A North Harmony board meeting on a controversial topic in the south county was well attended and had no issues of bad behavior.

It was an unusual police call on Monday, May 11 in Fredonia. Officers were being summoned to Village Hall — the same building where its headquarters are stationed on the lower level.

After the public access cameras at the trustees meeting went dark, there was a definite commotion. Residents who were in attendance at the end were, as Trustee Christine Cruz Keefe noted, in “a scuffle.”

Though no individuals have been publicly identified, police did issue a statement on the incident. “At approximately 7:19 p.m., the Fredonia Police Department responded to a report of a disturbance involving multiple individuals at Village Hall, in the Trustees Room,” the report noted. “Officers conducted interviews with witnesses and individuals involved in the incident. The investigation determined that no punches were thrown; however, physical contact did occur between parties. No injuries were reported.

“All identified victims were advised of their right to pursue harassment charges against the alleged offenders. … No individual has come forward to pursue charges; therefore, the matter remains pending.”

For a municipality, once hailed as Western New York’s best community to live in during the early 2000s by a Buffalo publication, the situation has become ugly. Some in the entity want to blame the trustees and mayor. Others point fingers at the Save Our Reservoir group who continue to speak up during meetings to offer alternatives to the current direction on water being taken by the village.

Let’s just keep it simple. Civic meetings in northern Chautauqua County are starting to become unruly shouting matches. Those who attend want their views heard — and some are demanding that issues be fixed immediately.

These same individuals, including the out-of-town union leaders who spoke at Dunkirk Common Council in April, do not want to consider the decades of destruction that includes a loss of cash flow. This situation happened due to passive leadership and alleged thievery in the city over the last 50 years that put government largesse first and constituents second.

This has placed current elected officials on the defensive — and has others fed up.

Within the last two weeks, village Trustee Jon Espersen resigned in Fredonia. “It’s not just one thing, it’s a culmination of many things,” he said in an interview last week with the OBSERVER’s M.J. Stafford. “The constant negativity – I dreaded going to meetings. I enjoyed the collaboration with the mayor and trustees, but the meetings just got out of control.”

Dunkirk Mayor Kate Wdowiasz seems to always be under fire. None of the previous four city mayors — all men — had to endure the personal attacks she is consistently under. Then again, none of those elected officials had to deal with the millions of dollars in city deficits she inherited in early 2024.

After more than 29 months of sitting through council meetings that have brought plenty of criticism and few accomplishments, Wdowiasz has decided to go a different direction. “I am currently looking at options to exercise my executive powers to call special meetings at least two times a month to actually discuss issues in City Hall, instead of the horse and pony show they keep trying to put on for the public,” the mayor said last week. “But of course I will also make my meetings open to the public and provide an agenda.”

Many tout local control as being important and vital to strong communities. That is certainly not the case in these two struggling entities.

At the moment, both are fairly powerless due to a lack of cash and an ability to keep chaos in full throttle. It is a rude reckoning that is a result of business and population losses as governments never tightened their belts.

Discontent in Arkwright over a highway superintendent position and the town of Portland over a possible data center also has led to heated interactions recently. But it is nothing like the years of volatility seen in the largest north county entities.

Decorum never seems to be an issue in the south county. Jamestown’s council meetings are tame as are those in Lakewood.

Even in North Harmony, where a large crowd gathered over the controversial topic of herbicides being used in Chautauqua Lake, the atmosphere earlier this month was civil. Supervisor Robert Yates probably said it best.

“No one’s going to get everything they want. We never do in life. Life is a compromise. Life is conversation, communication, and that’s what we’re going to try to do, and that’s why we’re here tonight,” he said.

Let that statement be a consistent reminder for those making comments at civic meetings in the north county.

John D’Agostino is editor of The Post-Journal, OBSERVER and Times Observer in Warren, Pa. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 716-487-1111, ext. 253.