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Cairo board hires new building and code enforcement clerk at heated special meeting

Jan 28, 2022 5:45 am

Andrea Macko is reporting for Porcupine Soup an emergency meeting of the Cairo Town Board held to appoint a building and code enforcement clerk on January 27, degenerated into an argumentative back-and-forth when the members disagreed over whether the matter warranted a special meeting and how the hiring process was handled. Board member Tim Powers said that he and fellow board member Stephen Kralovich did not receive copies of the applications until they arrived for the meeting and that they were not involved in the interview process. Powers said that when he questioned Supervisor Jason Watts, he was told: “Well we already have our three votes so basically we don’t need you.” Powers said, “When I made the comment that we need to do things the right way I was told by Supervisor Watts that we did not have time to do things the right way." Watts said, “No, I said we don’t have time to keep wasting. We must go forward with the town.” After about 10 minutes of back-and-forth, the board went into an executive session for approximately 20 minutes to discuss the applicants. When the board members emerged they voted 3 to 2 to hire Kyrie Fielder as the town's new building and code enforcement clerk at the hourly rate of $15, for no more than 30 hours per week. Watts, Cords and Michael Flaherty voted in favor; Powers voted no, and Kralovich abstained. The former building and code clerk, Donna Chewins resigned as of December 7. Read the full story at porcupinesoup [dot] com.