Greetings from Village Hall- I will be discussing the resolutions we passed at our work session tonight but before I do I would like to remind everyone to come to the village meeting next Tuesday, July 8th at 7pm where we will be discussing the contractors registration list where we are forced to use contractors that pay the village $100 to register for the right to work here and cannot use anyone else who is not on the list. If you disagree with this law, as I do, then come down and voice your opinion or forever hold your peace. At our work session one of the resolutions we were faced with was concerning Mr. Brojer, our former Village Administrator, who has taken a new job in Northport as their Village administrator. He leaves a salary in Mastic Beach of $81,000 and goes on to his new job in Northport at $105,000. Congratulations and good luck, however the resolution I was asked to vote on was continuing his employment here as a part time code supervisor. There was no mention of hours or salary in my agenda but at the meeting I found out he will be working 20 hours per week at $30/hour which brings him an additional $31,200/year from us in addition to his Northport salary. He is expected to work, according to the Mayor, two hours per night after he finishes his Northport job which is a two hour commute in traffic and longer in bad weather. His hours start when he gets here which could be anywhere from 7pm on depending on his commute with the balance of the hours made up on the weekend. Now, I have no problem retaining Mr. Brojer on the weekends to do building inspections but I voted against having him as a code supervisor because we do not need someone two hours a night to run code. It is a foolish waste of money especially when we have other qualified applicants who could have done the job in the day but the mayor and other board members disagreed and it was passed. I fail to see how he can do both with the commute he faces but my voice was not heard. Next we have hired a new building inspector who was a distinguished code officer and passed the test to be a building inspector but has had no practical experience in his new field. He is an honest man but in my opinion would have made a better part time inspector. We have so many homes destroyed by sandy that we need someone experienced as well as our new blighted homes list which requires an inspector just to check and approve the homes that I have been out writing up (41 to date). But again my voice was not heard and it passed. Then we hired a new Deputy Clerk. Again, in my agenda paperwork, was no mention of hours or salary or a resume to which I was told, by the Mayor, that I should have gone to the office to look this up. NO! It is the responsibility of the office to provide us with the necessary and COMPLETE information on every resolution so that I can do my fiduciary responsibilities to you, the taxpayer. However, I digress. Mr. Chris Ricciardi is the new deputy Clerk working 20 hours per week at $22 per hour which comes to $22,880/year. He is a fine man and I have no problem with him personally or professionally, however the office of Deputy Clerk is a superfluous position created only to help a clerk who, in my opinion, is no quite suited for the job. If you took the clerks pay of $58,000 and added it to the Deputy Clerks pay you would have $81,000 to offer a more experienced person the position. Throw in another $25,000 and you could find a really competent Clerk/Administrator but again my voice was not heard. I think the high point of the night came when we were asked to approve the previous work session minutes which were not present in front of us nor posted online yet were approved with me voting no (and Maura away in Italy). Again I was told to go to the office to review them. Can you imagine! Total incompetence and a lack of professionalism and I am to blame for wanting to review minutes that should have been at the meeting. Very sad. We did approve the purchase of a tractor with a side-tilt mower and forklift/bucket loader which was much needed for $93,000 which came out of the Chips fund. Thats it for now. See you next week.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 00:46:19 +0000
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