By Joyce Miles<br><a href="mailto:joyce.miles@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joyce</a>
PENDLETON — Karen Manning remains the assessor after winning permanent-status reappointment by the town board Tuesday night.
Manning, who has been the assessor for 28 years, had been on “holdover” status — an instance in which a board majority wasn’t willing to grant the permanent reappointment — for the past year and a half.
Manning was not present for the board vote, which boiled down to a choice between her and resident Darryl Glasco. They were the only applicants who responded to the town’s newsletter-advertised call for assessor candidates earlier this year.
Glasco was interviewed by the board during a 25-minute executive session called immediately after the meeting was opened.
“Karen was most qualified,” said board member Martin Korkuc, who sponsored the motion to appoint Manning to another six-year term. “We have a qualified, professional assessor working for us.”
Also voting in favor of Manning were board members David Leible and Ronald Morrison.
Supervisor James Riester abstained from the vote, citing his current dispute with Manning over the assessed value she placed on his Tonawanda Creek Road North home. He has filed a grievance, he said.
After the meeting, Korkuc took issue with Riester’s lack of participation in the vote. He suggested Riester didn’t want to displease, in an election year, the “special interest groups” that demanded Manning’s ouster in recent years. Korkuc’s and Riester’s spots both are up for election in November.
“(Riester) should have stepped forward and made his vote. It’s the job he was hired to do,” Korkuc said.
Riester shrugged off the charge.
“Could I have voted against Karen just to tick her off? Sure — and that would be political,” he said. “I have a legal dispute with her, so (abstaining) seemed like the clearest way to avoid any appearance of conflict.”
The board finally acted on the assessor question after receiving a complaint, earlier this year, from William F. Budde Jr., Niagara County director of real property tax services. Budde reminded the board that state law requires it to appoint an assessor every six years; and he suggested the board keeping Manning on extended holdover status could be construed as punishing her for doing her job.
The assessor’s post was advertised as “open” in the spring town newsletter.
Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.
