ITHACA, N.Y. — Frustration boiled over in City Hall before three members of Common Council walked out over a contentious vote near the end of a late-night city budget meeting on Thursday.
Instead of voting on an amendment that would have set aside funds to raise the mayor’s salary from $30,000 to $62,500 a year, Alderpersons Phoebe Brown, David Shapiro and Margaret Fabrizio — who were all opposed to raising the mayor’s salary — walked out of council chambers after it became clear the measure would pass.
The council members exited the meeting after debating and voting on budget amendments for nearly five hours. The measure to raise the mayor’s salary had initially failed in a 5-5 tie vote, but was reintroduced in an uncommon procedural motion. The move catalyzed the departure of Brown, Shapiro, and Fabrizio, who all felt that the issue had been laid to rest.
With three council members missing, the seven remaining approved the raise 6-1, with Mayor Robert Cantelmo recusing himself.
In addition to withdrawing from voting on the amendment, Brown, Shapiro, and Fabrizio also withdrew from voting on whether to send the finalized budget to a public hearing at its next meeting, when the Common Council could potentially give its final approval of the budget. Despite their absence, the public hearing on the nearly $108 million budget was set for Nov. 6.
The walkout rankled some members of council.
“This is the worst behaved council I have ever worked with, least professional, and least dedicated to the job,” said Alderperson Ducson Nguyen, the longest-serving council member.
Nguyen, who co-sponsored the amendment to raise the mayor’s salary, said he was happy that it passed, but was “embarrassed and disappointed in how it came about.”
“The people who walked out before we adjourned the meeting aren’t fulfilling their duty,” Nguyen said.
The amendment to set aside $32,500 to increase the mayor’s salary was approved, but City Attorney Victor Kessler emphasized on Thursday that a local law will need to be passed at a future meeting of council in order to officially adjust the mayor’s salary.
Fabrizio said she thought the “whole budget process has been unprofessional” when asked about her departure from council chambers in a phone interview Friday.
Fabrizio, who has been a staunch advocate for further cutting costs in a tight budget season, said she didn’t think her colleagues were serious enough about reducing local property taxes.
She said she hoped the council would not have a quorum as a result of the trio’s departure. A minimum of six members is required for council to vote — seven members remained after they left.
Fabrizio said she felt that the council “failed the taxpayers” and that leaving the meeting was “an expression of dismay and exasperation [at] the unwillingness to engage with each other.”
While not the costliest item, the amendment to increase the mayor’s salary surely became the most contentious during Thursday’s budget meeting.
Council members who opposed the salary increase argued that when Ithaca transitioned to a city manager form of government in 2024 the responsibilities of the mayor were reduced, and the current pay reflects that change.
The mayor position used to serve as the CEO of the city. In 2023, the last year the mayor was solely responsible for leading the city, the salary was $61,489.
Now, with a city manager running operations in City Hall, the mayor’s focus was meant to be community outreach, constituent services, and setting city policy. The salary for the position was set at $30,000 per year.
The roles have apparently filled more than a 40-hour work week for Cantelmo.
Cantelmo, who recused himself on Thursday from the discussion and vote on the mayoral salary, said he was working full-time for part-time compensation because he “cared deeply about the city and I put a lot of myself into it because I want to see our community thrive.”
He said he had no part in promoting the budget amendment that was put forward.
Cantelmo said he recused himself from the discussion and vote on the amendment to raise the mayoral salary in order to “avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.” Asked what he thought of the fallout in the lead-up to the night’s final vote on the amendment, Cantelmo said the council members that left “have a right to express their views in whatever way they want to.”
Supporters of raising the mayor’s salary contended that the hours Cantelmo is working showed that the salary was inadequate for the duties of the mayor.
Council members who were against increasing the salary argued that Cantelmo was choosing to work that much.
During the discussion before the first vote on the amendment, Shapiro said he didn’t think the city needed a mayor, and that the Common Council should move to change its governance structure to elect a chair of the body each year, similar to the Tompkins County Legislature. The county has a chair of the legislature as well as a county administrator who is appointed by the legislature and works at its direction.
“We just are used to a mayor, and I don’t think we need one,” Shapiro said.
He expressed concern that the amendment to raise the position’s salary “screams” of “outside influences.”
But Shapiro’s arguments broadened into unspecific accusations of impropriety during the meeting. He asked the city attorney how to file an ethics complaint regarding how the amendment to give the mayor came to be proposed.
Tensions flared during the discussion to the point that council members decided to take a recess. At the start of the recess, Shapiro continued to vocally criticize the amendment.
