A Question of Ethics and Governing in Justice.
The mayor’s appointed building commissioner, whose wife is his secretary, transfers ownership of HIS business to his wife (who is also his secretary) then directs her to hire the very business she now owns to do village work.
Is it right or honest for a village official to hire the company his wife owns, to do village work?
This business is regularly hired to maintain abandoned and distressed properties and to cut grass at village owned buildings in town, and collects tens of thousands of dollars for work performed.
Is this right or honest to you?
What if you were a village trustee, finance official or clerk and you learned the same village official convinced the management of a not-for-profit entity in town that this business alone, (the one currently owned by his spouse,) is the only company that can be used to perform work on the building and grounds in which the not-for-profit operates.
Our Village Voice elected trustees and clerk have recently discovered, the wife of the building commissioner (whom he also hired as his village paid secretary) also signs the checks that pay for her companies services!
This is wrong!
The voters of Justice elected the Village Voice Trustees and Village Clerk to safeguard the way their tax dollars are spent. Elected officials are accountable to their constituents and they know it. That’s the way it must be.
What if it were your responsibility to manage all monies spent by department heads and you discovered these financial irregularities?
Wouldn’t you put a stop to this immediately?
For several years we have been trying to do just that. In 2017 the improprieties were discovered by our village clerk and swiftly relayed, with detailed documentation to the Mayor of Justice. Her immediate fear was embarrassment for the reputation of the community that she believed our mayor would share. His answer? “This is a witch hunt.”
Then our Clerk turned next to the six village Trustees. Five were outraged by the status quo and began asking questions but were met with immediate resistance by a single trustee who sided with the Mayor. Months passed. Stall tactics were used. No changes occurred. No leadership was forthcoming from our Mayor, none! Only threats were heard from Mayor Wasowicz and his sole trustee, Kuban, of solving the problem by replacing the trustees at election time with, “people that will agree with me.” Thus, The Residents First Party was born.
We ask you this: Is this how we want our village to operate?
In politics and government the good does not always prevail. In the 2019 municipal elections the Village Voice was narrowly defeated at the polls by the Resident’s First Party. Since then this situation has only grown worse, with E & S Restoration, the company in question, receiving tens of thousands of dollars in payments from the new village board.
The only way to stop it now is to regain control of the board, with a new mayor, in 2021.
Can we stop this once and for all? You, the voters, get to decide.
The Justice Village Voice 