Thursday, August 18, 2011

Journal:Woods Wants Knox Street Probe

City House for RENT (free rent, no taxes, and free renovations)
Art, 600,000 emails you have not read, what else have you missed?  We may never know! With a salary of approximately $120,000 and only 9000 citizens I would think Mr. Scorria should have a better handle on all issues in the City. Mr. Scorria has taken a laissez faire to a new level, it hard for me to believe he has any idea what actually happens in each department. The best part of this article is the idea Mr. Scorria tells everyone he does not or cannot do his job. When you're not reading emails from your department heads something is wrong.

There are a few underlying issues in this article that have not been brought to light.

First why would Mr. Woods publicly promulgate his boss's misfeasance and openly criticize him to the City Council; when it appears Mr. Woods has some culpability in the matter?  Mr. Woods claims fear from retaliation, retaliation of not telling or telling. If he did not tell what retaliation would there be. Something does not smell right.
Secondly, why is the City buying property, renting property, and developing it with tax payers money? This continues to perplex me.

This could be the tip of this conspiracy and could be the start to cleaning out some dead wood in City government.

Journal Article

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

When the smoke clears you will find Scior was very aware what has been going on.Mr Woods has a lot of responsiblity in th matter also.. We hired them to do a job. They re not doing that job up to snuff... What do we do?
This all goes back to when Mr Sciora came here.. Our mayor Nelson is constantly trying to intimdate counsilors about Micro managing.. Remember the word Micro Manage.. It sends the wrong message he says...
I say at least look into matters a council oce in a while.. We elected a mayor to oversee a council and a council to set our policies and direct the manager to do his job.. Neither is obviously doing very well.
Nelson approved Sciora approach to runnng the city so I guess council did to...
In a nutshell Scioraa needs to be fired along with Woods ifnot for what they did but then for iieing abut it and covering it up.. Nelson needs to be replaced and that can b done by us election day.
This Anti business and anti people attidude needs a reverseal with nw blood in city hall..

Anonymous said...

Ogdensburg is in free fall . Apparently the council have been kept in the dark on this one . At least Some of the council brought it up .

This is yet ANOTHER reason why change is needed here .

There is no justification for this situation .

Taxpayers are out approx 50 grand given the back taxes owed and the 3 yrs of free rent and taxes all while only 27 % of us pay taxes and have had our fees raised in addition

I agree with Mayor Graham after reading that apparently by his own admission the city mgr has limited knowledge of day to day operations at city hall.

It is a very small organization and these two work in the same small building -- c'mon guys we weren't born yesterday.

Council needs to find the truth and act decisively. Lying at any level cannot be tolerated. Answers need to be forthcoming and persons responsible held accountable.

If anyone is lying , they should be fired. Trust is key in organizations

Anonymous said...

We put our trust in people like Nelson, and his cosmetics have gotten us to this. By never questining this manager and by agreeing and backing his every error has made this type of mistake hapen.In every case that some other coucilor questioned Mr. Sciora or Woods on anythng. Nelson has backed Sciora and cryed dont Micro Manage . By acting stupid Mr Sciora actually admitted how little he knows or does to earn his big salary. By acting stupid he has made Nelson and the entire councl look stupid....
Nelsons dream is to have the marina named after him someday and right now all he run again for is to be appointed to the NYS mayors leadership spot. He has no more interest in the Burg outside the cosmetics he puts on things.. Time for a change folks at the polls in November..

Anonymous said...

This all started with Nelsons bright idea of using growth fund money to renovate the old Post Office. When questioned about it he refused to answer questions on it as it had been taken out of the hands of the council and given to an appointed committee. Counsilor Flynn attempted to shed some light on the matter but5 Nelson and Manager squashed each attempt.. They put the place out for rent and were bypassed by the County bypassed by the social security office.. They put more money into it and eventually sold it.. The problem is the secrectcy involved in the matter, and whos agenda was it and whos agenda is the running of the city... Nelson is the answer.
When council over the years tried to get involved with city employees Nelson quickly has covered the attempts preaching we cant micromanage these people...
I,ll bet they had micromanaged some now... They will attempt to sweep this under the carpet and possibly we should allow it to be but in this case we have found out we are dealing with a liar or possibly two liars.. THAT WE CANNOT TOLERATE. We cannot tolerate this at any level..The only solution is a disiplinary action in the case of Mr. Woods if he is not lieing. If he is lying then he should be terminated immediately.. In the managers case if he lied he should be fired immediately . If he did not lie and it is determined he did not he should be given a fair notice and let go as its very obvious he isnt doing the job expected of him by the majority of council..
The bottom line here is these two people shouldnt be working for the city of Ogdensburg anymore and in November we can handle the rest of the problem so Mr. Nelson can spend more time at Claxton Medical.

