Martin Bamonto, who heads the Finance Committee, voices his disapproval of the Dunkirk Common Council budget changes on Tuesday. Photo from Dunkirk Public Access

Unpolished Third Ward representative James Stoyle typifies a combative faction of Dunkirk’s Common Council that has been apparent during the last three years. Those who make up the current triumvirate quietly scurry about in their elected positions until there is a sense that their vindictive agenda aimed at the mayor is being threatened.

After being an accomplice to an illegal budget session on the morning of Dec. 3 in City Hall, Stoyle acted as though he was being cornered during the regularly scheduled Common Council meeting that took place three days later.

“If you want to make a circus of this, I’ll tell everybody what we talked about,” he said to Mayor Wilfred Rosas in regard to a budget update. “But the last time we did talk about that, we were told to keep it strictly confidential. Mayor, what do you think? Want me to tell them what we talked about?”

Stoyle was apparently referring to an executive session held earlier this fall, but did not elaborate further. As far as his comment about a “circus,” the Republican council changes that were proposed — 67 days after the first proposal was made public — were so haphazardly put together it makes clowns look like masterminds.

Some of the 2023 cuts approved by council members Stoyle, Nancy Nichols and Dave Damico included:

¯ A $30,000 reduction in the annual Fourth of July fireworks. “We did not know that the cost of the fireworks went up,” Nichols admitted during the special session Tuesday.

¯ A $10,900 reduction in salary for a union worker who is under contract, which is illegal.

¯ A $5,000 reduction to $55,000 for the salary of Marsha Beach, fiscal affairs officer.

¯ A line of $45,000 for a part-time city attorney, who has still yet to be named. For the record, the attorney position preceding the outgoing Richard Morrisroe earned $72,000.

Many of these minor changes that equated to measly funds were moved to the contingency line of what remains a hefty $26 million budget for a city of 11,700 residents. In the big picture, the shell-game tactics that did not include council members Natalie Luczkowiak and Martin Bamonto — both Democrats — amount to pennies. The big bucks are in the employee salaries and benefits– and drive the consistent annual increases.

Rosas, in offering his vetoes to their plan, was harsh about the lack of knowledge — and dialogue — by a body that is content at consistently butting heads with the mayor. “The mistakes that (Nichols) said the council has made wouldn’t have been made if there was communication with the other two council members as well as our city attorney, our city treasurer, our fiscal affairs officer and most importantly the mayor of the city of Dunkirk,” Rosas said. “The way that this budget process was handled … this has been the worst. … The communication was zero.”

All was not harmonious in the south county, either. Earlier this week, Jamestown finalized its budget as City Council members unanimously approved overriding vetoes by Mayor Eddie Sundquist. Those items included a $75,000 increase in sales tax revenue, a $6,500 decrease for the Mayor’s Office’s requested travel and education budget, a $5,600 decrease in the requested engineering supplies budget, a $3,000 decrease for the requested Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency budget, and an adjustment of the fund balance allocation for the 2023 city budget.

Unlike Dunkirk, however, there seemed to be respect for both sides during the discussions that have taken place over two months. In addition, while the county’s Queen City was inconsistent at scheduling hearings and informing the public, Jamestown’s process was open and included lots of questioning.

“It was clearly a unanimous decision by this council to pass this ($38 million) budget, including these cuts, because of the inadequacies missing in the budget to make up and make sure that every budget felt a little bit of a pinch, whether it was not adding things that they wanted or keeping things stagnant,” said Finance Committee Chairwoman Kim Ecklund.

Even Sundquist appeared to have respect for the final product. “This budget calls for around $300,000 in fund balance,” he said. “We have a pretty healthy fund balance sitting at, I believe, around $7 million, which is pretty good for the city.”

Overall, however, both entities show no signs of ending economic struggles that have festered for decades. Dunkirk’s recent momentum to build on its waterfront has been torpedoed by a council that has no vision, but is excessively vindictive. Jamestown’s last big celebration was the opening of National Comedy Center that was volunteer-driven while receiving a fair share of assistance from New York state.

Council members absolutely have a responsibility to balance their municipality’s budget, but that cannot be their only job. Getting these two cities back on their feet requires much more from those elected than just settling for and accepting our decaying current realities.

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Happy holidays.

John D’Agostino is the editor of the OBSERVER, The Post-Journal and Times Observer in Warren, Pa. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 716-366-3000, ext. 253.