AMHERST, N.Y. (WKBW) — Amherst residents packed Monday's night town board meeting to call out members of the board to resign.
This comes as frustrations have risen over claims of a lack of communication, transparency, and the board passing an 11.4 percent tax increase.
Gina Gentry says she felt the board wasn’t being respectful during past board meetings when questions arose about the tax increase.
“11.4% tax increase is unheard of it's over the state average, and if you look at all the local towns like Tonawanda, Cheektowaga and Clarence they are all below 2% that they went up so they had to vote to increase it above the 3%,” says Gentry. “And then they went well above the state average without anyone knowing and they released it two days after the election.”
7 News reporter Yoselin Person caught up with Town of Amherst Supervisor Brian Kulpa who defended the board’s actions.
“We did put stuff out there but the media didn't write about it right away not blaming the media is just the cycle. It was a pre-election,” says Supervisor Kulpa. “And so you know there was there's this contention that we had withheld information it was all out of the same time frames.”
Supervisor Kulpa does explain the passing of the tax increase for this year.
“11 percent increase isn’t something to take lightly. Depending on the value of your home that's a lot of money to some people, and I get that reality is it's not part of the park project in Central Park,” he says. “This is born out of infrastructure, it's out of filling vacant police positions throughout the town, and it's born out of a revenue slide with interest rates in the economy changing last year.”
Supervisor Kulpa even addresses the claims of him and the board being unprofessional.
“If I roll my eyes, if I make a face we're not being rude it's just reacting to some people who have not been very gracious with us,” he says.
While these taxpayers are still rooting for change from the board some say they’re hoping council members can include them in future discussions.
“Please, please communicate through all kinds of channels, through social media. Share what's going on, be more open, be more transparent, invite conversations,” says Allison Sagraves. “We all want to live in the community that we support and that thrives and we need to work together in order to make that happen.”