Poly Information said...

Government waste and both Scorria and Woods should be held accountable. 600,000 emails most inboxes do not hold that many emails and if he had the time to count them he should of read them, lol.

Times are tight and every penny of the tax payer's money must be stretched to the limit. This is pure negligence and one or more people should be held accountable.

Every department should be looked at and evaluated on efficiency. I would do away with the City's grass pick-up every Friday. Three pieces of heavy equipment and 5 - 7 people picking up grass clippings every week. Of course, like many others in the City, the couple around the block from me put out a bag of grass clippings every week for the city to pick up. Figure the cost on that to the tax payers. Then these employees could be utilized for sewer and water repairs. They could pick-up 2-3 times a year and let the private sector take care of the rest.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Sciora tried to do that two summers ago Poly..The same year he ignoed the wishes of the majority of the council about a smoking ban in our parks. Remember.... Nelson and Vaugh wanted to ban smoiking in city parks. The rest of the council except fr Hanna voted to just ask people to refrain.. Sciora wanted this ban because of Nelson so he ignred the council vote and they held two mnore meetings before putting the issue to rest... He Sciorra then did away wth yeard debris cleanup. After a month it was reinstated becasue the vast majority of taxpayers want it... Not just a feew the vast majority...
Try getting with the rest of us Poly
The nex big issue will be Hepburn takin over the NY Avenue park for parking.. Nelson is going to lead the charge but the people are against it... Lets hope council keeps Hepburn out of the Park..

Anonymous said...

Mr Burkes comments to the newspaper are a little cloudy.. Bankruptcy does stop most legal process but..
If the City notified him they now owned the house didnt he see any obligation to pay someone the rent. So if he did call to find out Who made the statement not to pay his brother and the City wasnt in the business of being a landlord...WHO WHO WHO..
If the city owned the house it would not be affected by the baankruptcy would it.. Or was the Takeover process stopped at this time.
Did Mr. Burke put his money aside for rent and has he still got it put aside?? If not I doubt he had any inentions of being able to pay his rent anyway...
Since when would the city planner choose which unfortunate people to assist in our city.. Why not all of them not just the Burkes....
I believe Mr. Sciorra was notified during this time of the rent matter and just laid back and ignored it.
HAS THE CITY SEERVED EVICTION NOTICES YET. If not why??? This deciision has to come from Sciorra not council...
This is all confusing but when no policy has been adopted anything you do would be... Thats the managers job, policy is the managers job..
Woods was neglectful and arrogan in doing this, but Sciora was a liar and incometant in doing his job..
WHAT ABOUT TH CHESE PLANT AND OTHER CIT OWNED PROPERTIES... lETS TAKEA LONG LOOK LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...

Anonymous said...

Mr. Burke states that "the city gave him a hand-up, not a handout". How many people in the city have lost their homes to taxes not being paid but never received a deal like this when the city took their homes? Where was their hand-up? It seems to me that this type of dealing should be consistent. It appears that not all are being dealt with the same way. I wonder how many people are wondering what would happen now if they stopped paying their taxes and let their homes run down. Would they get their homes redone and allowed to live in them rent free until they could afford to re-purchase their home? I guess it is time to vote out the council and get rid of the mayor and his buddies, especially the ones at the top. This is the most ridiculous thing I have seen in a long time!

Anonymous said...

I now understand why Mr. Clements was fired this year.. He couldnt do what was expected of him by our manager. The manager couldnt give guidence.. What about the cheese plant?? Are the idiots going to ruin that also???
Meeting after meeting Sciora is asked questions aand asked for reports that he cant and wont furnish... Cousilors have got todo their job NOW...We will do ours in November

Anonymous said...

