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An Oswego Township Road District Commissioner candidate’s pledge to appoint the current commissioner to a higher-paying position within the road district is being criticized by his opponents in the race.
If elected April 6, candidate Tom Cook has promised to appoint Bob Rogerson, the man currently holding the job, to township crew leader. The move would be within Cook’s power as commissioner.
“All in all I think he’s done a great job,” Cook said of Rogerson’s tenure as highway commissioner. “So I’ve asked him if he would consider the crew chief position. In my opinion, I think the township constituents are going to get a two-for-one deal.”
The crew leader position, which would pay Rogerson a salary of at least $68,000, would be an increase from his current salary of about $60,000. Yet township officials cut the highway commissioner’s salary to $55,000 last year, effective once the winner of the April 6 election is sworn in.
In addition, Rogerson confirmed in an interview he has kept the crew leader position open for months so he could be picked for the job in the event Cook is elected.
“Of course the obvious reason I left it open is because I want the job,” Rogerson said, adding that he had taken on the duties of the position since the former crew leader retired at the beginning of the year.
“I’m basically feeling like it’s a responsible decision of mine at this time to leave it open to make it the decision of the next highway commissioner,” Rogerson said.
Claude Ainsworth and Terry Olson, Cook’s opponents in the race, however, criticized the pledge to appoint Rogerson, pointing out there are other qualified township employees and that the move could throw a wrench into future collective bargaining negotiations with the road district’s crew members.
“It’s very brazen of him to say that he’s going to do that,” Ainsworth said, adding that Cook should also divest himself from his interests in Valley Electrical Contractors, Inc., an Oswego company owned by his spouse where he works as general manager.
“There are three other employees that are probably as qualified - certainly have more time than Mr. Rogerson,” Ainsworth observed.
Olson, an Oswego Village Board Trustee, also called Rogerson unqualified for the crew leader job.
“Are you kidding me?” Olson, an Oswego Village Trustee, replied when asked about the plan to appoint Rogerson. “What happens with the union contract on that?... Are they going to void the union contract? Is that going to cost the taxpayers potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to litigate?”
Cook, for his part, waved off the collective bargaining concerns, saying he saw no potential problems and cited his experience with labor negotiations as a director for Aurora’s division of the National Electrical Contractors Association.
As for his company, Cook said his son is taking greater control of Valley Electrical, giving Cook more time to focus on the work of highway commissioner.
“I know he’s (Rogerson) qualified by just knowing the ins and outs of the maintenance on the equipment,” Cook said. “Somebody’s going to take that job for whatever the union scale requires it to be at. I think he’d be the best choice.”