Dear Enfield Town Board,

I am writing to object to the proposed local laws on the following grounds:

1. The Supervisor law was introduced in 2020 by our former Supervisor. It was
inappropriate then & now to sneak something regarding the Town Supervisor being a
Full Time Job into this law.

The Supervisor position is compensated at a healthy 124% of the State Mean for 3,500
(appx) Resident Towns & 89% of the Tompkins Mean for Town Supervisors. (An updated
spreadsheet is attached).

2. Our Town Supervisor currently has NO advertised public office hours. A large amount of
the work of the Town Supervisor is discretionary and allows the Supervisor to pursue
their personal policy goals.

Both our Current & Former Supervisor have serious career roles outside of the Town, as
do most if not all other Town Supervisors. Almost no Town Clerks have serious career
roles outside the Town and if Enfield’s Clerk has historically held another position, it is
out of necessity given the low pay. The incredible demands placed on the Office of Town
Clerk *directly by the actions of the Town Board* (for example 19 Special Meetings in
one year and/or voluminous FOIL requests) has made this increasingly challenging.

A $10,000 Deputy Supervisor was added in 2020 & funding was increased for the
Bookkeeper, plus Payroll was outsourced. There is some evidence that the Town is both
overpaying and under utilizing the Bookkeeper, as his rate was recently calculated in a
Board Meeting to be $39/hour. Ulysses recently advertised their Bookkeeper position at
$21/hour.

I am openly calling into question the cynical rhetoric about these laws being about a
sincere desire to ‘give voters a choice’. These laws are literally subject to a mandatory
referendum by State Law. The Board has no choice but to give the voters a choice.
Tonight’s Public Hearing is also absolutely required by State Law.

No effort to solicit public feedback beyond the bare minimum requirements has been
made. Don’t believe me? Check out our Supervisor’s public Social Media outreach to her
voters. You will not find one mention of tonight’s vital Public Hearing, nor the previously
scheduled one for that matter, as of 4:30 pm today.

If State Law did not demand that the Board give voters a choice, these laws would
clearly be passed tonight by some Board members without hesitation or fanfare.

I have literally begged the Board to put the issue of Living Wage for our Town Clerk
before the good voters of our Town and they have steadfastly refused. I do not believe
some on this Board want the voters to have any choices at all.
3. The Mendrick Report stated that we are to not pay attention to who authored local laws
but their MERITS. So why are Councilperson Robert Lynch’s 2020 laws proposing 4 year
terms on the cutting room floor? Those laws accomplished the same goal, but without
the (in my opinion) underhanded first paragraphs.

4. Our Town Clerk only earns around 46% of the local Town Clerk mean salary and we are
the ONLY Town in Tompkins and only 3500 resident Town in NYS that does not pay the
Clerk more than the Supervisor. The State average for 3500 resident Towns is 250%
more for the Clerk to account for their far greater, non-discretionary workload.

5. Our Board members did not receive a raise in 2021. At $3500 a year, what percentage
of time is their job? They are paid at only 62% of local Councilpeople. Surely to preserve
the balance of power, a Board member to a Full Time Supervisor should be at least
Quarter time, otherwise the Board is envisioning a very powerful Supervisor and some
folks who occasionally drop in to agree with them.

Do we really think Board members should be essentially volunteers to a professional

Supervisor? Currently 3 members of our board received their seats via appointment. If
we increased the pay for Councilpeople, we may have seats that are actually elected
again!

6. The Town Clerk Law again, with its first paragraph attempts to cut the achilles heel of the
Office of Town Clerk. The Clerk is NOT a secretarial role as our former and current
Supervisor persistently and stubbornly try to assert. It is far more akin to a
Paralegal role! The Clerk is not a fly on the wall or a scribe. The Clerk protects the
scaffold on which the Board governs.

The Board may be the Chess Pieces but the Clerk is the WHOLE BOARD. Our current
Town Clerk & her Deputies are extremely well-versed in Town Law and Election Law.

7. Though I do not truly object to a four year term for the Town Clerk, a good Town Clerk
need not fear the Ballot or campaign very hard at all. A Seated Town Clerk has not been
unseated in Enfield in 100 years! (Even in one remarkable case when they were not
actually on the Ballot.)

It seems that the Four Year term here is a carrot to get the Clerk to accept a paragraph
that seeks to diminish, limit, and pink-collar her role. A noble role that State Law refers to
as a ‘pivot’ around which the Town operates.

8. Although all but two Towns in Tompkins County have 4 year terms for Town Clerk,
*double that number* have chosen to retain two year terms for their Supervisor.
9. The rationale that the former Supervisor and current Supervisor used to attempt to
abolish the Elected Offices of Clerk & Highway Superintendent and to justify
destroying the morale of the Offices in 2020, during an unprecedented Global
Pandemic, was ‘increased accountability’.

Four-year terms accomplish the opposite of this. Was increased accountability important
enough to destroy the morale of two essential workers during a Pandemic in 2020 but is
somehow not at all important now?

10. Even though we, the engaged citizens in our Town know deep down that Public
Hearings are a farce, it feels cruel for that to be transparent by posting the resolutions
stating that the Board has heard the Public before they have actually even done so.
These resolutions clearly indicate that the public’s feedback will not influence the Board’s
course of action tonight.

I, as a citizen and a tax-payer, ask for an END to this type of cynicism. Public input
matters!

11. Finally, If these local laws do not pass at the ballot box (the last set predictably failed by
85%), they constitute another unfunded mandate on an already demonstrably
underfunded Clerk’s Office.