Lawsuit against the Town Of Cheektowaga.

[nogods]

If you were just going to take a guess how much do this issue cost us property owners?

Based on the quotes it sounds like all she got was a reassignment to a lower paying job.

If that is true, then I'm guessing her claim was on the verge of being dismissed and this was a face saving settlement for her.

The settlement occurred just before the court rendered a decision on the town's motion to dismiss. I don't think a defendant has much incentive to settle at that point, because if the court were to deny the motion the defendant is in the same position as before the motion was decided. The plaintiff, however, has everything to lose if the court grants the motion and thus has a lot of incentive to take a salvage settlement if it looks like the court may dismiss.

The only odd thing is the confidentiality - if the town was about to win and got a great settlement (she gets nothing but a lower paying job) it would have wanted the settlement to be public.

Perhaps she insisted it be confidential for her face saving and the town is hoping it becomes public eventually through someone like you filing an foil request.

[dtwarren]

Based on the quotes it sounds like all she got was a reassignment to a lower paying job.

If that is true, then I'm guessing her claim was on the verge of being dismissed and this was a face saving settlement for her.

The settlement occurred just before the court rendered a decision on the town's motion to dismiss. I don't think a defendant has much incentive to settle at that point, because if the court were to deny the motion the defendant is in the same position as before the motion was decided. The plaintiff, however, has everything to lose if the court grants the motion and thus has a lot of incentive to take a salvage settlement if it looks like the court may dismiss.

I did not get the impression that the Town's motion to dismiss was on good footing. In fact it read more like a motion to strike names and events. Based on my reading of the motion to dismiss and the plaintiff's response I believe the motion to dismiss was going to be denied. Whether or not the complaint would of survived a motion for summary judgment I have no idea.

I believe there is more than the job transfer/reinstatement otherwise there is no purpose behind the confidentiality agreement regardless of who wanted it. I would also like to see a copy of the confidentiality agreement and see if it covers more than just the settlement terms.
I believe the Town was motivated to settle at this stage because if the motion to dismiss was denied there would have been depositions surrounding the allegation which may be unfavorable to the town.

[WNYresident]

Unfavorable for us property owners or unfavorable for the people/political party who run our town?

Are all the expenses covered by our town liability insurance? If not can us property owners recover all the cost associated with this from the people who were insubordinate with doing their jobs? IE: the supervisors who may have been ignoring the situation? Or the people who were involved in the situation? If not why not?


Let us say this was brought to various supervisors attention but they ignored the issue. If it wasn't ignored it would have never escalated to the point of a lawsuit.
Us property owners pay for services not for groups of people/political supporters to figure out how to enrich themselves at our expense.

You want to make people strive to be better at their positions you need to hold them accountable for what they do.

So how many people were fired over this issue?

[WNYresident]

You can't FOIL a conclusion, just the facts. Ask for the settlement agreement and copies of all legal bills. That will tell you all you need to know.
A bill from an attorney is not protected by attorney-client privilege so they can't raise that bs.

Could one of our forum lawyers word this request properly for me? I want absolutely no wiggle room.

Or would "We want the settlement agreement and copies of all legal bills." be more than enough?

[nogods]

I want absolutely no wiggle room.

that can't be done.

[WNYresident]

Yes it can.

The property owners are the boss.

Are there lawyers who specialize in FOILs?

[nogods]

Yes it can.

The property owners are the boss.

Are there lawyers who specialize in FOILs?

There are lawyers who have more experience with FOIL cases than other lawyers. Lawyers who represent the media probably have a fair amount of experience with FOIL. But most lawyers have an occasional FOIL request

But no lawyer is going to tell you he or she can write a request that has "no wiggle room."

Because of the confidentiality clause the Town is probably going to say they can't disclose the information. you'll have to appeal to the town clerk, who'll probably also deny the request. Then you'll have to art 78 the town clerk.

(c) The court in such a proceeding may assess, against such agency involved, reasonable attorney's fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred by such person in any case under the provisions of this section in which such person has substantially prevailed, when:

i. the agency had no reasonable basis for denying access; or
ii. the agency failed to respond to a request or appeal within the statutory time.

[WNYresident]

Do you think anyone really cares what was spent on this issue along with other similar issues like this?

[WNYresident]

But no lawyer is going to tell you he or she can write a request that has "no wiggle room."

Because of the confidentiality clause the Town is probably going to say they can't disclose the information. .

What is confidential about the amount of money spent on this issue? I don't care who the people involved were. The town board show already knows who was involved and show have taken appropriate actions so that this BS doesn't happen again.