Mr Hosmer gave a perfect senerio todays advance.. Lot of questions ith no answers.. No matter what is found out we need leadership.
Woods or no other employee can work for us and call his boss a liar in public... ;The boss must be honest and capable at a minimum... Mr. Cosmo also has some culpublity in this..
We elect a mayor to run a council and we elect a council to lead and make decisions and set policy.. All of the above is missing here.A mayor who worries more about his smile and perception than what is being done in town and the majority of council in it for prestige and power.. No results except negative ones.
Fire City manager... Disipline Woods severely,, Get some policy set and enforce it.... Have our police force investigated by the ATG office....

Anonymous said...

Ogdensburgs Knight in white armor wanted to help the unfortunte Burke family.. Thats nice but what about the other people that have fallen on hard times... The White Knight felt the heat comming and wanted the manager to share in it... Nice of him....The Grant money used.. Was this what it was intended for?? Then come up with magical grant money for the other less fortunate.. Bankruptcy shouldnt be complicated for Mr. Woods, Sciora or Cosmo... We have a very competant attorney at their disposal in Mr. Silver...]
Sciora obviously dosnt have a nandle on city affairs.. He has told the dept heads he will back their decisions.. Obviously he is backing Woods decision... HES SO FAR BACK WOODS CANT FIND HIM..
Its pretty obvious that Sciorra is incompetant... Its obvious Woods dosnt understand his job and its limitations. Cosmo should have seen the red flags also.. Didnt he attempt to get the city managers job during interveiws.. Did he see the red flags and ignore them to get another chance.
I agree with the majority of people in the city.. Sciorra ust go.. Woods must go or at a minimum ,severly disiplined. Cosmo should also have some responsibility in this...
Canton has the Dept of Social Services to help people on hard times. Theres no shame in using them.. However if the Burkes have been using Social Service and claiming rent as a monthly expense isnt that fraud.

Anonymous said...

The city charter says that the City Mgr is the CEO.

As such he/she is responsible for all city departments .

IF the current mgr is using a "management by exception" approach or laissez- faire , or hands off approach to leading --- it is Antiquated and out of date in todays world .

Modern mgt is "active and visible with employees" especially in small organizations ( they work in one small bldg)

These men can actually communicate easily face to face by the mgr "catching his/her employees doing things right and reinforcing that good behaviour when he sees it.

Emails and mtgs are also fine but NO substitute for a more active and visible style . If all he deals with are exceptions that is a real problem.

If the mgr was more visible on catching people doing things right when he encounters LESS than good performance on a given task he can then easily correct the behavior or performance and NOT wait for crises to happen .

Transparency is key as is trust both commodities seem to be missing here

To use the excuse of not reading emails and NOT knowing what in blazes is going on in such a small organization BEGS the question if that style of leadership is appropriate in todays organization .

It seems that new and more ACTIVE style of CEO leadership is what is needed to JUMP start this tired old organization

Anonymous said...

Your right 251.. I more blunt way of saying Sci9ra is not the man for the job and the ass kissing on the council must stop... For years we have had Edgar Bergan Charlie McCarthy act going on with the council.. Nelson has merely moved his lips but the noise comes out of Vaugh and Powers.. They are nothing but Party oriented and echo nothing but Nelsons wishes. Now for some reason Cilley is cuddling up to Nelson. Insiders tell me Sciora has been close to being fired a couple of times with the council split basically, Nelson Vaugh and Powers for keeping him and Morley, Shollette and Cilley for ridding the City of him. The key vote for Scliora has been Skamperele.. Skamperele campaigned on ridding the city of arrogance and anti people attitude with the two people most responsible for this lates error being his target.. Now that hese had his chance he failed us... Soon he will get another chance.. Co your job Dan, keep your promise

Anonymous said...

Mr Roses letter in the Journal Tuesday hit the nail straight on and speaks volumes for life in Ogdensburg. Mr. Rose was singled out for persecution by Sciora because he spoke out about shoddy treatment he and neighbors had been recieving. Nelson backed Sciorra on this and of course Vaugh and Powers backed Nelson.. The one suprise was Skamperele..Hes a coward.. Even Cilley seen through the managers lies on this one. Nelson is running again only for one reason. Prestige.... Its his turn o be the mayors association leader this year if hes re=elected... Vaugh and Powers both seen how popular they are and saved themselves the embarrsment of being beat. Powers rn for only one reason and that was to be on top of the prison issue in town. Vaugh just wanted to be someone of consequence....Jack McGrath is running against Nelson and I prdict a very good turnout and a new mayor for us in the fall....

Anonymous said...

And a new council as soon as their seats are up for election.

