More than 70 City of Tonawanda residents turned out Wednesday night at Mullen Elementary to hear this year’s crop of mayoral and council candidates deliver their opinions on city government.

The event, co-sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of the Tonawandas and the Tonawanda News, began with mayoral candidates Councilman Rick Davis and Mayor Ron Pilozzi. Visions for the redeveloped Spaulding Fibre site was the first topic of discussion.

Pilozzi said the terminology was appropriate, since everything at this point would only amount to a vision. While the city is currently working on a zoning plan, the mayor said he’s not sure what will end up going there. He’s more certain about what types of things won’t be.

“I know this, it’s not going to be M1,” Pilozzi said of the zoning. “There’s not going to be a garbage transfer station there.”

Pilozzi floated building a sporting arena on part of the site, which Davis found ill advised.

Davis said he wants to see a business park akin to the Colvin Woods development in the Town of Tonawanda, drawing in multiple light industries rather than one large employer that could walk away from the site and leave the city holding the bag once again. He argued that jobs created by an arena would be too low paying to make a large positive impact on the city.

“A hockey arena would not fit the bill of us bringing jobs into the city,” Davis said, adding he worried about the cost.

Pilozzi pointed out the potential other uses: things like tractor pulls, wrestling matches and concerts, the mayor said it would draw customers for other businesses as well.

“Something like that would a catalyst, a magnet to attract people to our city,” Pilozzi said.

Assessments

The question of whether the city’s reassessments had been done fairly was next, and Davis said he initially believed they were. But now that two residents of the River Edge area have successfully challenged their assessments, Davis said he’d like to see the city work harder to settle the lawsuits he said are costing city taxpayers too much. He fears a larger tax gap if the residents do win their suit, with the city paying 9 percent interest on the difference.

“There’s no need to continue to draw out the process,” Davis said.

Pilozzi said he was in full agreement that the suit should be settled, but said it was residents, not the city, who had walked away from the bargaining table. And while the mayor acknowledged the reductions two residents have already won, he argued that the less than $8,000 the city has spent on lawyer’s fees fighting assessment challenges was better than the alternative of redistributing a substantial chunk of the tax rate over the rest of the city.

“If you allow this section of the city to be treated differently than the rest, who takes up the slack? You do,” Pilozzi said of the city’s remaining residents.

Landfill

With another round of testing at the Tonawanda Landfill starting this week, both candidates were asked for their opinion on what the mayor’s role in the process should be. Pilozzi said he has always believed his role was to sit at the table with other community leaders to work out solutions. In the end, however, the mayor said there’s only one outcome he wants to see.

“The only real answer is to get rid of the contamination. There is no other answer,” Pilozzi said.

Davis agreed with that sentiment, but said Pilozzi’s approach of writing letters to higher elected officials isn’t what helped the keep the matter on the radar. The councilman said it wasn’t until he and other officials organized residents and got a lawyer that the Town of Tonawanda started talking. Davis added that it was the petition drive and letter-writing campaign that he helped organize that got the Army Corps of Engineers to reopen the matter after previously advising no action. Even now, he’s not sure this round of testing will be enough to get the results people want.

“I question how much money has been spent on monitoring and testing that could have been spent to clean this up 20 years ago when things were identified,” Davis said.

Pilozzi agreed that he’s not sure this latest round of testing — strikingly similar to the tests done on the site last time — are going to get results. But he disputed Davis’ assertion that the mayor’s correspondence with other officials and agencies didn’t account for much.

“I’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to get the attention needed to this project,” Pilozzi said.

Land use

Next up was the issue of city-owned land on Little League Drive. While he hailed the city school district for finally organizing committees to review its land needs and the future of elementary facilities, Davis said it was too late for the district to be asking for Little League Drive property without a valid plan.

“The city can’t wait five, 10, 15 years to decide what to do with these properties,” Davis said.

Davis went on to say that when people are looking to move, they don’t look as closely at the athletic programs at schools as they do at the academic performance of schools and quality of municipal services. Since business development follows population, Davis contends that developing 50 new houses in that area would both expand the city’s tax base and make the area more appealing to incoming merchants.

Citing the SIMSI report that suggested a land swap as a possible solution for maximizing city efficiency, Pilozzi said relocating Clinton Small stadium near the high school campus might not add to the tax base. But what it would do is allow the district to get state aid for improvements to the facility. That money could then come off the district’s tax levy, reducing the overall tax burden on local residents.

Pilozzi said the district has asked the city to wait until February or March to make a decision with Little League Drive, saying that by then district leaders will have a clearer view of their hopes for the future. Since the Little League Drive property would need infrastructure installed and district property that could be exchanged is already on existing electrical, water and sewer lines, the mayor said it makes sense to wait until the district has a better idea of what it needs.

“Let’s wait until the school district makes up its mind, and that’s three, four months away,” Pilozzi said.

In closing, Pilozzi said he has delivered on the promises he made when campaigning for the office four years ago. While he gave credit to his staff and various department heads, Pilozzi cited infrastructure improvements, positive business development, better code enforcement and great strides made on the Spaulding Fibre demolition.

Davis said Pilozzi can’t take credit for those developments, since it’s the council and department heads who made much of that happen. The councilman said the city is losing the battle for grant funds and he wants to change the city’s image that gets him a look of disdain from outsiders when he tells them where he’s from. Davis contends better planning and community outreach is the key.

The full evening of debates will air on LCTV at a later date.

Contact reporter Daniel Pye at 693-1000, ext. 158.