North Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - The North Tonawanda Common Council is requesting a review into Mayor Austin Tylec's conduct.
Council member Frank DiBernardo says a resident named Jake Quinn accused the mayor of sending police officers to his job to investigate a parody Facebook page. Now he's trying to sue.
"Mr. Quinn has stated that he's going to pursue legal action against the mayor and the chief, and of course, it'd be the city of North Tonawanda. We've asked our lawyer to to look into it, because now we could have a financial impact to the city, and that's our responsibility, right? We're legislative branch, and now that there could be a potential liability to the city, we've asked them to look into it. Let us know, course of action. We have not we have not asked to discipline the mayor or anybody else or ask for anything. We're just asking them to see what went, what happened, and what liability there could be to the city," stated DiBernardo in an interview with WBEN.
However, Tylec calls the allegations fabricated and says he filed a police complaint after reporting the Facebook page for misleading residents.
"Some residents see the humor behind it, but there's a lot of residents who ultimately didn't and were concerned about various posts or events that they put up and thinking that they were speaking as the mayor, and that's really what the problem becomes. Freedom of speech is there, but when you're speaking in a fraudulent way, pretending to be Mayor Austin Tyler or any elected official or any you know person, that's just not okay," stated Tylec.
Tylec says North Tonawanda Police Chief, Keith Glass, confirmed the investigation followed standard procedures and would have been handled the same way for any other individual, regardless of their status.
"I am deeply disappointed that the North Tonawanda Common Council chose to make this politically motivated request to the city attorney without consulting either the Police Chief or my office. Furthermore, the North Tonawanda City Charter explicitly prohibits the city attorney from representing either party in this matter," stated Tylec.
Police Chief Keith Glass tells WBEN in a statement Tylec requested a case be reopened last week because concerned residents were contacting Tylec about it. Glass says detectives talked to Quinn, who denied making the page, but gave police the names of three other people.