LOCKPORT — The 2011 Lockport mayoral contest pits a proud incumbent against a doubter.

Two-term Mayor Michael W. Tucker says he’s running on a proven record of “doing the right thing” for the city.

He says the sweeping initiatives of his administration the past couple years —including privatizing refuse collection, seeing citywide property reassessment through to completion and cutting and reorganizing the city work force — are tough-love measures meant to help his beloved hometown straighten up and fly right.

“The city’s a much different place than it was eight years ago. I think there’s a lot of things that we can hang our hat on, that I’m proud of,” Tucker said. “The next four years are going to be extremely difficult years, when you look at the expenses the city incurs and the revenue it brings in, there’s going to be some very difficult decisions. I think I’ve proven I can make them.”

His challenger, retired police officer Michael J. Pillot, suggests Tucker’s sweeping initiatives were misfires and the city needs more sensitive administration.

In media interviews and trips to the microphone at Common Council meetings, he’s questioned every aspect of the city’s agreement with Modern Disposal Services for private trash and recycling collection, denounced the results of revaluation as unfair and suggested City Hall can’t afford to shed any more employees. Residents have not been well-served by heavy-handed administration, he thinks.

“If elected I would be obligated to all of the residents of the City of Lockport. I will remember that I work for them and every tax dollar spent belongs to the taxpayers,” he said.

Ahead of the Tuesday election, here’s a look at the big issues in the city, and the candidates’ takes on them.

Refuse and recycling

After decades of running its own refuse collection program, using city workers and city-purchased supplies, the Common Council this year authorized a five-year deal with Modern Corp. to collect and take away trash and recyclables. The city will pay Modern $1.23 million a year and will raise the money by charging user fees to participating properties, rather than raise it through property tax.

The public program cost about $1.5 million a year inclusive of employees’ wages, equipment and fuel expenses and landfilling fees. Administration estimates privatizing will save the city $10 million over 10 years.

The transition to private hauling has not been controversy-free. Anticipating private hauling would begin in July, the Council did not budget for the public program in 2011 and therefore did not raise tax money to cover it. Delays in vendor dealings kept city workers on the job until October. City expenses were paid from the general fund and the money has to be recovered — from property owners.

Treasurer Mike White said his office will split the 10-month aggregate cost among all properties that received city collection service and send each property a bill, likely for about $150.

When the city anticipated Modern would take over in September, White said the city bill would be sent in October, after all city expenses were accounted for. Private hauling began in mid-October, so city billing is pushed back to mid- to late November, White said recently.

There is some public annoyance with that pending city bill, and with particular aspects of the variable-cart disposal program, Tucker acknowledged.

As the program gets under way, though, he says he’s hearing more accolades from residents who are “thrilled” to finally have curbside recycling — especially those who’ve already realized the more they recycle, the smaller the refuse cart they’ll require, meaning the less they’ll pay for service, since the annual fee is based on cart size.

Tucker said that from start to finish, the refuse deal illustrates his willingness to think differently, and act boldly, for the city’s good, he said.

In order to cut city spending, administration had to get its employees’ consent to farm out bargained-for work. The pact Tucker worked out with AFSCME in 2009, in which it agreed to let the work go, along with 10 union jobs through attrition, was “unprecedented,” Tucker said.

The variable cart program will encourage a cleaner city and it treats people more fairly, he added. Junk more, pay more; junk less, pay less; and either way, the bill is not tied to assessed property value any more.

Pillot says he’s “100 percent for recycling” but questions whether the Modern deal was the best or cheapest way the city could finally land it.

He points to the Town of Niagara’s deal with Allied Waste Services, which he says pays the town $200,000 a year and picks up trash and recyclables for free; trash is burned and the heat is converted to electricity for businesses.

Pillot has campaigned on a pledge to have a thorough “look” at the Modern contract, which suggests he’d look for a loophole or escape clause, but admits he doesn’t know currently whether there is one.

He also argues the variable-cart deal should have been put up to a public vote, since “taxpayers ... are the ones who are paying for it,” and he questions the now post-election timing of the city refuse bill.

“Was this a coincidence?” he asked.



Property assessment

The assessor’s office wrapped up its first citywide revaluation project in 10 years this past spring. Commercial property owners got a good jolt, as values in some cases more than doubled. That’s not surprising, considering commercial values hadn’t been checked in 10 years, Acting Assessor Joe Macaluso said.

To achieve revaluation, the city hired the Kenmore-based private appraising firm KLW Group. For $170,000, its staff went from property to property around the city, to photograph and visually inspect exteriors, interiors where they were invited by the owners, update the city’s property records, compile data for judging market values and hash out informal grievances with property owners. The process took 18 months.

The results of revaluation were mixed for residential properties. Some values were raised a bit, some more than a bit and many more not at all. Overall, values stayed the same or were reduced on two-thirds of all residential properties. Since the city tax rate is decreasing in the 2012 budget, those properties will get smaller tax bills.

Pillot says revaluation was “not fair to many of the residents. With home equity dropping 23 percent, the worst drop since World War I, and Niagara County being one of the highest-taxed counties in New York state, how can you justify the assessments?”

Pillot was asked for his ideas on improving the process, and also, in the event he believed assessments should be uniformly lower in the city, what he’d do to keep the tax rate from spiking. The tax rate is set by division of the tax levy into citywide taxable assessed value.

Pillot’s response: “Everyone knows they have to pay taxes to cover vital services, but we have to look at lowering the tax rate before we tax our residents right out of the city.”

Tucker said revaluation, though politically treacherous in an election year, “had to be done. Our equalization rate was down to 90 percent (of fair market value), and that hurts the city. We lose state aid for not staying current, and total (assessed) value being down drives the tax rate up.”