This council is an embarrassment. Simply good ole boys with Rubber Stamps

Anonymous said...

wE NEED change desperately however lets be fair about the critizim... Morley, and Shollette have represented the people when needed.. Cilley started out with taxpayers in mind .. These three have represented us well.. Nelson Vaugh and Powers have represented their interests well and Skampy is just Skampy he dosnt have a clue...Nelson wants the pretty waterfront (dosnt he own a small piece of property where he could profit from selling to the marina) Powees wanted to keep in touch with what the prisons issues might doto his future and Vaugh simply wants to be a politican or someone that works for a politican.. These three totally forgt us as a city.. Crime, drugs assaults at local bars happen rampartly. Murders and Rapes go unsolved. Sexual assaults up why..??? Powers ehcos allwhen he leads he cheer (great job guys, my hats of to the police.. They just dont care.... Art Sciorra has had his thumb on everything that happens in this city but when anything goes wrong he knows nothing.. Justin Woods has been arrogant and does what he wnnts including being disrespectful to taxpayers and councilors.. What happens... NOthing...
Ogdensburg need a change Lets do it in November BOTE JACK MCGRATH.. ASK MR MCGRATH WHO HE FEELS HE COULD WORK WITH BEST AND ELECT THEM...

Poly Information said...

Be it an old issue but picking up grass clippings every Friday durning the summer is a waste of money. Everyone wants it because that is all they get from the city. Time to make some tough decisions on the City and County levels. This September will be the time to speak out.

Anonymous said...

Pickup grass is a small potato issue . We have much bigger issues to worry about crime , drugs , public safety , detwriorating neighborhoods , 27% pay 100% of the taxes for the city .

THESE are serious problems -- picking up grass is a non issue

Anonymous said...

To 8/20/11 8;42 pm Clements was fired to make an opening for Mat Curleto at the Journal who is a great friend and buddy of Art Scorria. Mat was the city hall reporter for years who always gave Art Scorria and Justin Woods great reviews . Mat Recievied Qouted Memos from Art and Justin after every Council meeting for the paper Now Mat has also joined the Scorria alliance team!

Anonymous said...

That is true ,Clements would not dance to Scorria's tune. He always did his job well as shown by several groups and citizens but would not bow to the evil Scorria!

Anonymous said...

Hey people WHY is Mike Morley the only councilor to speak out ? Why must he Stand Alone. Doug Scholette
is leaving us soon for job related reasons - he would help but where are the rest of the November elect door to door Gang !!!! We got only 2 out of 7 Representing the homeowners in Ogdensburg - That's very poor odds for us! Lets see who is the first fall election wanta-a--bees to speak out !

Anonymous said...

Andy Silver is the Attorney for Ogdensburg and is on retainer. Why does Art scorria get to use him at the taxpayers expense for his personal use. Also how does Andy Silver work for the Mayor,Council & Taxpayers plus represent Art Scorria? Isn't this a conflict of interest? What a tangled web they weave.

Anonymous said...

OGDENSBURG HAS TO VOTE OUT THE NELSON/SCORRIA TICKET THIS FALL.REPLACE SHOLETTE WITH A PRO BUSINESS AGENDA PERSON AND PICK UP A COUPLE OF COUNCIL MENBERS THAT ARE NOT AFRAID TO SPEAK UP!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

The city took over ownership of this house in June of 2008. Its the CEO - Manager Scorria.s job to set things on course and follow up on the progress. His fingerprints are all over everything in Ogdensburg. At council meetings he just sits plays dumb - calls up department heads and they report what he's all ready told them to say OR your fired !!!!!

Anonymous said...

SO vote the incumbents out this fall and the next several elections start BITCHING loudly and demand that this ineffectual mgr be fired.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Nelson will try to save Scorria at all cost - thats his hand picked buddy ! Hey nelson is this guy Worth the election! We all know you you will try to cover up a public vote. You will only as of now get 60% of the Republician Vote. Lose by a little or a lot its up to you! FIRE SCORRIA!!!!

Anonymous said...

VOTE this fall
MaGraph for Mayor
Wayne Ashley
James Amo
Bill Hosmer

This gets rid of Scorria !!!!

Anonymous said...

Nelson and Scorria begone! Your days are numbered. Let's get some honest people in there. They are now hiding behind Our city lawyer. You need to replace some of the councilors with good people who are interested in helping our city.