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Personal attacks, near fight mar Niles council meeting
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
Embarrasing. Disgusting. Disgraceful.
Those words, voiced by city council members, accurately describe nearly 45 turbulent and occasionally tense minutes during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The verbal conflict began with several union representatives yelling angry accusations at council and reached its nadir when Service Director James DePasquale nearly came to blows with a resident who called him “a liar.”
The hostilities permeated the period set aside for public comments.
When George Kuriatnyk, who was previously the object of an unsuccessful attempt at a protection order, leveled the “liar” accusation at DePasquale, the service director jumped up and tried to get to his antagonist.
Acting police Chief Jay Holland blocked DePasquale from engaging Kuriatnyk in a fight.
“That guy is an idiot,” said DePasquale in his comments at the end of the meeting. “He needs to go.”
By then, Kuriatnyk had already left the meeting.
The near-brawl followed emotional and occasionally loud comments from public employee union leaders who angrily criticized council for not acting on a union proposal to transfer employees out of the deficit-ridden general fund into positions paid by enterprise funds.
Council President Robert Marino explained that more information was needed before action could be taken.
“Our fiscal supervisors have to run this through the five-year forecast [and] must assure the light department is not in a deficit situation,” Marino said.
Visibly angry union leaders would have none of it.
“It’s not on the agenda, and it should have been voted on,” said Pete Mollica, a union office holder.
After complaining that council wasn’t doing enough to save jobs and general fund money, Mollica called for job cuts within the administration and department heads.
“We’ve got a list of people who should go,” he said to the obvious chagrin of several council members.
“Bad-mouthing us with a list of people you want to get rid of is not the right answer,” said Ryan McNaughton, D-at large.
“For a brief moment, I thought I was back in school,” said a dejected Michael Lastic, D-at large, as he shook his head.
Marino publicly blamed himself for allowing the meeting to get out of hand and vowed to exercise more control.
“We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard,” Marino said. “Shouting and hollering doesn’t solve anything.”
Overshadowed by the raucous session was an announcement from Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia that he has ordered all department heads, court employees and non-union workers to begin paying a portion of their health care premiums.
Currently, the city pays the entire amount.
The mayor was unable to say what percentage they will pay.
Scarnecchia said he expects the city will demand the same of the four unions when contract negotiations occur later this year.