Uneven assessment, meaning a case where properties are not all assessed at the same percentage of fair market value, hurts property owners, Tucker added.

Prior to this year, a lot of residential properties were last assessed seven to 10 years ago, too, and their tax bills have been calculated on the old number ever since. For the two-thirds whose 2011 assessed value stayed the same or decreased, that’s a sign they were being “overtaxed,” he said. “That matters, too.”



Controlling city labor costs

Privatizing refuse collection was one way of controlling city spending long-term, Tucker said. As highway laborer posts are cut by attrition, their salary and fringe-benefit costs will be dropped from the payroll.

Striking shared-service deals with other municipalities is another cost-cutting move undertaken by Tucker’s administration. The city is “sharing” a utilities director (water-sewer chief) with the city of North Tonawanda, as they explore the possibility of Lockport buying finished water from North Tonawanda someday, to eliminate local water treatment expenses.

Tucker also has had tentative talks with Lockport Town Supervisor Marc Smith about the city and town sharing an assessor. Another reason the city required revaluation was to achieve 100 percent market value appraising, because the town would not consider a shared assessing unit otherwise. Merging assessing units is still on the burner, Tucker said, but it’s on the back burner for at least a year since the town’s assessor is newly hired. The city assessor, a retiree of the state Office of Real Property Services, is part-time.

The city signing on with the state’s early retirement incentive last year, to shed 23 jobs permanently, is another cost-cutting move.

Still, 82 percent of the city’s projected spending in the 2012 budget is for personnel: employees’ pay and fringe benefits including health insurance and pension contributions.

“Obviously,” Tucker said, “this is where we’ve gotta go next.”

Tucker is staking some of his re-election bid on the notion he is uniquely placed to negotiate cost cuts with the city’s five labor unions. Employees are already well aware “changes” are coming, in their benefits and, possibly, terms of work, he said.

“We have to have some concessions, they all know it, especially police and fire,” he said. “And I would argue that I’m the guy to help get it done. I’m a labor guy. ... I think they trust and respect me. I treat them fairly. I believe in them. I can have very frank conversations with them that I don’t think anyone else can.”

Pillot, a city retiree, said he’s support privatizing city services and/or getting the city into shared-service agreements if they “can save the taxpayers money.”

Regarding service sharing, he suggests an example also raised by county Legislature candidate Andy Chapman.

“County trucks drive through our city with their plows up during the winter, yet they use our city streets and we pay county taxes,” Pillot said.



Economic development

For Tucker, “economic development” is the heading over a list of initiatives undertaken and goals pursued. The list includes improvements and marketing of available space at Harrison Place and the Canal Street block; landing grant money to have the Flight of Five canal locks restored to partial operation, build a harbor/marina near the Stevens Street bridge, get the proposed Lockport Ice Arena & Sports Complex off the ground and get city-acquired brownfield parcels near downtown decontaminated and “shovel ready” for development. The list includes supporting Lockport Main Street Inc., a downtown booster organization affiliated with the National Trust For Historic Preservation, and historic preservation itself.

The common thread is promoting tourism, increased commerce and improved quality of life for residents of the Lock City.

And that’s why Tucker also puts “Canal Concert Series” on his development list.

Amid tight municipal finances, he’s faced the question repeatedly: Why should the city, i.e. taxpayers, fork over $80,000 a year to rent a professional stage for Series acts, and another $44,000 for police and paramedics to supplement private security during nine concerts in the City Centre courtyard?

His answer: Since the series started, “we’ve had over 400,000 people in the heart of our business district. That can’t be a bad thing. The restaurants, the hotels, they’re full every Friday night.”

Administration has looked at ways to raise revenue from the shows, to offset the city’s expense, but the options are limited. Charging $1 or $2 admission to non-city residents is impractical, Tucker said; there are multiple gates into the courtyard, establishing who is or isn’t a city resident would be a nightmare, and anybody who didn’t want to pay could just stand outside the perimeter. There is some thought of installing bleacher seating and charging for that, he said, but nobody’s imagining it’s a serious fundraiser.

The series “is not intended to be a money-maker for us, it’s intended to promote our city,” Tucker said. “We get some of the investment back, in sales tax, in bed tax. We don’t know how much exactly, but obviously there is some payback. And the fact that the residents of Lockport enjoy it, I think that’s worth something too.”

Pillot is opposed to taxpayer subsidy of the series, especially since it’s held on private property, and he says North Tonawanda, the city that used to host it, got paid by the series promoter instead. He doesn’t like the setup in the City Centre courtyard either; chairs are banned and concert-goers have to stand throughout the shows.

Were it up to him, he said, he’d get the private sector bankrolling the stage and security, and/or change the setup so independent vendors, local businesses and charitable organizations could get in on the concert night hawking act. Currently, the promoter picks the vendors.

“How can you justify, to the taxpayers, paying ... for a concert when they are struggling to pay their taxes?” Pillot asked. “I talked to a business owner who stated that the concert has lost them business because their regular customers have no place to park.”

Pillot said better marketing of Lockport would consist of selling others “on what a great place this is to work, raise a family and run a business. We have a full-time paid fire and police department and the crime rate is lower than most other cities. That is a great selling point to bring businesses to Lockport.”

Also to lure businesses to the city, Pillot said, he’d offer them a tax break for hiring city and Niagara County residents. He proposed selling the closed-down city parking ramp for $1, to a company that would tear it down at its expense, and giving it a tax break for improving the property.

Economic development to Pillot also means the city working with state and federal agencies to get contaminated properties cleaned up.

“We cannot expect businesses or families to invest or live in a community that will be hazardous to their health,” he said.