Apparent blow-up between Corfu mayor and employees has village administration in jeopardy

The big worry on the minds of a lot of people on Corfu tonight is, will their village office open in the morning?

An employment dispute between the mayor and the village clerk/treasurer and her assistant blew up this afternoon and depending on who you believe, the two employees were either fired or walked out.

Mayor Rosie Peterson would prefer to call the incident a misunderstanding, but people who say they were witnesses to whatever happened claim Peterson fired Sandra Thomas and Denise Beal.

What is certain by all accounts is that Thomas and Beal cleaned out their desks and turned in their keys this afternoon.

The event led Peterson to call an emergency meeting of the village board to try and figure out what to do.

Without a clerk and a treasurer, the village has no way to pay bills, issue paychecks, collect bill payments or deal with residents issues.

Three trustees and Peterson met at 7:30 p.m. and immediately went into closed session.

An hour later they emerged and Peterson said, "The result of our executive session is that we agree there was a misunderstanding today and as a board we reconciled the situation and we would like the office personnel to return to work."

Trustee Art Ianni said the board agreed that Thomas and Beal can come back to work, knowing that they will have jobs through the remainder of Peterson's term as mayor.

When asked if Thomas and Beal had agreed to stay on, Ianni said they had no choice under civil service law.

When a citizen pointed out that if they were fired, any such law wouldn't apply, Ianni said it was his understanding that they weren't fired and that it was just a "misunderstanding."

Trustee Ken Lauer said he attempted to contact Thomas and Beal during the closed session, but couldn't reach them.

So the board really doesn't know if Thomas and Beal will come back to work in the morning.

Former Trustee Al Graham said he witnesses the exchange between Peterson and the employees.

He said Peterson arrived at the village hall and asked both women to go into the conference room with him. When he attempted to close the door, Beal wouldn't let him, Graham said.

When Peterson asked why, Beal said, "I don't trust you."

Peterson then said, "Well, you might as well know, I am not going to reappoint you."

Under village law in New York, the mayor must reappoint certain key positions each year.

Beal asked, "are we being fired?" and according to Graham, Peterson said, "yes."

Thomas and Beal then began packing up their stuff and Peterson, he said, "started to back track," telling them they weren't fired and that they needed to say on the job.

About two dozen residents attended the emergency meeting and all of them seemed upset with Peterson.

Several citizens demanded that Peterson better explain his actions, but he said he had and that as he said, the whole affair was just a misunderstanding.

Peterson is only a few weeks into his new job as mayor after narrowly beating former mayor Todd Skeet in the last village election.

Lauer said his understanding of what happened was much like Graham explained, but he also knows that Peterson explained it as a misunderstanding.

"Rosie is definitely learning and moving along," Lauer said. "It's not an easy process and unfortunately, it plays havoc with people's lives.

"The thing is," he added, "we need to play together better. We have to learn to get along better and we're going to do that."