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ROTTERDAM
Board backs exit option
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    Supervisor Frank Del Gallo will have the option of offering four town workers a retirement incentive during the budget process, but he’ll have to receive majority approval from the Town Board.
    Board member Matt Martin joined Del Gallo and Deputy Super Robert Godlweski in supporting the incentive during a hastily called meeting Tuesday. Board members Gerard Parisi and Nicola DiLeva, who both voted to defeat the incentive during a meeting earlier this month, were not present.
    Martin, who previously opposed offering the incentive, said he changed his mind to allow Del Gallo all available options during the budget process. He said the board will still have oversight to determine whether the incentives are cost-effective.
    “This is just an option,” he said in explaining his vote in favor of the resolution. “It by no means retires anyone today.”
    But Tuesday’s vote could face challenges, since several members of the board weren’t properly notified about the meeting according to state law. At least two board members were notified only 27 hours before the meeting was scheduled instead of two days in accordance with the statute governing town meetings.
    “Somebody could contest the validity of whatever they passed,” said Robert Freeman, the executive director of New York’s Committee on Open Government.
    Frank Salamone, a Repub- lican running for the board’s lone vacancy this fall, also questioned the legality of the meeting. He said there didn’t seem to be a pressing emergency to call the meeting, since the board had already addressed the incentives twice during the month of August.
    “I don’t see how an emergency of your making can allow you to have an emergency meeting without proper notice,” he said.
    Town Attorney Michael Godlewski disagreed. He said proper notice was offered prior to the meeting.
    “The position of the town attorney’s office is that the prescribed requirements under the law have been fulfi lled,” he said.
    Town officials had until September to approve the incentive, which is only available to workers older than 55 who have at least 25 years invested into the state retirement system. Under the proposal, board members would have the ability to offer workers one additional month of service credit for each year of town employment for up to three years of additional retirement credit.
    Comptroller Patrick Aragosa has indicated the total payout from the incentive could cost the town about $191,000 — in addition to about $85,000 in unused vacation time payments — if it were offered to all eligible workers. In the past, he said the payouts have ultimately cost the town because the positions are inevitably fi lled.
    A Freedom of Information Law request answered by the town earlier this month indicated only four employees among the work force of 179 full- and part-time workers who would be eligible for the incentive. They are Sandra LeVielle and Kathryn Matteo in the Receiver of Taxes offi ce; Robert Meers in the Highway Department; and Darlene Mullally, a confidential secretary to Del Gallo.
    Del Gallo defended offering the incentives, despite the comptroller’s assertions. He said the town is in a diffi cult fi nancial situation that may require layoffs in addition to the positions that would be left vacant through the incentive.
    “We just want the option to look at it,” he said following the meeting.
    Salamone, the only resident to comment during the sparsely attended meeting, chastised the board for offering Mullally a “golden parachute” less than nine months into her service with the town. He also criticized them for going against Aragosa’s advice.
    His assertions drew a strong rebuke from Tony Cevera, the town Democratic Committee’s former chairman, who defended Mullaly’s more than three decades of service elsewhere. He also defended Del Gallo’s ability to run the town like a business.
    “I doubt the comptroller has ever run a business,” he said.