BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- The town supervisor says town officials weren’t consulted before the village released a report on the COVID-19 emergency operations center.

Town Supervisor Steve O’Shaughnessy made the comments during the July 15 Town Council meeting streamed online via Zoom.

“I was a little upset this panel didn’t even bother to contact anybody,” he said. “Nobody ever bothered to contact the Town of Massena.”

The report was written by a committee chosen by village Mayor Tim Currier. Committee members included Martha Slack and Greg Paquin, and was chaired by Scott Wilson.

One of the areas of improvement recommended in the report that dissatisfied O’Shaughnessy criticized the Town Highway Department.

“It would have been good to keep certain public functions operating. Down time, for example the Village DPW/Town Highway Department, could have been spent on street cleaning, brush pick-up, etc., while still using split shifts,” the report said.

“They said one of the faults of the program was the Highway Department … could have spent down time on street cleaning, brush pick-up, etc. while using split shifts. That’s what we did,” the supervisor said.

Highway Superintendent Frank Diagostino said his workers were out doing just that.

“We were cleaning roadsides, we were monitoring roads, we were cleaning brush,” Diagostino said.

O’Shaughnessy said that the town had maintenance workers cleaning the EOC area.

“We had our maintenance man here doing all the work. He did all the cleaning in the EOC, plus the doors and all the access points, the bathrooms,” he said.

The supervisor said a town cleaning crew at one point had to clean the village police station because their cleaning staff wouldn’t do it.

“[Village police] cleaning staff refused to come in. [Town cleaning staff] took up the mantle and did it. Your crews should be commended,” the supervisor claimed.

He also said he thinks the report should have applauded the Massena Public Library for offering the services they could, within limits set forth in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive orders.

“The library had gone way out of its way to keep open and have the curbside service,” O’Shaughnessy said. “They did it as long as they could, then they were shut down by executive order, then they opened as early as they could.”

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