Dunkirk’s voters will get to decide in November if the city should abolish its elected treasurer position.

The Common Council voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a local law that enables the referendum on Election Day.

According to the law, the treasurer’s duties would go to the city Fiscal Affairs Office if Dunkirk’s “yes” votes carry the day. However, “That is an open ended question for the council to decide where those duties go for that office,” said City Attorney Elliot Raimondo.

“You could still have a treasurer, the way the law is written — it would just abolish the elected nature of the treasurer position,” he added.

Council held a required public hearing on the law Wednesday prior to approving it. Several speakers criticized the law.

“It should be civil service or nothing, and not a mayoral appointment,” said Tom Mleczko, the former city assessor. “You’re looking for more trouble when you get another appointed person in there.”

Rosalee Owen said the city charter has worked well and offers avenues to address malfeasance in the Treasurer’s Office — but “no malfeasance has been divulged.” (The office is currently under investigation for alleged recordkeeping improprieties, though there have been no updates on the inquiry for a few weeks.)

Owen continued, “Having the police put crime scene tape on the doors of the Treasurer’s Office has done nothing but malign the reputation of those who work there.” She said there would be “no benefit” to moving the treasurer’s duties to the Fiscal Affairs Office.

The best change to Dunkirk’s charter would be to dispense with the mayor and hire a city manager, with the expertise and experience needed to run a city, Owen opined.

Chris Pinkoski, a longtime state Comptroller’s Office employee who was briefly the city’s top fiscal affairs officer, said the law didn’t really explain exactly who would take over the duties of an abolished elected treasurer position.

Like Mleczko, Pinkoski wondered if the position should be a competitive civil service title. “If it’s either appointed or elected, I would say elected until a better option is found,” she concluded.

Dunkirk’s longest-serving councilpersons, James Stoyle and Nancy Nichols, later offered some comments that suggested a general, long-term frustration with City Hall’s financial operations.

“Nobody up here, at least, is accusing (Treasurer Mark) Woods of any malfeasance or wrongdoing,” Stoyle said. “I agree with (Owen) to take it out of the politicians’ hands and get a city manager in here.”

He took a swing at former Mayor Wilfred Rosas: “When I started six years ago, the administration that was in then, had 14 relatives on the payroll. Fourteen!”

Stoyle said the law “is just going to combine it into one department and hopefully when that comes about, we’ll be able to get audits on time. Putting together a budget without an audit in front of you is like a jigsaw picture without seeing a picture of it. We were flying by the seat of our pants.”

Woods, treasurer since the late 1990s, reportedly would leave office anyway when his term expires and Stoyle light-heartedly quipped to him, “You’re not running. You’ve had enough. Thank you for your service.”

Nichols agreed that the city treasurer ought to be a civil service position, and also liked the idea of a city manager.

“I hate to admit it, but council is the last to know anything that is going on internally at all. We did not know the situation, how broke the city was,” she said. “Who is jiggling the figures around so that it looks really good that the budgets are being mapped by the finances — (but) there were no finances to balance the budget, so how can you do it?”

Nichols said of the council, “We’re not in the finance business here. We’re not bankers. We balance our own checkbook, that’s it… We’re supposed to believe that the figures we are getting from the people that are hired to do the work are correct, and it’s not happening.”