Link to news release on town website.
The Supervisor will ask that the Town Board NOT discuss the proposed apprenticeship law at the meeting, and ask that the Public Hearing be closed with no public comment.
You could spin this a few ways:
- We want more time to understand how this will affect local contractors, because we care.
- We know this looks inappropriate before an election, so we're just not going to discuss it until/if we win in November.
- If we tell the unions that we have to do this in order to come off as having no loyalty to special interests, and the union gets their people to help us campaign and vote for us, we'll pass it as soon as we're re-elected.
- It's a complicated issue, and we need more time to discuss it.......even though "we" were going to pass it at the July TB meeting...........as proven by Perticone's own words when he abstained from keeping the Public Hearing open 30 more days.......
- It's so great that we have a Town Board and Supervisor that want more discussion and are committed to looking out for the resident's best interest!
- The Town Board and Supervisor are the greatest! Because of this decision I'm going to vote for them! They must care!
- More than likely, they never did any "real" research on this subject, and they are doing this to buy more time to actually look at the past 4 or 5 years.
I'm guessing that there wasn't much study done....and if there was......it was never made public prior to them offering the resolution to amend the Town Code and vote on it on 7/21. Geez, the text of the law itself was not on the website until 10 days AFTER the public hearing. People had called town hall prior to the public hearing, to get a text of the law, and they were never called back, and never offered a copy of it. If it was on the signboard at Town Hall.......how hard is it to go out to the signboard, take down the posted text of the law, make a copy or fax it, and tack it back up on the signboard?
Why do you have to do more study on a law that is totally unnecessary?
This isn't a difficult issue......it's an obvious issue.
Contractors already have the opportunity to have apprenticeship programs in place, and the Town already has the opportunity to accept bids from those contractors.
If they pass this law, it will not benefit ALL of Irondequoit. M.L. Caccamise Electric Corp., (resident who has lived in and paid taxes in Irondequoit for over 20 years and has owned his own business for over 30 years) has done many public projects for the town in the past, and currently on the 590 project - passing this law will make it impossible for him to bid on any public works projects over $100,000.......not because he refuses to have an apprenticeship program........but because NYS doesn't offer one for his line of work.
Passing this law does not "provide another avenue" for the youth in the area because that avenue already exists. Mr. Perticone points out that 5 of the 6 bidders for Pinegrove had apprenticeship programs......how would mandating this law change any of that?
It won't.
Passing this law favors union contractors. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It favors the union.
No other town in Monroe County, save for the City of Rochester and R.I.T., have a mandated apprenticeship law.
Town Board Member John Perticone belongs to the union, and sits on the board and is VP of RBCTC..........
............'nuff said.
