Oswego County Legislator Frank Castiglia Jr: Why To Say No or Use Deductive Reasoning Voting

The following letter is from Oswego County Legislator Frank Castiglia Jr., serving District 25:

The Place: Oswego County Legislative Chambers.

Time and date: 2 p.m., January 6, 2022.

The purpose: Organizational Meeting. The first meeting of the year for the Oswego County Legislature.

This meeting is generally a cut and dry meeting. This meeting this year had several new department heads and newly created Departments.

I have never been a follow-the-leader type of elected official. I have always taken an investigative approach on all resolutions.

In order to properly serve the taxpayers of Oswego County you must always think and act with their best interest in mind.

One appointment was for [a] purchasing director. This appointment was voted against by a past Minority Leader and the Democratic Caucus as a whole. The point was made that this appointment was nothing more than a p xolitical pay-back.

The Search Committee chose a person that was a high-ranking political party member. The feeling at the time was this wasn’t the best candidate. With that in mind I also chose to vote NO on this appointment. I have and never will be in favor of political pay-back regardless of party affiliation – best person is best for the job.

The last appointment and the most expensive was the appointment of a newly created department and department head. It was the Strategic Initiatives Department.

This was a department and director that would receive $1 million over five years to direct the spending of the remaining $22 million that the County received as part of the governments money to help with the Covid-19 relief efforts.

Now this again was an appointment that the past Minority Leader and Minority Caucus had voted NO on.

Stating the obvious that these functions could be performed by the same person in the existing position that they held, along with the County Administrator, saving the taxpayers $1 million.

That money could be better served through infrastructure help to the towns and villages along with COVID-19 relief for Oswego County Health. For these reasons I voted NO on this appointment.

As you can see I didn’t just vote NO. If you don’t explain your process that determined your NO vote you aren’t any better than the follow the leader voters.

I used knowledge and deductive reasoning in my voting process. I am not a follow-the-leader voter on [the]spending of taxpayer money. This why people voted for me.

Frank Castiglia Jr.

Oswego County Legislator 25^th District

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