Mayor George Doll: Panarites Has a Short Memory

Dear Editor, Northport Patch:

It has been my policy since elected Mayor not to provide public entertainment by sparring in the newspapers.

Former Mayor [Peter] Panarites with his spewing of misinformation, attacking the ethics of a village worker and the competence of the Village Board has compelled me to respond.

Mr. Panarites doesn’t like the Nobody likes it. It was created so that those on the system pay a greater share than those not on the system. You can twist it anyway you want but that is the reason for its existence. Is it perfect? Probably not. We did not invent it. We copied it from other municipalities like ours that have a system where some residents are on the system and some are not.  We do not believe in wasting time reinventing the wheel. It is designed as fairly as it can be. The more material you put in the sewer system the more you pay. Mr. Panarites, with a food establishment and apartment building, will obviously and rightfully so pay more than a single person living in a small house. 

Did we impose it to offset a budget shortfall? No, we have no budget shortfalls. Are we in some sort of budget crisis? No more than any other municipality in these trying economic times.

Mr. Panarites criticizes our decision to retain our former Superintendent of Public Works as a consultant. Mr. Correia notified the Village he was going to retire as of March 1, 2010. The village then began a search for a new superintendent. The Superintendent of Public works is a Suffolk County Civil Service position, a fact that Mr. Panarites is well aware of after trying to fire Mr. Correia twice, which ended up costing the Village hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

This also cost the village thousands of extra dollars in engineering fees while Mr. Correia and the village litigated. So, when Mr. Correia notified us of his intention to retire, the village examined his duties as Superintendent of Public works and found that he was doing way more then what a superintendent was supposed to do. We brought this to the attention of the Suffolk County Civil Service administration and they agreed with our opinion and allowed us to create the position of 'Village Administrator.'

We started a lengthy, intensive search and interview process. The process ran past Mr. Correia’s retirement date and the Village Board asked him to stay on as a consultant. By Mr. Correia staying on, it enabled the village to save on outside consultants and engineering costs, unlike what the Panarites’ administration had done in Mr. Correia’s previous absence from 2002 to 2005.

This board hired Mr. Gene Guido as Village Administrator in October of 2010. Mr. Correia was then ready to head to the golf course when the village again asked him to stay while Mr. Guido got acclimated, just as it had been done when Mr. Correia took over the position from Jack McGinn.  

During this period with both Mr. Correia and Mr. Guido working together they were able to expedite $370,000 in grant reimbursement owed to the village. We actually owe Mr. Correia a debt of gratitude for staying as long as he did.

Mr. Panarites also has a short memory of the thousands of dollars he wasted in his dealings with the police and police department unions.

By the way, our policy is not to litigate but to negotiate. It’s cheaper.

Sincerely,
George J. Doll Jr.
Mayor, Village of Northport