Catt. Co.-Oleans tax woes heat up !

[gonerail]

Mayor plans one-on-one talks with aldermen

Olean Times Herald

OLEAN - Mayor David Carucci held a series of closed-door budget meetings with individual council members last week and Monday.

Mayor Carucci said the one-hour meetings were designed to review the 2008-09 budget and gather comments and questions from council members. Mayor Carucci has proposed a $15.3 million budget with a 19.9 percent property tax increase. If the budget were passed without change, the tax rate would raise from $146.34 per $1,000 to $175.59.

The mayor didn't break New York's Open Meetings Law because there were never enough council members in the room with him to vote on the spending plan. If a quorum of the council - four or more members - were present, the meetings would have to be open to the public.

Mayor Carucci said he's trying to avoid the sometimes angry back-and-forth debating of the budget on the floor of the council chamber that marked adoption of this year's spending plan.

But two council members, Finance Committee Chairman Linda Edstrom, R-Ward 4, and former council president Raymond Wangelin, R-Ward 3, told the Times Herald they object to conducting the public's business out of the public's view.

Mr. Wangelin said if the meetings are an attempt to silence opposition to the budget or to hide opposition to the budget from the public, they won't work.

"They're not going to shut me up," Mr. Wangelin said. "It's the people's budget, you know? Why shouldn't they know what's going on? These issues can be debated in public."

Mr. Wangelin said a memo from the mayor urged council members to e-mail criticism of the budget to the city auditor.

During the meetings, Mayor Carucci, City Auditor Janet Jones and Public Works Director Tom Windus met with council members.

The mayor also said if job cuts are mentioned during a public council meeting, he's going to call for a closed-door executive session. He said he won't allow job cuts to be debated on the floor of the council as they were last year. City employees thought they were out of a job one day only the learn they would keep their jobs the next.

"It's not going to go, 'you're in, you're out' and then the next day I've got women in my office crying," Mayor Carucci said.

Common Council President Richard Smith, R-Ward 6, said he found his meeting with the mayor, Ms. Jones and Mr. Windus beneficial.

"The reason I liked it is you could go in there and ask a question and actually get an answer without someone shouting over you," he said.

"The reason I liked it is you could go in there and ask a question and actually get an answer without someone shouting over you," he said.

By law, the council has to vote in a public session to adopt the budget. Mr. Smith said the public will have a chance to comment on the spending plan before it is adopted.

"We're going to have a public hearing. The public is going to have a say," he said.

Ms. Edstrom said she objected to the meetings when she learned of them.

"I said I was not happy with it because this needs to be done in public," she said. But she attended her one-hour session with the mayor.

Mr. Wangelin said he believes the private meetings are being held so the mayor and city officials can sell the budget to council members.

"It looks to me like he got them in there three on one and tried to get them to agree with him," he said of Mayor Carucci. "I think they're doing the one-on-one mainly for the new aldermen to try and convince them this is the only way we can do this."

Mayor Carucci said the new policy is only designed to sound out the aldermen on the budget and find out what their concerns are.

"Every single alderman has an agenda," he said. "This way I know where the aldermen stand on the budget and they know where I stand."

Mayor Carucci predicted the 19.9 percent tax hike will be reduced through negotiation with council members. Both Mr. Smith and Mr. Wangelin said they'd like to see a number around 10 percent. Mr. Smith said he believes the number can be brought down between 10 and 13 percent without affecting city services.

The council has until April 15 to vote on a new budget.

[gonerail]

Does what we pay come close to other areas or are we getting a good deal ?? Just curious.

[Linda_D]

Jamestown's city tax rate went down a few cents per thousand this year, but we're on full market value assessment so I don't know how that matches up with Olean. $146+ per $1,000 sounds awfully high to be FMV ... a house assessed at $50,000 FMV would have a city tax of $7300+ in addition to school and county taxes ... so I think that Olean must still be using partial value assessment.

A 19% increase is still a lot no matter what assessment type is used.