At the June 17 meeting of the Dunkirk Common Council, City Attorney Elliot Raimondo was quoted in the OBSERVER as saying, “Obviously, this city does not have money for the $13.6 million.” He was referring to the Revenue Anticipation Note (RAN) taken out by the city in 2024 that is due on July 24 of this year. What is troubling about Mr. Raimondo’s statement — that it’s “obvious” the city cannot meet the obligation — is that it conflicts with what he and Mayor Kate Wdowiasz had relayed to me and Assemblyman Andrew Molitor just a couple of weeks earlier, on May 30.

The Dunkirk Fiscal Recovery Act, passed by former Assemblyman Andrew Goodell and me more than a year ago, would have provided more than $18 million to the city, which would have covered the RAN and other obligations. The Act also required oversight and certification of the debt by the State Comptroller’s Office. The city was not able to provide the necessary documentation in order to complete this process. So, Assemblyman Molitor and I decided to move ahead with legislation to create a Financial Control Board that could help meet those requirements and move the city in a positive direction.

In a conference call that I requested to review the bill language for a financial control board, the mayor and Mr. Raimondo told Assemblyman Molitor and me that they were confident the city would complete the needed requirements to issue bonds in time and pay off the RAN. Therefore, they insisted that a control board would not be necessary. They also repeated their previous false claims that the state Comptroller’s Office was to blame for the current city debt not being certified, preventing the issuance of bonds. This claim is untrue and to prove it, I publicly released a letter from the Comptroller’s Office that documented their numerous efforts to obtain the required paperwork from Dunkirk officials, who repeatedly failed to respond.

Shortly after that, we learned that new legislation had been submitted that would provide a high-interest loan to the city. It also contained a provision that $1.5 million in state aid to Dunkirk would be withheld annually to ensure payment of the loan. At no point in our May 30 conversation — or any time after — did the mayor tell us that she was pursuing this loan legislation through the Governor’s office, even though she knew we had submitted legislation to authorize a financial control board. The mayor did not consult with any other local elected officials. In fact, even the Dunkirk Common Council found out about the loan through the media.

I empathize with the mayor that this crisis did not develop on her watch. However, after 18 months in office, she has shown very little willingness to collaborate with me or any other local elected officials. She and her attorney have been dishonest and have deflected blame in order to avoid accountability.

They have thrown out misleading hypothetical situations as a scare tactic to justify their opposition to a financial control board. While the mayor’s attorney claims the choice was “taken away” from the city by the state, the truth appears to be that the mayor requested this bailout loan from the Governor’s office, bypassing the city’s state legislative representatives and letting us continue working on control board legislation she had no intention of supporting.

If the mayor and her attorney had been honest with us on that May 30 conference call, we likely could have worked together to find a compromise solution that included a short-term bridge loan with far better terms as part of the financial oversight legislation. It would have provided short-term relief with long-term accountability and oversight.

The lack of honesty and engagement from the mayor’s office is troubling to me as it should be to every taxpayer and stakeholder in the City of Dunkirk.

So, the question becomes: what can be done to help lift the city out of this crisis? I, along with Assemblyman Molitor and other elected leaders, are willing to work together with the city toward a solution. There is no “magic bullet” to resolve a crisis created by years of mismanagement and neglect. But it does require leadership from the city that is honest, transparent, and collaborative. Unless and until that occurs, the people of the City of Dunkirk are likely to see more pain in the form of higher taxes, reduced services, and missed opportunities.

State Sen George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, represents the 57th district.