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DUNKIRK -- Congressman Tom Reed may have been on President Donald Trump's transition team, but he said the two don't agree on everything.
Reed recently questioned implications that he supports deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Office of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program.
"We have bent over backwards to make it clear that we are opposed to those cuts," Reed told a reporter from the Observer newspaper in Dunkirk. "We strongly disagree with the president on those cuts and have repeatedly made public comments to that effect. I issued public statements at town hall meetings that we've had over there in the Western portion of the district (that) we are supportive of those programs ... and if you listen,
"I believe it came up at our Monday press call where folks asked me that question again on tape. I support CDBG and the Great Lakes initiative and we're going to use our position to fight for those (funds)."
The city of Dunkirk's Common Council voted to send letters to several federal representatives, Reed being one, expressing the devastating impact the cuts would mean for the city.
Before that meeting, First Ward Councilman Don Williams said, "The plan is to put pressure (on federal representatives). I know that our U.S. senators from New York both oppose the cuts to either of these programs, so we're really targeting the president and our Congressman Tom Reed to get in line and support our district and help us not have funding taken away. Hopefully they get that."
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has released a wholesale condemnation of Trump's budget cuts and Senator Schumer has released statements on his opposition to CDBG cuts in regard to Syracuse and EPA cuts in talking about Long Island Sound.
Williams said Wednesday he had good news from Reed's office.
"As a councilman of the city of Dunkirk, I was very pleased to get a phone call from Congressman Reed's office … telling me that they supported the resolutions we had yesterday because the Congressman is not in favor of cuts to CDBG funding or Great Lakes funding," he said.
However, Williams wasn't the only on to mention Reed in the discussion.
At the meeting, Don Brisky, a federal political action liaison representing CSEA in Congressional District 23, said, "The Community Development Block Grant is being proposed to be eliminated entirely in 2018 under the Trump plan. We strongly urge the community at large to send letters of support and phone calls to Congressman Tom Reed, whose on the President's transition team and he represents this area."
Local concerns may be understandable when considering Reed has voted in line with Trump's positions a majority of the time, according to statistician Nate Silver's website fivethirtyeight.com. The analytics site predicts that Reed will vote along with Trump's position nearly 95 percent of the time. By comparison, Democratic Senators Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer rate 6.1 and 21.2 percent, respectively, for their past votes.
While there are media records that show Reed has supported both programs in the past, his claim that there have been public statements recently prove harder to find. A check of his press releases sent to area media between Jan. 1 and Wednesday reveal none that mention the Great Lakes or CDBG.
References to Reed's support of CDBG was mentioned in an article in The Post-Journal about the city of Jamestown's support, titled "Teresi Speaks Out Against Proposed Cut In CDBG Funding" from March 22. The only quote Reed made to The Post-Journal on the GLRI was in a March 24 article.
He said: "If we continue to ignore our $21 trillion debt, we are forcing our children to shoulder that burden which is unfair and unacceptable. I am confident that as we move through the legislative process, we will find consensus and look forward to working with the president."
Other brief mentions of Reed's concerns with block grant funding cuts have appeared in Central New York papers, the Elmira Star Gazette and Finger Lakes Daily News, over the past two weeks.
In Wednesday's phone interview with the Observer, Reed also addressed the request by Third Ward Councilman Adelino Gonzalez for him to appear at a town hall meeting in the city.
"We've had 16 town halls since the election and we've done multiple town hall meetings in Dunkirk previously. So, any insinuation that I won't conduct a town hall in Dunkirk is just completely inaccurate and ridiculous given our historical actions," he said.
"I've appeared there multiple times in person and I have been present right after the election and the town halls that made national news were in the Chautauqua County area. So, for anybody to claim that we don't conduct town halls is just patently misrepresenting what is a demonstrated commitment I've shown. I mean we have done many in Northern Chautauqua, so any insinuation that we won't do a town hall there or haven't done a town hall there is just absurd."
Reed's Communications Director, Samantha Cotten, said Reed's last town hall in Dunkirk was last May, though he visited Chautauqua County last month. She added he plans to visit the region again for a town hall meeting in May.