The battle over the mayor's office and members of the community and fire department is heating up in the Village of Ilion.

Recently, a member of the Ilion Municipal Utilities Board presented a letter of resignation to the village board which said he's "ashamed to be from Ilion."

Adam P. Fowler announced his intention to resign on Monday and he presented a scathing letter of resignation this week to the village board.

"When I accepted the position to be on the (MUB), it was my understanding that my work history in civil engineering would come in handy. Since I have been on the board, the new 16" water main from the wells to the reservoir has been installed. I never once saw plans to review. We as a board were asked for input as to how to handle the fact that the contractor had several delays in construction which caused the contractor to go over the allotted contract time. When we all agreed for the village to go after the contractor for penalties, our collective voice fell on deaf ears. We as a board don't vote on anything, have any input on personnel or budget matters and obviously what we say has no matter. At this time the Village of Ilion seems to be in disarray and I am ashamed to say I am from Ilion," the letter read.

WIBX has been unable to reach Fowler.

Deputy Mayor Chuck Lester reached out to the Keeler Show on Wednesday and offered to comment on the MUB member's resignation. "I don't know what his problem is, but apparently he's a snowflake and he's a little hurt because he's a civil engineer and he never saw any plans," said Lester. Lester added that they hire engineers to handle the decision making process and they don't rely on the Municipal Utilities Department. Lester said, "a village in disarray doesn't talk about a 16-inch transmission line and run it in less than 2-years with clean water." Lester said the project was finished in an amazing time frame. He's tailing about a new water line after the village has been placed by dirty water, which is believed to have been caused by old decaying water transmission lines.

Lester was also asked by the Keeler Show about the growing controversy over an investigation into the Ilion Fire Department and the action of placing the chief and another firefighter on paid administrative leave, while the police investigation is completed.

"When these people attack us, call us names, call us incompetent, stupid, and all these other things, and then when I talk loud because I have a hearing loss and we're in an auditorium and I want people to hear me...oh they get all bent out of shape," said Lester about an issue that he implied recently occurred that seemingly prompted criticism from members of the public.

 

Lester was also asked about the 2 firefighters, including the chief, who have been placed on administrative leave. he said because they were employment issues he couldn't speak about the issue, but he was willing to say one statement about the issue.

"There's laws in place, there's training that everyone has taken, that works for the village and it's now my understanding that some private companies are doing it...and the training entails, every year we have to go through it, it talks about hazardous materials in the workplace, it talks about sexual harassment, and it talks of hostile workplace/workplace violence, and everyone (who works for the village) has to take it. So, when those rules are violated, then we have to act," said Lester.

Listen to the complete interview in the video below.

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