Cicero — Jessica Zambrano has issued a report summarizing her term as Cicero’s town supervisor, which ends Dec. 31. The document, which clocks in at nearly 5,000 words, is available on the town’s website.
“It is my belief that our town’s residents deserve a report periodically on the state of the town and I am here sharing a summary of key events and issues our town addressed during my two years as your town supervisor, a position I enjoyed and in which I proudly served,” Zambrano wrote. “Like you, Cicero is my home.”
Zambrano addressed the ethics scandal that hung over much of her term, rising property taxes and other highs and lows of her two years as supervisor.
‘The ethics issue’
Zambrano criticized the town board’s handling of resident Robert D. George’s 2014 ethics complaint against her, which she called “unnecessarily disruptive to town board management.”
In December 2014, the recently re-formed Board of Ethics determined that Zambrano’s relationship with former town engineer Doug Wickman, whom she married earlier this year, constituted a conflict of interest. The ethics committee advised the town board to require town employees to undergo ethics training and file an annual financial disclosure document.
Then this past February, Cicero resident Paul Becallo, the father of Councilor Mike Becallo, filed a petition with the Appellate Division of the Fourth Department of New York state requesting that Zambrano be removed as town supervisor under New York State Public Officers Law Section 36 based on the same accusations, among others. In September, the appellate court dismissed the petition.
While Zambrano emerged from the ethics scandal without punishment, she suggested in her report that the town board disband the board-appointed ethics committee and “update [the] town code to seek external advice for any future accusations of town employees.”
“What was most apparent in hindsight is that the standing procedure for the past decade has been that the town board members (the ones best positioned for committing serious ethics violations within the town) are the very ones who define the members of the ethics committee, a group that received no formal training in ethics investigations,” Zambrano wrote. “The lesson I see is that our town cannot afford to assume the role of self-policing the issue of ethics.”
Taxes on the rise
continued — While the town board was reluctant to raise the tax levy by nearly 12 percent for 2016, Zambrano said growing workers’ compensation costs, aging sewer infrastructure and facilities needs forced their hand. She laid the responsibility for the jump in taxes on previous administrations.
“Past administrations had not wanted to make those hard decisions to increase taxes while maintaining the level of services to which Cicero residents are accustomed. Instead, tax increases were either nonexistent or very small and the reserve fund was raided year after year to make up the deficit,” Zambrano said. “Also, repair and replacement of roads was minimal for several years. As the tax rate remained flat, costs of running the town increased.”
Zambrano predicted taxes will continue to increase in 2017.
“Fixing the problem caused by many years of little or no tax increases takes time,” she said.
Facilities
One factor responsible for rising taxes is the town’s need to update its highway garage, police department and other facilities.
Faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs to the highway garage, Zambrano tasked a citizen’s advisory group earlier this year with investigating the need for a new highway building. Last month, the town put down a $10,000 deposit on nearly 50 acres of land located on Route 31 for the future highway garage. The town board authorized a purchase price of $166,500 and selected MRB Engineering, a Rochester-based firm with an office in Syracuse, to complete design work.
Zambrano’s administration also laid the groundwork for the relocation of the Cicero Police Department and the justice court. The South Bay Fire Department has agreed to sell the town its former building for $1, and Assemblyman Al Stirpe is helping secure a $250,000 Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) grant. The town must match $50,000 of the DASNY grant, and the police and justice departments are pursuing relocation grants as well.
continued — “The current plan is to rehabilitate the SBFD building in two phases, the first to accommodate the police department, anticipated for 2016, then to work on the rest of the building to establish a courtroom and office space for the two judges and their support staff by 2017,” Zambrano said.
Zambrano also touted her administration’s updates to the town hall, which included improvements to the justice department’s space and ADA-compliant restrooms.
Other accomplishments
While she acknowledged the many challenges of her term, Zambrano listed some high points of her tenure as well, including the restructuring of the codes and assessor’s offices, the Brewerton Revitalization Project and more.
In closing, Zambrano offered her “best wishes” to her successor, Supervisor-Elect Mark Venesky, and said she was “grateful for having had the opportunity to work with so many dedicated and talented individuals.”
The entire text of Zambrano’s “2014-15 Report” is available at ciceronewyork.net/2014-2015-report/. The report can also be viewed at eaglestarreview.com.
