KNOX — Supervisor Vasilios Lefkditis, who took office Jan. 1, was challenged by the town board and town attorney at the April 12 meeting.

Lefkaditis, a hedge fund manager, had ousted the longtime supervisor in last November’s elections and planned to replace the longtime town attorney, John Dorfman, but didn’t have the board votes to do so.

Lefkaditis had run his first three monthly board meetings in a free-wheeling style, making cost-saving proposals on everything from town telephones to fuel, which the board had unanimously passed without much discussion or investigation.

Among the changes Lefkaditis had proposed at the March meeting — which the board adopted unanimously and without question — was to change insurance brokers from Amsure to Ken Gray of Marshall & Sterling Insurance.

Lefkaditis had said then that Knox was paying “too much” for municipal insurance at about $69,500 a year with Amsure and he proposed switching to Ken Gray who had made a proposal for $46,896.

Gray was in the gallery at the April meeting, with papers in hand, prepared to make a presentation to the board.

Councilman Eric Kuck said at the April meeting that the town board had relied on the figures presented by Lefkaditis “being accurate and truthful.” He said, “The information was not accurate.”

Kuck told The Enterprise this week that, after the March resolution was passed, he had looked into the town’s insrance coverage. “I found out Amsure was not our comp carrier,” he said; Amsure covered vehicles and buildings whilie Wright Risk Management covered workers’ compensation.

At the April meeting, Kuck proposed rescinding the March resolution and returning to Amsure, a motion seconded by Deputy Supervisor Amy Pokorny.

“So we save the taxpayers $22,000 and we’re going to rescind it,” said Lefkaditis and immediately called the question, cutting of any discussion. “When you call the question,” you must vote,” he said.

“I forgot what we’re voting on,” said Councilman Dennis Barber.

All four board members voted for the switch back to Amsure; Lefkaditis voted against the motion.

Gray stood up to leave but was called to the dais by Dorfman.

“I’m using the exact information on your payroll,” said Gray, explaining how he made his calculations. “If the payroll is up, the premium will be up.”

Referring to Lefkaditis, Dorfman asked, “Are these numbers you provided him or he provided you?”

As Gray hesitated, Dorfman said, “It’s a yes or no question.”

“Be polite,” interjected Lefkaditis to Dorfman.

“I provided the numbers in your policy,” said Gray.

“Do you know on what date?” asked Dorfman.

“Before your last board meeting,” answered Gray.

“You’re turning this into an inquisition,” said Lefkaditis. “You’re not going to grill this man…It’s not fair…I apologize on behalf of the town of Knox.”

Applause erupted from the gallery of about two score.

“I am the attorney for this town,” said Dorfman. “We’re trying to figure out what occurred.”

“The town board was asked to vote on changing insurance brokers on the spot,” said Councilman Earl Barcomb. “Ideally, we would have taken a month to look at it.” He also said that the board members were elected to represent the taxpayers.

“So you dug to find something wrong,” said Anna Lefkaditis, the supervisor’s wife, from the gallery.

“You’re with a good company,” said Gray of Amsure

As Gray left Town Hall, Lefkaditis said to the board, “Congratulations. I hope you’re all proud of yourselves; we lost $20,000.”

Barcomb then made a motion to “go out for bid to get the best number,” which passed unanimously.

But at the end of the four-hour, frequently contentious meeting, the issue surfaced again as Lefkaditis questioned how board members and Dorfman had gotten a letter from Amsure addressed to him.

“You came in with a plan; you executed,” said Lefkaditis to the board members. “You cost the taxpayers money for the time being.”

“You misrepresented what we voted on,” said Kuck.

“You are misrepresenting the town lost money,” said Dorfman.

“Under what section can you say that is a legal matter?…If you want to run for office, go ahead, buddy,” Lefkaditis shouted at Dorfman.

Dorfman responded, “The town board requested —“

“That’s not a law, buddy,” returned Lefkaditis.

“Why apologize for no good reason?” asked resident Bruce Countryman from the gallery.

“I thought John was extremely rude to a man who came here at our behest…I thought he was treated like garbage,” said Lefkaditis.

Lefkaditis told The Enterprise the day after the meeting that he had received “a routine letter,” dated March 7. “I opened the letter and put it in my to-do pile on my desk. I didn’t remember the letter,” he said, adding that, “with all the rules and regulations,” being a town supervisor should be a full-time job.

He went on about the town board members, “They got their hands on the letter…If you think something is wrong, you don’t write a resolution that makes someone look like a liar. You call the guy at the top and straighten it out…They’re just playing politics.”

Lefkaditis, who had formerly served on the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board, said, “I’ve been there. When I was on the school board at first I thought ‘gotcha’ was the way to go. It’s not. The town does not benefit that way.”

Kuck responded through The Enterprise that on March 14 he had emailed all the board members, including the supervisor, as well as the town attorney “to say the information for the resolution was not correct and let’s fix it.”

Lefkaditis responded, in a return email, that the contract with Marshall & Sterling had already been executed and that there was no viable reason to have requests for proposals for a broker, reported Kuck, reading from the email.

“We need to slow down and put the breaks on,” he said of the town board. “We need to get facts first and look at things thoughtfully in the best interest of the town.”