The members of the Common Council are upset over the terms of the City of Lockport’s new collective bargaining agreement with Hickory Club Police Benevolent Association, the police officers’ union, and understandably so. Financing a 9% increase in compensation for all officers may require the council to cut spending elsewhere, increase the city tax levy, or both.
So, why did the council vote to approve the terms?
They claim that Mayor John Lombardi III left them no choice. He signed a binding Memorandum of Agreement before discussing it with the council or even city finance director Dan Cavallari, and then his co-negotiator, city attorney David Blackley, pressured the aldermen, advising that if they didn’t rubber-stamp the agreement they’d be setting up the city for labor arbitration.
“We were just handed the final agreement and that’s no way to do business in today’s marketplace,” 1st Ward Alderman John Craig said. “It was kind of like, if we don’t support it, it’ll go to arbitration and we’ll probably lose.”
‘“It would have cost more if we went to arbitration,” 5th Ward Alderman Margaret Lupo said.
While supportive of a pay increase for police officers, 2nd Ward Alderman Anita Mullane took issue with Lombardi not seeking Cavallari’s input on the financial impacts first. “This mayor seems to hand everyone everything they want without regard how to pay for it, because that falls on us,” she said. Yet she too voted to approve the agreement.
Of the six members of the council who together control the city purse strings, only one, 4th Ward Alderman Kathryn Fogle, had enough brass to vote “no” on a so-called done deal that they all thought was reckless.
That’s truly disappointing on two counts: one, the lack of courage shown by the aldermen who objected, rightly, then gave in; and two, the missed opportunity to obtain accountability. Had only two of Fogle’s peers joined her in voting “no,” they would have forced the mayor who made that deal to own it by breaking a tie vote.
And doing that would have sent this message to a lone wolf executive who really needs to hear it:
The mayor of Lockport is elected to serve, not be served, and does not run the city single-handedly. Good city government, meaning government that strives to meet the common needs of residents as efficiently and economically as possible, is a group effort.
Increasingly, Lockport’s aldermen have taken to complaining they’re unable to serve their constituents effectively due to a lack of leadership in the mayor’s office. Whether the issue is a broken water line, a banged-up street or the lack of useful information on the city website, they’ve struggled to get results for residents. Department heads who answer to the mayor may or may not share information in a timely fashion, because it’s been made clear that they answer to the mayor, not the aldermen. And the mayor himself may or may not get answers, or good results, for them. Lately, Lombardi has been a no-show at council work sessions, because it seems he does not want to discuss anything with the aldermen in a public group setting. Earlier this year, Lupo and Mullane jointly announced their decisions to not seek re-election in November, saying they had been rendered ineffective by the Lombardi administration’s “mismanagement.” Lupo told the Union-Sun & Journal, “I would expect that we would get updates or memos from the mayor or designated people. We asked him for things and he said, ‘I don’t have to share that with you.’”
A hostile executive plus a weak legislature adds up to something’s wrong at Lockport city hall. The signs of dysfunction — a sewer vacuum truck ruined and Plan B still undetermined months later, a website that’s light on useful, real-time information despite the fact the city has both a third-party contractor and in-house employees who can post it, a costly labor deal rammed through without a firm grasp on how it’ll be financed — are piling up.
It’d be easy to blame it all on the mayor — he is the boss, after all — but the aldermen swore an oath, too. They have to do more, do better, than carry on as though they’re helpless. Together, they’re not.
Six versus one: There’s strength in numbers. Unity among the six aldermen — as in, they all back one another’s pursuit of clear answers and good, responsible results, and unanimously reject that which is not good or responsible — is the only block on one mayor’s overreach. Without it, residents are left with a city hall where no one is accountable.