(Photo/Julie Carasone)
By Mike Pettinella
For Video News Service
A week after finding that the historic Odd Fellow Lodge and former Stafford Trading Post at the corner of Route 5 and 237 had been broken into, building owner James Pontillo (above photo) appeared at Monday night’s Stafford Town Board meeting.
Link to meeting below:
GENESEE COUNTY/Stafford Town Board Meeting/July 8, 2024 – Video News Service
Pontillo said he is looking for the board to work with him to complete the outside of the structure, which just about everyone agrees has been an eyesore.
He said that nobody in Stafford town government has reached out to him this year to see the inside of the building, which he claims is “95 percent complete.”
“I believe the only other person (beside Code Enforcement Officer Gene Sinclair) on the board (who has been inside) has been Mr. Clement (Supervisor Robert Clement),” he said. “Nobody on the board has ever asked to go inside that building. It’s only other people. The attorneys have been in there. Engineers have been in there. All the inspectors.”
(File photo)
He said that the building “supposedly is being condemned because it’s abandoned, but it’s not abandoned.”
The town has issued a summons to Pontillo for alleged code violations but he said the document drafted by the town attorney isn’t completely accurate.
“When I read through that, he’s not going to be very happy when he finds out that you only gave him part of the truth and not the whole truth,” he said, speaking to the board. “And I believe attorneys get very upset when they go to court and find out you gave them part of the truth – because that’s a whole lie.”
He stated that he asked to have a meeting with the board several months ago to resolve the matter.
“Nope, we’re going to attorneys,” he said was the board’s reply. “So, I’ve been waiting.”
Pontillo said he has spent more than $100,000 on the inside of the building since buying it 14 years ago.
“Some of the best comments that I got about the inside of the building was by the people that you brought in there to investigate the building, which were engineers – they gave me some wonderful comments — and your previous attorneys,” he said. “They said while looking at the outside, we don’t realize how good the inside is. It’s because I haven’t had a chance to get that done.”
He said he figures the board has spent about $50,000 in attorney’s fees in connection to the building.
“That would have been a great contribution to say, let’s donate half of that to the Historical Society,” he said.
Clement mentioned that the building needed a coat of paint when Pontillo bought it and now “you took the siding off of three sides.”
“What’s next?”
Pontillo replied that he was going to stucco the building.
“The whole inside is practically stuccoed. We already changed all the windows,” he said. “We put all fire rated doors through the building. The inside was done. Then what happened? There was a stop work order when we were doing the side – ‘Oh, you’re going beyond the scope.’ That happened three times.”
Pontillo then invited Town Attorney David DiMatteo to walk through the building.
He also contends that the board “wants the building to look as bad as it does.”
“Is there not a code violation for tall grass and weeds? … I have not received one this year. I’ve not received one this year because they want the building look the way it does,” he said.
Continuing, he said he has put Tyvek on the building more than once “and it mysteriously gets torn down.”
“And you can tell somebody’s got a hook on here and they rip it all down. There’s cameras here that point to that building but the cameras never see anything when something happens. I had all the materials to finish my roof on a trailer; we were going to finish it. That weekend someone comes and mysteriously steals the trailer and everything. Nobody saw nothing.
“What was interesting was I got served two days later – ‘Oh, you didn’t finish your roof.’ Yeah, when my building got broken into. It was damaged.. There’s Sinclair right there in the middle of the night – ‘Here, you have code violations.’”
At that point, Sandra Swanson, a town resident, asked Pontillo what it would take to get it done “and create a more beautiful downtown Stafford?”
Pontillo responded by saying the board “illegally evicted my tenants out of the building to cut my revenue down.”
“We have three tenants upstairs and we had two tenants downstairs – and then there was just the one. We had three up there and they were evicted.”
Swanson then asked, “So, are you saying that there is no way that you could at least complete the outside of the building?”
“It takes money,” Pontillo replied. “I would have rather spent $50,000 on fixing the building instead of attorney fees, fighting it.”
Pontillo said all he wants is “assurance” that if he spends another $50,000 to finish the outside, the board will allow him to do so. He also believes the tenants were evicted so he wouldn’t be able to be “grandfathered in” as a mixed-use building.
Turning to Clement, he said, “Would you be honest … did you not make the statement to me, ‘Well, how much more are you going to spend before it’s not worth it anymore?’”
To which Clement replied, “You’ve probably reached that point.”
“Yeah, that’s your mentality,” Pontillo shot back. “It’s like we have our supervisor who is kind of making in jest to me, you know, ‘Come on, how much more you want to spend before you’ve got to walk away from it.”
In other development, the board:
— Heard the annual financial statement audit report from Jeremy Smith, CPA, with Lumsden & McCormick of Buffalo. Smith reported that the town’s general fund showed a surplus of $31,000 in 2023, a highway fund surplus of $115,000 (due to some transfers), and $100,000 increase in property taxes collected.
He also reported that the town has spent about $1 million thus far of $4.4 million in grants, loans, etc. for the water district 12 project.
— Read resignation letters from James Call and Stephanie Call, president and treasurer, respectively, of the Stafford Fire Department. Both were longtime participants in the department.
The letters pointed to numerous problems in the department, specifically negativity, bullying, lack of interest, self-serving, wasteful spending, collusion, unqualified (volunteers) and people living outside of the appointed area. The letters also stated that “the future looks bleak.” Contacted by Video News Service, James Call said he had no comment.
Too bad Mr. Pontillo doesn’t post pics of the inside of the improvements made. That would answer a lot of questions.
this guy has been fighting to avoid having this wreak condemed since he bought it (and paid way to much for it) a decade ago and has done exactly zero work to it
it needs to go.
Not true, he invested a great deal on the inside. The town stopped him from fixing up the outside.
I have photos of the improvements before and after while they were still in process. They did a great job. If he wants me to post them, I would be happy to.
Why is it that no one mentions the former beauty and architecture of the building. South Byron used to have a similar building that, I believe, burned. Do we want to lose this significant building? The old style windows have been altered and cheapened. Please don’t slap stucco in the outside, or, heaven help us, vinyl. Restore, don’t remodel {remuddle}! This has bothered me for quite some time every time I pass this building. We just lost the cut stone Federal style house owned by the quarry down the road. So the store/Odd Fellows Hall must be the next victim. These buildings are part of our Genesee Country heritage which we can all be proud of.
I agree!! No stucco!! Work with the national preservation society and restore it’s original charm.
I ssy make it a bar crush the house behind it and put a pool table slash game room like copperhead in batavia and that will attract everyone to stafford like the carnival did u spend so much on a building but the carnival was amazing too and they took it away stafford is a good town thats needs more spoof to it for its people
Sounds like the board are a$$holes. It takes money to make money. If he’s showing there is progress, then what’s the problem?
There’s more to this story than what we are being told.
Good luck Mr. Pontillo. Sounds like they will do anything to stop you.
Very true, a lot more going on here. I stopped in to view the progress several times. I have photos of the before and after showing all the work that was done. I really hoped they would do the outside first, but it made sense that he needed the income from the tenants to keep the project funded. The town made the tenants move out, made ridiculous demands, and criminal mischief occurred frequently to set the project back. T. Englert attempted to buy the building, he told me he wanted to tear it down and put in a gas station. Although Tom is gone, I’ve been told that is still the plan for the Englert family which owns the ‘new’ trading post next door. The national preservation society has this building on a very short list as a historic place worth saving.
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