Bill Cox

Message from Councilman Bill Cox:

Residents and friends of the First Ward,

I would like to personally thank everyone for the support and friendship which you have given to me during the past four years as your councilman.

It was an honor and genuine pleasure to represent and assist you.

It was my sincere desire to continue to represent you. You made your decision on your next representative and I respect it. I called Kris Doeringer to offer my congratulations and to offer my support for a smooth transition. I also offered my support to him during his term if he would like to contact me for any reason. I am sure he will do an outstanding job of representing you.

We have a great city and a great ward. I wish each and everyone of you the very best in every way.

Bill Cox
Councilman – First Ward

Batavia City Councilman Bill Cox is planning to bolt from the GOP and join the Conservative Party, WBTA reports this afternoon.

Cox reportedly sent a letter to GOP City Chairman Joe Gerace on Friday and said the local Republicans have no platform and do not stand for anything.

WBTA reports that Cox said he believes the direction of the United States needs to be changed, and that change begins at the local level.

The local GOP is "not doing anything significant to help turn things around," Cox reportedly wrote.

Cox has been a Republican for 47 years.

UPDATE 1:48 p.m.: The Batavian has obtained a copy of the letter.

In it, Cox writes:

Our country is in a mess. The majority party in control of Congress has violated our Constitution and individual rights repeatedly; they make up any rule they want to push through legislation; they make unethical and punitive back room deals; they are bankrupting the country with massive spending, and they refuse to listen to the people.

He says he has already submitted the paperwork to change parties, and adds, "The conservative Party has been at the fore front of trying to counter this along with the Tea Party movement. We need to change things now."

He vows to continue to support Republican causes and candidates who stand for conservative principles.

It's pretty unusual in Batavia, according to WBTA's Dan Fischer, for local politicians to buy media time and space for "issue advertising," but such advocacy is common in other media markets.

Fischer, who has a long history in WNY media said, "Public employee labor unions have often used paid ads to pressure elected officials to adopt their position on issues."

Ward 1 Councilman Bill Cox's purchase of air time on WBTA and a first-ever center-column fixed-position daily ad on The Batavian has certainly gotten a lot of people talking.

Some applaud Cox for standing up for his ward, others find it unorthodox and suspect that a small group of "well-heeled" residents are pushing him on the issue.

Cox says he's just doing what he thinks is right for his constituents.

"The people I represent expect me to lead the way when they have a serious problem," Cox said.

While Cox is pushing opposition to a possible athletic field expansion in open space owned by Batavia City Schools, he said that wasn't the impetus for his advocacy ads. He advertized to get people's attention so more would show up at the 7 o'clock meeting tonight when the school district unveils additional details of its North Street Extension plan.

Council President Charlie Mallow:

Whether I would agree or not with the position, I have to applaud the determination. Council people should act as neighborhood organizers and that is exactly what Bill is doing in this case. He is fighting for what he believes is in the best interests of his neighbors and it should be applauded. This isn't an election year for Bill, if he chooses to run again it won't be for two years. So, this is far from a political stunt. This is the person I knew Bill was when I supported him for his run for Council.  

Others haven't been so kind. While we have no on-the-record comments, some people do see his advocacy on this single issue as a little unorthodox.

But for Cox, he said his neighbors and the people of his ward are greatly concerned about an upheaval in their neighborhood, including more traffic, noise, higher taxes, greater parking problems and garbage in the streets.

"They are up in arms and I'm their representative," Cox said. "I'm doing my best to protect their well being."

As for the scuttlebutt that this issue is being driven by "10 well-heeled residents," as I've heard a few times over the past week, Cox said the facts speak for themselves. Tonight he will present a petition signed by more than a 150 local residents living on 10 different blocks who all oppose the new fields. He said the petitions will be made available to any media outlet that wants to verify the authenticity of the signatures.

"If they're well-heeled and so concerned, nobody has donated a dime to help me," Cox said. "The well-heeled are usually people who donate money for their own causes. That hasn't happened here."

After the interview, Cox e-mailed the following additional statement:

A community is not houses on streets. It is the people in them. What effects some of us effects all of us.
 
The school district charges huge amounts of taxes and then historically ignores local issues like this one.
 
They appear immune to serious self examination of if they should do something. They look for free grant money and ignore the costs that occur later and the wishes of the people most of the time.
 
It is difficult to do anything by yourself when the school district does something that you feel is wrong. This effort is about a grass roots movement to stop unnecessary spending that will increase our taxes, lower our property values, and change the very character of a wonderful neighborhood. 

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

Council members Bill Cox and Rosemary Christian tell Joanne Beck they're representing the concerns of their constituents in raising a long-list of questions about the proposed Masse Gateway Project.

A hearing on the project -- a prerequisite to the city apply for a state grant to help fund development -- is scheduled for tomorrow at 5 p.m.

Both Christian and Cox recently sent a list of questions to City Manager Jason Molino to get answers about the project. In his letter to Molino, Cox said that "private contractors and developers in the city have also raised the concern that often with Genesee County Economic Development Center projects no competitive bidding is done and local contractors frequently do not even get invited to bid, which would create local jobs using local people," he said. "Collectively all of these citizens and local businesses have raised some valid points which need some answers and explanations before we vote on the application and hopefully before the public hearing."

