Below is a letter I sent to all Legislators and Senator Maziarz and Assemblywoman Sandra Lee Wirth regarding the parkland at East High and Day Rd. There are a couple of Legislators(Aronow & Updegrove) who are still missleading the public and the Town of Lockport of the Unions intentions. I hope this will help clear up the matter.

                                                                                                            July 24, 2005

>
>'\l 1033 \c 0 \e 'United States'\d '">«AddressBlock»                                                                                   

 

>
'\l 1033 \e ⋞ar Sir or Madam,''">«GreetingLine»

 

I am writing to you in regards to the property at E. High Street and Day Roads in the Town of Lockport. There seems to be some miss information circulating about the Union intentions as it pertains to this piece of County owned property.

 

To make the record clear, the Union does not have any intention of stopping or interfering with the Town of Lockport from improving the piece of parkland. In fact, that is why the agreement was entered into between Niagara County and AFSCME Local 182 in the first place, contrary to what many of you have heard. The last thing the union wants to do is interfere with making a County owned park a better place for all Niagara County residents to enjoy in the future.

 

The purpose of the agreement is to allow the town (an outside entity) to improve this land without giving up AFSCME’s rights afforded to it under the Taylor Law. When each stage of the construction is completed, Niagara County AFSCME employees will do what we do everyday… maintain parkland.

 

The County and the Union have agreed to provisions in the agreement that could prevent the Town of Lockport for completing the improvements, lay-offs of AFSCME Local 182 employees being one of them. You can understand that we could not allow another entity to be doing our work if there members on lay off status.

 

The Union will vigorously contest any attempt to render the current between Niagara County and the Union invalid or change it in any way.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I personally don’t understand why there is any problem, the agreement is simple; let the Town of Lockport build it and County employees maintain it. The town spends $300,000 to improve county owned parkland and Niagara County gets to keep the improved land and all the county has to do is maintain it.

 

I hope I was able to clarify the union position on this matter. I also hope we can work together to settle any matters that may arise in the future regarding this issue or any other.

 

Please feel free to contact me as I am always willing to discuss matters that effect Niagara County and the AFSCME work force.

 

Thank you,

 

 

Ed McDonald

President AFSCME Local 182

 

CC: Senator Maziarz

       Assemblywoman Wirth

      AFSCME Area Representative, Frank DiStefano

      Council 66 Attorney, Joel Poch, Esq.