Welcome to the village of Cassadaga where a governmental conflict of interest has been allowed. Last week, Bill Astry was approved as mayor despite warnings that came from Trustee Amanda Kalfas during an April board meeting before former Mayor MaryJo Bauer resigned due to an alleged residency issue.

“Even if MaryJo stepped down,” she said. “the deputy mayor (Astry) cannot be mayor because there would be a conflict of interest.”

That conflict is because the current mayor’s wife serves as village clerk. “It happens a lot in small towns,” Roxanne Astry later noted during that meeting.

Cassadaga, a village of 600 residents, was supposed to have many who were interested in the position of mayor, according to one of the village trustees in a recent letter to the OBSERVER. “There are several people who are willing to step up and take the job as mayor,” Cindy Flaherty wrote June 2. “This is a beautiful, close-knit community. It would be an honor to lead it.”

So where were those “several” others who wanted the job? Realistically, they probably do not exist.