Ny code enforcement fired after asbestos incident

Cherry Creek, New York â€" A code enforcement officer from the Chautauqua County village of Cherry Creek claimed to have been fired after blowing the whistle on his boss over an asbestos-related incident. The incident centers on the demolition of Cherry Creek’s old and dilapidated schoolhouse. Code enforcement officer Frank Watson refused to sign off on the demolition papers on the grounds that proper asbestos abatement procedures weren’t being followed. The trouble began in February, when demolition of the Cherry Creek schoolhouse was initiated. At the time code enforcement had not issued any permits, and there were questions about whether an asbestos inspection had been carried out prior to demolition. Watson claims that after the demolition had already began, Cherry Creek’s mayor asked him to sign off on the demolition, but Watson refused to do so. Watson subsequently claimed that “By me not signing that permit and by speaking out I’m being fired.” Cherry Creek Mayor Dean Mount says, however, that the incident “probably” had something to do with Watson being fired, but only “a very small part of it.” Watson claims that he was fired for purely political reasons to do with his refusal to illegally sign the permit, calling the incident “small-town politics at its worst.” The Mayor, however, claims that Watson was fired due to budget constraints. At a meeting held on March 12, Department of Labor’s Asbestos Control Division confirmed that notice of asbestos code violations in relation to the Cherry Creek school building had been issued to the village. Department spokesperson Chris Perham confirmed that “The violations ha[d] stipulations attached that state the village must correct whatever the specific issue was.” An additional problem that the special Village Board meeting at which Watson was fired wasn’t properly publicized according to New York State Open Meetings Law requirements. The law requires that such meetings be publicized in the media. In this case, the requirement would have been to publish notice of the meeting in local newspaper “The Post Journal,” but this was not done. Instead, says Mayor Mount, flyers were posted around town to publicize the meeting. Posting flyers satisfies only one half of the law, which states that public notice of a meeting should be given to the news media and should also be “conspicuously posted in one or more designated public locations.” (Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News)