KNOX — Over a month after three town transfer station workers were fired, residents of Knox questioned the decision again at the Feb. 13 town board meeting. The Albany County Civil Service is now reviewing the dismissals, and had issued a decision before rescinding it, town officials said.

Two of the three fired workers have been Knox transfer-station attendants for more than five years and therefore may be protected under Civil Service Law, as The Enterprise reported on Jan. 9. Councilman Earl Barcomb told The Enterprise on Tuesday that the county’s Civil Service department had initially decided that at least these two workers — Joseph Adriance and Richard Dexter — were wrongfully fired, but rescinded that decision after the town submitted responses to the department’s inquiry. The third worker, Mark Young, had worked for the town for three years.

All three of the fired workers want their jobs back and are communicating with the state and county Civil Service offices about it. Joan Adriance, the wife of one of the fired workers, said at the Feb. 13 meeting that they have filed formal complaints with Albany County Civil Service and New York State Civil Service.

Their posts are categorized as labor, and had been until recently ineligible for protections from dismissal and discipline, but an amendment passed last year extended protection to workers who had been on the job for more than five years.

Should the the county Civil Service issue a similar decision as before, Barcomb said he is not sure what action the town will take.

“We have new transfer-station guys that are employed as well,” said Barcomb. “I’m not sure that we can let them go without just cause either.”

Barcomb and Councilman Dennis Barber, both Democrats, had voted on New Year’s Day against making the new appointments. Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis and councilmen Karl Pritchard and Kenneth Saddlemeire, who were elected together on the Republican line, voted to make the new appointments.

Young told The Enterprise on Tuesday that all three workers filed a complaint sometime in mid-January. He said he personally has not heard a response from the departments. The basis of the complaint, said Young, is that it was improper to dismiss himself and the other workers without a chance for them to respond.

Lefkaditis said at the Feb. 13 meeting that the Civil Service department had emailed him and is reviewing the town’s decision. The department did issue an opinion on the matter, he said, but rescinded it. Barcomb said at the meeting that the Civil Service had asked the town board questions, to which the town attorney, Javid Afzali, submitted an official response from the supervisor.

One of the new transfer-station workers, Glen Walsh, is Afzali’s father-in-law. Afzali was not at the Feb. 13 town board meeting.

“The response crossed in the mail, I guess, because they didn’t get it until they had issued an initial decision,” said Barcomb. He said that the rest of the board also didn’t receive information about the inquiry initially. After reaching out, Barcomb was given a copy of the supervisor’s response, he said.

Barcomb asked to submit a minority response, as he and Barber had voted against the decision in a 3-2 vote. His response was also submitted by the town attorney, Barcomb said.

Barcomb said that he agreed with two of Lefkaditis’s responses to the four questions posed by the Civil Service department. Barcomb said that he also contacted the former town supervisor, Michael Hammond, a Democrat, for background information, as he and Lefkaditis have only served on the board for three years.

Barcomb told The Enterprise that Hammond’s 42-year tenure as town supervisor offered insight into this, including when the transfer station was first built in 1984.

Lefkaditis, as has been the case for over a year, would not respond to questions posed by The Enterprise in a phone call on Tuesday; he did not respond to emailed questions before press time.

Michael Marr, a personnel technician for the Albany County Department of Civil Service, said last month that the county’s Civil Service office has been communicating with the town of Knox and the state’s Department of Civil Service about whether the town is legally able to dismiss its transfer station workers. He did not return a call for comment this week before press time.

Residents rebel

At the Feb. 13 meeting, residents packed Town Hall for the second monthly board meeting in a row, and continued to question why the workers were fired in the first place.

Couple Laura Murphy and Timothy Fischer, who last month both referenced conversations they had had with the supervisor about the firings, again questioned the board. Murphy asked if the decision to fire the three workers and hire new ones could be reversed.

Lefkaditis said that said that the new workers would not be fired, but said that technically the former workers could be hired if the town wanted to hire additional workers to the three.

Murphy later asked if the workers were fired for no reason. The workers said earlier that they had no warning and were given no reasons for losing their jobs. Lefkaditis told Murphy there was a reason but it would not be disclosed. He then offered to speak privately with the former workers about why they were fired, saying that they could then disclose it if they wanted to.

“We thought about it,” Young told The Enterprise, of Lefkaditis’s offer. “But we’re not going to give him the satisfaction.”

Fischer also asked about whether anyone in the town government was related to the new hires, saying that it gives the town government a bad appearance.

“If you want to talk fairness, why don’t you go back five or 10 years and look at the political affiliation of every single employee in the town of Knox and then call me and discuss it … ,” said Lefkaditis.

“You’ve got to get over the past,” said Barber, as the discussion became heated.

Lefkaditis said that, when he first became supervisor in 2016 there were “13 relatives working here” and now there is only one, referring to Walsh who is the father-in-law of the town attorney. Adriance corrected him, noting that the town also recently hired the highway superintendent’s daughter as its dog-control officer. Lefkaditis did not enumerate the alleged 13 connected former workers.

Amy Pokorny, a former Democratic council member who lost an election bid against Lefkaditis, read a statement about workers who have been replaced by the supervisor, saying that “people are not disposable,” and referencing others who had either left or were replaced in town positions. Her husband, town assessor Russell Pokorny, said he is retiring from the position this year after he said the supervisor tried to replace him last year.

The sentiment of residents seated in the gallery during town board meetings — formerly dominated by a cheering section for Lefkaditis — has reversed in recent months.

Two years ago, several dozen people shouted their disapproval of Amy Pokorny — when she was still a town councilwoman — and her proposal for an electric-vehicle charging station, one of the green “action items” she oversaw that eventually secured over $100,000 in grant money for Knox from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Although a handful of people applauded on Feb. 3 when Lefkaditis described reducing the number of employed relatives in town government, and Jeremy Springer, one of the new transfer-station employees, defended the supervisor, the last two town board meetings have been crowded to standing room only, with many residents upset at the supervisor over issues like the fired transfer-station workers and a years-long delay in submitting the town’s annual reports to the state.