Supervisor Mary F.

Holtz
January, 2015

Annually, each January, I have the honor of presenting my State of the Town
address at the Cheektowaga Chamber of Commerce membership luncheon. It is a tradition similar to
the President’s annual State of the Union address and one which other levels of government have picked
up on over the years. I welcome the opportunity to annually showcase the accomplishments of our
various town departments and the expectations for the future. We had key personnel changes at the
department head level in 2014 that were among the items I wanted to feature.

William Pugh, our long-time and eminently professional town engineer, retired. I often referred to Bill, with
the utmost respect, as our “sewer guru.” He was succeeded by Patrick Bowen, who served under Bill as
assistant town engineer for many years. The important role the Engineering department plays in the
successful completion of a variety of projects, including those with other Town departments, from the
planning and execution of major sewer and road rebuilding projects to preparing bidding specs for
necessary equipment, cannot be stressed enough.

David Longo succeeded Frank Max, upon his retirement, as the head of our Sanitation department.
Dave worked reliably and with initiative for many years as a foreman at Sanitation. When we made the
decision to go to garbage totes and then, a year later, to recycling totes as well, it was Dave who took on
the responsibility of working with the manufacturer to see that the 30,000-plus totes were distributed
appropriately each time and accounted for correctly.

Our Personnel department also had a turnover when Anthony Romano retired and was succeeded by
Karen Marchese as the new coordinator of employee relations. The business of government is the
provision of services and the personnel who provide these services make up the largest part of the
Town’s budget. Personnel has three specific areas of responsibility: maintaining the records and
coordinating the administration of benefits of current and past employees; contract negotiation and labor
relations with the Town’s five bargaining units; and processing the filling of positions in accordance with
New York State Civil Service law and associated regulations. Karen Marchese brings a wealth of
knowledge and experience in all these areas and was selected after a recruitment process that included
a number of potential candidates.

Carla Kosmerl, who was originally hired as our director of community development, added a second and
then a third hat to her Town wardrobe. Carla assumed supervision of our Housing and Neighborhood
Preservation office and then, when Thomas Adamczak retired, after a long career as our supervising
code enforcement officer in the Building & Plumbing department, she took that job on as well. In taking
on these roles, Carla’s daily routine has her running the gamut from dealing with the HUD bureaucracy,
to working with commercial developers, to the maintenance of vacant properties. Her work in all three of
these areas, along with that of her staff members, is key to keeping this community vital and a place both
homeowners and the business community will seek out.

Lastly, I want to mention Lisa Bolognese who now heads up the Information Technology and Records
Management department. She has done a tremendous job for this town over the years in the lawful
maintenance of Town records, the development of our records center and in successfully attaining
thousands of dollars in grant moneys to do so. Combining this function with the related and ever
changing information technology area was a natural fit. Lisa’s oversight and supervision will keep both
areas at optimal performance.

The work of these individuals, along with the other talented and dedicated members of our department
head team: Brian Krause, Jeneen McSkimming, Kevin Gozdziak, Earl Loder, John Jaroszewski, Kevin
Schenk, Jon Nichy, Chief Dave Zack, Kerry Switalski, Bob Latshaw, Ellen Fischer and our elected
department heads, Town Clerk Alice Magierski, Superintendent of Highways Mark Wegner and Town
Justices Paul Piotrowski and Dennis Gorski allow me to make this statement with confidence…The State
of our Town is Good.