2 years ago
The Niagara County Legislature unanimously passed creating a new Homeland Security Department, with a director paid around $75,000 dollars. The County Manager says Niagara County taxpayers will foot the bill.
Kristin Donnelly ask, "So you feel like this is worth the money?"
Legislator Danny Sklarski answers, "Without question it's a necessity."
With three international crossings lawmakers say it's crucial to have a sole person dedicated to homeland security.
Renae Kimble, Niagara County Legislator says, "They will coordinate all the different agencies that deal with that department, police and fire, hospitals and all other emergency personnel."
Kristin Donnelly asks, "Who was doing this job before and was it not getting done adequately?"
Sklarski says, "We didn't have a permanent person doing the job we had one of our staff members filling in," later he continues, "it was being done adequately but there are issues and concerns out there, where we can get, quite frankly, a little bit more security."
Some spoke out last night at a public hearing that this position is just another bureaucrat.
The county manager disagrees.
"Absolutely not, that was kind of a false charge waged by someone that wasn't informed," says Greg Lewis.
He adds, "This is an important investment, there's no single position in this county that can do this job, there's none."
Greg Lewis says he'll conduct a nationwide search to fill the position and when we asked how much that would cost he became defensive.
"Places like this have to quit being penny-anny pound foolish," he says.
Kristin Donnelly says, "People want to know how they're money is being spent and I think that's a fair question."
Lewis, "No a fair question is how you protect yourself."
Lewis told us the cost for adverstising for this position would cost the same as advertising for any other open county position.
He'll post the job free on the web and pay for a spot in the local paper.
