Finance panel ditches another meeting

The Dunkirk Common Council's Finance Committee canceled a second straight meeting Monday.

The OBSERVER didn't find out until it went to the committee's Stearns Building conference room Monday morning and found just one other person there, an equally confused city employee.

A look at the city website's government meeting calendar showed that an arbitration session was suddenly scheduled last week at the same time. However, the city employee pointed out that arbitration is supposed to be held at neutral sites. The conference room of a city-owned building could hardly be considered a neutral site.

The employee left to get more information and the OBSERVER contacted Councilman-at-large Nick Weiser, the committee chair, for an explanation.

Weiser confirmed due to the arbitration session, the Finance Committee meeting would have to be rescheduled. Weiser said he thought that either Fiscal Affairs Officer Ellen Luczkowiak or Carol Olivera, Mayor Kate Wdowiasz's secretary, was going to pass that information on to all relevant parties last week. Neither contacted the OBSERVER.

The arbitration session was supposed to start at 9 a.m., the same time as the Finance Committee meeting. However, the room was completely empty when the OBSERVER left at 9:15 a.m.

Weiser promised to personally inform the newspaper when the next Finance Committee meeting will be held.

The committee has not met since July 13. It called off the July 30 meeting because Weiser was out of town on business.

Weiser also offered an explanation for missing the Aug. 3 meeting of the full council. The SUNY Fredonia music professor had a catastrophic car problem while on the road to Kalamazoo, Mich., the previous week for an event. His vehicle was towed 160 miles to Kalamazoo and didn't get cleared until the night of Aug. 3.