to take that (cleaner) away from them, I think, is hostile.”

The resolution passed by the council states that “the city has provided this cleaning service for many decades…even though it is not designated literally for the city to clean the center, nonetheless it has. Both parties have consistently acted as if an agreement existed; therefore, an implied contract is recognized.”

Councilwoman Nancy Nichols told the OBSERVER Wednesday that the cleaner would actually only work about six hours a week: two hours each day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Nichols pushed back against Wdowiasz’s stance that the city doesn’t have the money to pay for the cleaner.

“I worked with (Chautauqua County Executive) PJ Wendel to get all the back payments the (county’s) Office for the Aging owed the city for the Senior Center,” Nichols said. That amounted to more than $13,000 — and the county also paid some rent this year, she said.

Therefore, “there is money already there, unless the mayor spent it somewhere else,” Nichols said.

She also alleged Wdowiasz promised the Senior Center’s president that she would help her find a cleaner, but took no further action in doing so.