To the editor:

At the Oct. 11 Cicero Town Board meeting, the board voted to exceed the 2 percent tax cap. It is disappointing in light of at least two poor spending decisions this year.

First, in April 2015, a committee consisting of citizens inspected the highway department garage. These men are very qualified to make determinations about buildings such as this one. The committee determined that the garage was unsafe and had to be replaced. At a board meeting, they detailed their findings. Yet the town paid an outside engineering firm $3,500 in February 2017 to come to the same conclusion.

Also, two supervisors promised a referendum on the topic of the highway garage. Yet it took action by private citizens, spearheaded by Judy Bokye, to gather enough signatures on petitions to force this promised referendum. The town supervisor, Mark Venesky, only then launched a campaign to influence voters to vote “Yes” for a new garage. My problem is that over $30,000 of Cicero taxpayer money was spent on this campaign. (Those opposed to the building of the garage did not have any funds available to them to counter the information sent out to voters.) Three mailers were sent by the town, one which showed up in many voters mailboxes after they had voted or the day after the vote. The town could have conducted a campaign over a two-year period at minimal cost to try to influence the voters.

In addition, at the Oct. 11 budget workshop, Mark Venesky proposed a $10,000 raise (over 21 percent) for himself. As of today, that raise is in the budget while most other salaried employees will receive about 2 percent. (The board will vote on the budget within the next month, probably after the general election.) So the highway superintendent will get a new garage, the chief of police will get a new building, a couple of departments will add personnel and we will foot the bill for all of this.

Deborah V. Gardner

Cicero