Lakewood Village Board meeting (July 11, 2022)

The Village of Lakewood is investigating whether to establish an EMS Department in order to bill for EMS ambulance service in the village.

Trustee Ellen Barnes said the discussion was informational at this point, “So we can bring the information, not only to the public but to the different members of the Fire Department. They have a ton of questions. They’re the ones who go out there and do all the hard work, so obviously we want them to ask the questions – How is this going to work and how does it involve them, and rightfully so.”

The Village Board passed a resolution at a special meeting on Thursday, July 7 authorizing the investigation. The village’s Fire Department is staffed by volunteer members.

Lakewood Village Hall

LAKEWOOD – The Jamestown Post-Journal says the mayor of Lakewood is denying that she instructed the Chautauqua Lake Association to conduct water tests for herbicide use off the village shores of Chautauqua Lake in June.

During Monday night’s village board meeting, Mayor Cara Birrittieri responded to accusations from two village board members in August that she was responsible for the $853 charge.

The alleged spending was brought to light two weeks ago in a letter to the village clerk by trustees Ellen Barnes and Randall Holcomb after Barnes said CLA Executive Director Douglas Conroe said Birrittieri ordered the tests.

Birrittieri expressed her confusion as to why Conroe would say that. Conroe declined to comment when reached by The Post-Journal after the trustees’ meeting.

She also called the accusations against her “absurd” and demanded that she receive apologies from Barnes and Holcomb.

Following the discussion the board voted 3 to 2 in favor of paying the charge to the CLA.

The testing that was done by the CLA came back negative.

Democratic challenger for Lakewood Mayor, Cara Birrittieri

LAKEWOOD – The mayor’s race for the village of Lakewood is too close to call.

Democratic challenger Cara Birrittieri leads incumbent David Wordelmann by 20 votes – although absentee ballots could change the outcome. The official results will be known within two weeks once all absentees are counted. A total of 95 absentee ballots were sent out with 50 having already been sent back to the board of elections.

LAKEWOOD VILLAGE TRUSTEES

Randall Holcomb (R) 578 and Ellen Barnes (R) 516 were elected, with current board member John Jablonski III (D) losing his reelection bid.

Meanwhile, the supervisor of the second largest town in southern Chautauqua County has easily won reelection.

Busti Republican Jesse Robbins defeated challenger Democratic Lee Fischer by a vote of 906 to 598. The Busti Town Council was also contested, with Republican James Andrews and Democrat Rudy Mueller being the top two vote-getters. Republican Robert Schultz was the odd man.

Also for Busti in the Town Justice race, William Geary (R) 930 defeated Gary Segrue (D) 682.