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By: Brendan McDonough

Reporter for North Tonawanda

One year ago next month, North Tonawanda Resident Austin Tylec went from being an average citizen to a member of the North Tonawanda Common Council. 

For him it has been a year filled with meeting people across the community, attending the weekly meetings every Tuesday night and working to help make North Tonawanda a better place.

“I think it has been pretty great, I am pretty excited about the things that have been done, we have the community garden that happened, we have some improvements on Webster Street, we have an ice rink that is coming into Pine Woods Park, that was thanks to the DPW and the Parks Dept., “said Tylec.

He says the job of representing the community and helping to pass laws that affect hundreds of residents, has been a little easier than what he imagined it would be.

“It has been surprisingly easier than I thought it would be this year, I actually thought it would be a little bit harder. I think it’s is a good thing that it has been easier because we have really built a lot of relationships, with council members and residents, business owners too and I think we have a really exciting 3 years ahead, for my term at least,” said Tylec.

In his year of service to North Tonawanda, there have been some bumps along the way. That includes not always agreeing with other members of the Common Council. 

Another such bump was in June when Tylec was fined by City of North Tonawanda for permit dodging on the renovation of his new home. 

For Tylec, he says communication needs to be better the other members and is sometimes a problem but admits he wants to try and work on.

“Communication with other council members and the Mayor on all of our parts. I do not know what it is but the Mayor has even said he thinks this year has been tough communicating with other departments, volunteer organizations, and community members. That is something that I think we need to bridge the gap on. I really do think communication was our biggest challenge this year,” said Tylec.

Although Tylec was the only dissenting vote on the Common Council for the proposed 2019 budget, which was passed in November, he says he already has ideas for the 2020 budget.

“The other council members just passed the Mayor’s [2019] Budget. I had some questions and issues with it. I did not agree with a lot of it. I feel that myself and the other Council members are really going to have to hold ourselves accountable next year and make sure that we get those things done that we said we were going to do, like look at the budget a little earlier, work with the Mayor more, get our departments more involved, look at our health care, look at our workers comp, look at our over-time and see how we can be a little smarter about our spending,” said Tylec.

For Tylec 2019, is a new year and a new start, a chance for him to take the lessons learned during his first year in office and apply them going forward.