'Council antics' don't pass 'smell test,' asserts Councilman Cox

Last night I e-mailed a series of questions related to the apparent leak of personnel information from a Batavia City Council closed session to local media. I'll have a separate post on the responses shortly, but Councilman Bill Cox sent along the following statement, which we're posting in full:

"The purpose of the executive session in question was to discuss a personnel matter. The specific subject matter and person it involved should be and remain confidential until such time it is deemed advisable to release a statement. That discussion among council members is still ongoing and a second executive session has to be held to complete it. The employee in question has not even had an opportunity to speak to council. It is inappropriate to have any of this information disseminated when the facts have not been evaluated, discussed in total, or any findings made. It is also unfair to any employee to do so without both sides having a chance to discuss the matter. After that process has been completed then we need legal advice on what gets published.

To provide legal guidance to our council, city management, and the public, I e-mailed a letter to NYCOM, the organization all the cities, towns, and villages belong to for this kind of legal guidance to request what municipal and other NYS laws say about the sharing or disclosing the contents of discussions and documentation at executive sessions. I personally told this to Council President Mallow before the meeting Monday night in hopes of preventing the fiasco that occurred from happening. It obviously had no impact. 

It appears some members of council are overreacting and are on an emotional roller coaster. The tragic thing is they are deflecting (intentionally or unintentionally) the real issue and turned it into a second issue. Without a second executive session a determination cannot be accomplished, the employee cannot have an opportunity to reply, and the complainant cannot have his or her complaint heard by council and taken care of.

The real thing going on right now appears to be a witch hunt by some council members who want to require a litmus test of all council members, then a loyalty test, and finally a lynching. Those same council members are the ones who are not doing their job and they are not living up to their oath of office because they are preventing a city matter from being resolved by refusing to go into executive session. They have blown this situation all out of proportion; they have prevented a resolution to a problem; they are allowing a cloud over someone’s reputation to continue and have turned this into a circus.

I would hope this is not a ploy on some council member’s thoughts who are up for re-election to get their names in the paper in hope of getting votes this November. Our voters are smart people. I hope this fall they remember the antics going on at council by certain members, the unwillingness to act as a council on an important matter, and then vote accordingly. This entire fiasco can’t pass the “smell test”; it stinks of politics by those specific members who continue to stir things up.

If this were a business those council people would be told by senior management to get on with business or else. Council has accomplished some very good things in the past 12 months, we need to continue our work.

I take the council position I was elected to seriously will not participate in any of their childish games, litmus tests, or anything else they are trying to sell to the public. We have a lot of important objectives to work on; we have to start our budget process soon, deal with pending neighborhood proposals from NIC, and also get resolution to this problem so we can all concentrate on what we were elected to do which is better government at lower cost."

Bill Cox
Councilman – First Ward