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FREDONIA – Fredonia Mayor Michael Ferguson was advised last week to "say less" about the situation involving a Route 60 motel that used to house homeless people.
He was not interested in following that advice the previous night.
Ferguson offered another defense of his actions on the former Econo Lodge, which lost that chain's designation and then shut for months. It's now reopening as an America's Best Value Inn.
The mayor successfully pushed for removal of homeless people placed there by Chautauqua County. However, he said at last week's village Board of Trustees meeting, "I didn't take lightly to online headlines that 'Ferguson does not want homeless people in hotels.' That was never said."
Ferguson explained he asked for a recent OBSERVER interview on the issue to get his side of the story out. The mayor said in that interview he didn't like the fact that released prisoners were staying at a motel where the county was also housing vulnerable citizens.
“The county was sending people there from court, the state was sending people there from the court. What’s going on in this building? Where is the delineation? You have former pedophiles and rapists in a building with women and children,” he said. "If you knew all of the things that were going on at the Econo Lodge, you will fully understand why I didn't want that program to be put back in place," Ferguson said during the most recent Village Board meeting.
He asserted that recently released jail inmates were getting placed there by the "county system."
Fredonia's mayor added the motel received more than 500 police calls and more than 100 ambulance calls in a year. He didn't specify which year. Ferguson said in the previous OBSERVER article the motel had more than 530 police calls in an 18-month period.
"We need to readdress this (homeless placement) program too," he concluded his Monday remarks. "Make sure that people are getting the programs that the taxpayers are paying for to help people with rehabilitation, to find clothing, homes, places to go, (and) safely -- without fear of living next to someone that is going to do someone harm."
Dunkirk Hospitality, the outfit that owns the motel, is threatening legal action over Ferguson's moves to get people out of the structure. Its attorney, Richard Morrisroe, criticized Ferguson in a Tuesday press release.
Morrisroe's closing statement was, "The mayor has every right to speak. That right protects his freedom to talk, not the wisdom of what he says. His words and inattention to due process will keep this village in court. As I said in April, sometimes, say less.”
Dunkirk Hospitality has filed a Notice of Claim that it intends to pursue a lawsuit over the situation.
The notice alleges the village ordered every occupant out on April 27, days after inspections, without notice or a hearing, then rescinded the order June 16 after the hotel won a temporary restraining order. It alleges the village’s own inspector found no violations on Sept. 9, and on Sept. 21 the village certified the hotel’s roof replacement as substantially compliant.
“The same village that called the roof ‘collapsing’ in April certified the replacement work in September,” Morrisroe said Tuesday. “The notice demands the village’s proof.”
The notice alleges a pretext: the village used the closure to remove county placements and keep them out.
“By his own account, the mayor ‘worked hard to get’ that programming removed and expressed ‘strong resistance’ to its return, even as he acknowledges cold weather means people will need emergency housing,” Morrisroe said. “My client did not create the nuisance issues he raises. A hotel is not responsible for policing the nuisance or alleged criminal behavior of guests placed by Chautauqua County DSS, just as a landlord is not responsible for policing its tenants.”
Morrisroe added, “Dunkirk Hospitality, LLC and its members have worked, invested and lived in this community since 2006, and pay over $102,000 in annual property taxes. The village’s negligent actions pushed taxes that were current before the shutdown into arrears and cost many employees their jobs. It chose to mitigate its losses by opening as a hotel again to serve travelers rather than shutting its doors.”