Lockport Candidate Has Agenda For Change

Republican candidate for Lockport Town Council.

In the course of collecting 336 signatures, I found that many of the voters of Lockport have come to the same conclusion as I have - that our Town Board seems to have more in common with a privileged clique than a representative body and that needs to change.

At public meetings, resolutions are made and passed with no explanation; documents that might aid public understanding are absent; "public comments" are solicited and then ignored; and, despite well-presented public objections, the board always votes as it previously intended.

At its 7:30 p.m. "monthly board meeting," the Town Board never discusses what was transacted at its 1 p.m. "work sessions" - while you and I were working. As a result, 7:30 p.m. meetings have become little more than a meaningless public performance.

I am running for town councilman because: 1) I am offended by what I see, and 2) I have an agenda for change - two referendums to be voted by the people at the November 2013 ballot:

1) Change our "at-large" Town Board to one of four "wards." The obvious benefit is that your councilman will be required to live in and be elected from your ward. It's my hope that this will make our council members more representative (of where they live), and if not, more easily replaced.

2) Establish public meeting bylaws that respect the owners of government - the people. Of the five proposed bylaws -meetings, voting, documents, control of meetings and legislative authority - no bylaw is more important than that which moves all Town Board meetings to evening hours. The current practice of holding one to three meetings per month at 1 p.m., while the town's largest audience is working, will cease.

In these referendums, I find hope: 1) for a town board that is representative of the people and 2) for a town board that is respectful of the people. Change is long overdue and I will work, tirelessly, for the people of Lockport to achieve this end.