[nogods]

What is confidential about the amount of money spent on this issue? I don't care who the people involved were. The town board show already knows who was involved and show have taken appropriate actions so that this BS doesn't happen again.

Whoa....how do you know any of what she alleged was true? As I said earlier, the timing and nature of the settlement makes it possible that it was nothing but a face saving settlement for her, and a nuisance settlement for the town.

In any event, it sems more likely than not that anyone who pursues a FOIL to its conclusion will probably get the settlement and attorneys bills. But Article 78's are expensive. That's why even the news media doesn't pursue them.

[Linda_D]

What should the Town have done in this case, Rez, to save the all mighty taxpayers of Cheektowaga money $.10 a piece on their tax bills?

Should they have just fired all the employees she accused without even hearing their sides of the story much less investigating whether or not her claims were true?

[WNYresident]

What should the Town have done in this case, Rez, to save the all mighty taxpayers of Cheektowaga money $.10 a piece on their tax bills?

Should they have just fired all the employees she accused without even hearing their sides of the story much less investigating whether or not her claims were true?

Oh .10 cents on our tax bill?

So you know the total amount that was spent on this issue? How did you get the facts?

[Linda_D]

Oh .10 cents on our tax bill?

So you know the total amount that was spent on this issue? How did you get the facts?

Whether it's $.10 or $10, it's NOT my point. NOT everything can be reduced to a simple question of dollars and cents. For somebody who seems to be pretty smart in some things, you seem to be either very dumb, very naive or very myopic in others.

If you are a business owner and you hire 12 employee, how can you guarantee that all of those employees will behave appropriately every minute of every day that they are on the time clock? How can you guarantee that they won't get into a squabble inside/outside of work and that one of them then accuses all the others of wrong-doing in the work place -- wrong doing that doesn't impact performance or is dishonest, just not very nice?

It's going to cost money to look into the matter. It's going to cost even more money if the accuser doesn't like the results of your in-house investigation which said the complaint was unfounded and decides to file a lawsuit. So, what are you going to do, Rez? Fire all 12? Fire only the 1 who complained? Fire the 11 who were accused? Explain to the complainer that the investigation doesn't support the accusations and hope he/she accepts that?

[WNYresident]

.10 cents on our tax bill. I wonder how Linda knows it was only .10 cents.

Linda? do you know the total amount that was spent on this issue? How did you get that info?


I'm interested in the monetary cost to us property/business owners.

Anyone know the number of tax paying properties in cheektowaga?

I searched "how many taxable properties in cheektowaga ny" and had this come up on google:

http://www.tocny.org/Departments/Assessors.aspx

I wonder if Jeneen knows the number of taxable properties in our town. We can take the amount spent on this and figure out how much it cost each property owner. I found this.


2013 Cheektowaga Final Assessment Roll

ROLL TOTAL ASSESSED ASSESSED TAXABLE TAXABLE TAXABLE TAXABLE STAR
SEC DESCRIPTION PARCELS LAND TOTAL VILLAGE COUNTY TOWN SCHOOL TAXABLE

7 CEILING RAILROADS 17
8 WHOLLY EXEMPT 690
* SUB TOTAL 35,065
** GRAND TOTAL 35,065

So I guess there are 35,065 taxable properties in the town. Correct?

That hovercraft fiasco was about $70,000 right? Including man hours spent of various town employees involved in that purchase, maintenance, training, meetings spent discussing the purchase and finally money spent on auctioning it off at a loss. I still can't believe with 7 people monitoring what goes on in our town (Town Board) we ended up with hovercraft.

Lets say that was another $20,000 spent on labor cost. $90,000K in total.

$90,000 / 35,065 properties = $2.56 each if we base the spending a year at a time.

If I am going to send in $2.56 more on my property tax I would rather see it spent on fixing the holes in my road instead of a hovercraft.

Or I'd rather go to Dairy Queen with a coupon and spend $2.56 on an ice cream instead of a hovercraft. Or lawsuit.

I can't say what should be done with the people involved because I don't have all the actual details of what happened and/or how the situation was handled over time.

Perhaps the root cause of this issue should be given a pink slip. Did the situation escalate to what it did because of the lack of supervision? I don't know.

[WNYresident]

Whether it's $.10 or $10, it's NOT my point. NOT everything can be reduced to a simple question of dollars and cents. For somebody who seems to be pretty smart in some things, you seem to be either very dumb, very naive or very myopic in others.

That is the point. The bottom line. The part that the property owner/tax payer feels for real. Many items can be reduced to a simple question of dollars and cents. Not every possible issue but many.