Story Created:
Sep 9, 2010 at 10:45 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Sep 10, 2010 at 4:45 PM EDT
UTICA, NY (WKTV) - Now that the GroWest investigation is complete, it's time for the City of Utica to pay up for five months of work by local attorney J.K. Hage.
However, Utica City Comptroller, Michael Cerminaro, doesn't plan to cut a check anytime soon.
"I don't care at this point in time, because all I care about is doing what is right," Cerminaro said. "I think the city is being hosed on this. It was a needless investigation. As of right now, I am not paying that bill."
Utica Mayor David Roefaro says the Utica City Comptroller doesn't have to sign the six figure check paying the attorney in the GroWest investigation. However, if the Comptroller refuses, the matter will go into litigation and Roefaro is confident the bill will be paid.
Cerminaro was specifically named in the executive summary of the report saying, "Utica's Comptroller and U.E.D. share responsibility in the failure of GroWest."
Cerminaro also says that the Mayor's hiring of Hage was politically motivated to focus blame on others. Roefaro says that is not the case.
"Mr. Cerminaro thinks I'm going to look the other way and sweep things under the rug and he talks about costing the city money with lawsuits," Roefaro said. "Well you know what - it's going to cost the city a heck of a lot more because we are in jeopardy of losing federal funding."
The Mayor is confident that the money spent hiring attorney J.K. Hage for the investigation will be completely covered by the money recouped through the resulting litigation.
The City of Utica has not yet received an official bill for the investigation, but the mayor expects to see one on his desk in the next 30 days.
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