In a phone interview, he said he intends to submit a request for an ethics investigation on the matter after consulting with advisors.
“I have reasons that I don’t want to share, at least right now, about why that timing seems really suspicious to me,” Shapiro said.
Alderpersons Clyde Lederman and Nguyen, who sponsored the amendment, both stated in separate conversations that their amendment was motivated by seeing the amount of work Cantelmo was doing in his role as mayor.
“It used to be that in prior councils — not to always compare — we would make our cases for something and if we didn’t agree with it we would simply vote ‘no,’ and it’s turned into this real set of accusations and emotional responses,” Nguyen said.
After the recess, the amendment quickly came to a vote.
Alderperson Patrick Kuehl found himself in the position of being the tie-breaker during the first vote on Thursday. Before casting his vote, he hesitated for a moment and said, “I don’t want to be in this position.” He voted to turn down increasing the mayor’s salary.
With that, critics thought they had prevailed in keeping an additional $32,500 off the city’s books. But in a move that seemed to surprise his colleagues, Kuehl made an uncommon motion later in the budget meeting to reconsider the vote on the amendment.
It’s an option afforded to council members who voted against an item, although it’s rarely used.
Kuehl said he wanted to bring the amendment back for consideration because, while he had reservations about increasing the mayor’s salary, he felt that good arguments had been made in support of the amendment and he wanted to speak with his constituents before finalizing a decision.
Bringing the amendment back into play sparked frustration, some inflammatory remarks, and the immediate departure of Shapiro from Council Chambers.
He walked out of the meeting — following Cantelmo as the mayor recused himself for the second time — without saying an audible word to the rest of council.
Shapiro said in an interview on Friday he left without saying anything because he was “not into the performance of it all.”
“I didn’t need to make a big deal out of it. I knew they were going to keep talking anyway,” Shapiro said.
He said that his colleagues on council lacked maturity, and that Kuehl’s decision to reverse his vote represented a lack of conviction.
“We had a long debate, and then the motion did not pass. And then, despite how divisive and how long that debate became, one of our members lacked the courage to stand on his convictions,” Shapiro said. “And that spoke to me of such a level of immaturity that we were going to allow this conversation to now be reopened. I have no time in my life for that level of immaturity, and that is why I walked out of the meeting.”
As the remaining members started to discuss voting on the amendment, Shapiro’s confused colleagues wondered aloud where he was.
Soon after him, Brown walked out.
She stood up from her chair and, before leaving the room, said, “Ya’ll fake as fuck right about now. I’m not voting on nothing. This is not right.”
In a phone interview on Friday, Brown apologized for the comment and said she was “uncomfortable” with the way the vote had proceeded. She said she didn’t understand that a local law would need to be passed through council at a future meeting in order for the salary increase to come into effect for the mayor.
Brown said she was going to speak with her constituents in order to gauge their interest in raising the mayor’s salary.
“If Rob decides to do 40 hours a week and take on more, we should have a discussion around that before we put it in an amendment. That’s just how I felt,” Brown said.
At the time Brown left, however, the concern became whether the council would have a quorum.
Nguyen, who chaired council while the mayor was recused, began to count heads and noted that the council still had enough members in attendance to conduct business. But with that, Fabrizio said, “Maybe I’ll leave.”
Alderperson Tiffany Kumar, who supported raising the mayor’s salary, called her departing colleagues “immature,” then apologized for the statement. Fabrizio then left the room, joining Brown out in walking out the door.
And then there were seven.
The remaining council members still retained a quorum, but debated whether to proceed with the amendment vote without the other members who had left.
An attempt to table the vote until a future meeting failed. Kuehl said he couldn’t vote “in good conscience” but Kumar said councilors who left the meeting were trying “to stop the democratic process that was going to unfold” because they knew they were going to lose.
“I will not be held hostage by three council members,” Kumar said. “I think that is entirely wrong, and I think it sets a terrible precedent.”
Lederman said that if the council members who left want to propose another amendment to the budget to walk back the salary increase, then they could do so at the next meeting.
With that, the remaining council members voted to approve funding the salary increase for the mayor 6-1, with Alderperson Pierre Saint-Perez voting against.
There was a brief lull while the council waited for Cantelmo to return to the room and for the council to vote to send the budget to a public hearing on Nov. 6, a vote which passed unanimously.
After a grueling hours-long budget meeting with a dysfunctional end, council members appeared tired and bewildered.
Sensing the moment, Lederman made a joke. “I’m not too religious, but when certain people say that this life is a dress rehearsal for the next, I really hope that it’s not.”