Neither councilman has anything against the principal Masse Place property owner, Tom Mancuso or Mancuso Business Development, they said. But both have gotten calls from residents and are trying to represent those concerns

The list of questions, which Beck includes, should serve as good fodder for the hearing tomorrow night. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: This afternoon I e-mailed City Council President Charlie Mallow for his comments on the Daily article and here is his response:

Questions are always good if your goal is to help move the city forward and avoid mistakes. That is a Council person’s job.

In the end our residents need real jobs and a turnaround in our local business climate. It is easy to oppose solution after solution; it is very hard to create alternatives. Batavia is stagnant because of the failure to reignite our central corridor and years of ineffective political leadership on this issue. There is this idea that doing nothing is seen as a better alternative than taking any action. Real leaders take point; they don’t throw rocks from the rear.  

The Saturday/Sunday edition of the Daily News contains a rather odd, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi fantasy narrative by Scott DeSmit in which he puts himself in a benighted Batavia. How far hence, we are not told.

A man is peering out from behind his door. I see the glistening barrel of his gun and I keep walking, keeping tight to what is left of the sidewalk.

A newspaper. Almost intact.

I reach down and scoop it up. A rat skitters away.

"Last of City Council Disbands" the headline reads.

Ahhh. I remember that. Three of them, as I recall. Mallow, Bialkowski and Cox.

Ahhh. So lurking within the vitriol and sniping that is what passes for dialogue between these three men is a Batavia of buckled sidewalks, parks gone to seed, creek water that will melt skin and a Sheriff who has barricaded the city's borders.

A little over the top, don't you think, Scott?

While the animosity and bitter words over what amount to rather trivial issues (when compared to the big question of the final resolution of the mall) might impede progress. It's takes a pretty active imagination -- which Scott clearly has -- to expect their bickering to lead to walled off Batavia.

That said, point taken, Scott -- and one we don't disagree with: These men need to stop arguing and get down to business. The mall has got to go, and they should busy themselves generating a plan and public support to make it happen.

Over the past few months, I have seen the actions that this Council has taken, and unfortunately, that some council members have tried to overturn, the actions being consolidation and its relation to Batavia's long term fiscal health, the preserving of our great cultural heritage and who an increased tax burden would hurt the most. Unfortunately, Bill Cox, Bob Bialkowski and Sam Barone have been obstructionists to the general progress that this Council is trying to create Batavia.

Firstly, I am a very proud Batavian, I have lived here for almost 20 years now, which is almost my entire life. I have been blessed to live in this area, an area rich with educational opportunities due to excellent schools, great youth programs and, most importantly, people of compassion and responsibility, thats what I believe Batavia's greatest asset is, its people. However, I believe that all of that has come under attack by an overriding objection to change, this objection being irrational and irresponsible at its core, the change being consolidation. Although it is true I was originally opposed to consolidation, I believe that Batavia would not be able to survive if we didn't make large scale to changes to the way that we operate our government, unfortunately that meant making tough choices. Those tough choices lead to the accepting of a grant that would consolidate our dispatch services. I still don't believe in a perfect world that we would have to consolidate those services, however, the very fabric of our fiscal health and the maintenance of our cultural heritage was at risk. So we did what needed to be done in order to make sure that we can continue to operate in the short term and not have a large amount of debt in the long term.

On the same note, the council worked hard to make other tough budgetary decisions this year, these decisions reduced an increase in the tax levy from roughly 24 percent to roughly 8 percent. Those may be just numbers to some, to others its the difference between paying for their medicine or for their groceries. In the end, its the struggling middle and lower-middle class that ends up stomaching such a large tax burden. In the long run, the consolation is the difference between having years of saddled debt upon the City for future generations or having a fiscally clear future.

Unfortunately, some, such as Mr. Barone, Mr. Cox and Mr. Bialkowski have taken it upon themselves to reverse those decisions to create a culture of political mudslinging to overtake council, as was seen tonight by the attempt to remove the City Attorney from proceedings of meetings (which costs roughly 1600 dollars per year), it has also been seen by the attempts to cut out small and already agreed upon expenditures, such as the cutting out of 500 dollars in order to cancel parades and other events. It appears that it is the goal of certain councilmen to simply grandstand and make a large issue out of very small expenditures for their own political benefit, instead of working hard to make the lives of Batavians better and preserve our great cultural heritage.

My question to Mr. Cox, Mr. Bialkowski and Mr. Barone is simple, what offends you about us?

Why do you, Mr. Cox, Mr. Bialkowski and Mr. Barone find working people so offensive? As to not leave us, the middle and lower class, a bit of relief on our tax or rent bill in the short run and fiscal health in the long run.

Why do you, Mr. Cox, Mr. Bialkowski and Mr. Barone find young people so offensive? As to not leave us a city that is in good fiscal health, wanting us to pay off the debts of your proposed recklessness 20 years from now.

This Council worked very well and hard and across party lines to make a budget that addresses the needs of the hard working middle class people of Batavia and by consolidating provided a better long term fiscal situation for the young. I give all due credit to those council members, Mr. Mallow, Ms. Briggs, Ms. Clattenberg, Ms. Christian, Mr. Buckley and Mr. Ferrando, they are making Batavia a better place to live for all.

Perhaps some other council members, such as Mr. Cox, Mr. Bialkowski and Mr. Barone should stop paying lip service to the taxpayers and renters they swear to protect and start actually working for them instead of making a political show out of the City Council.