April 2025

As a community that values programs that strengthen and support our youth, we should all be paying close attention to the status of the situation with the Depew Lancaster Boys & Girls Club funding which was cut entirely in the last budget.

A resolution appears to show an effort to restore some funding. However, there is absolutely no information in the public proposal that outlines a summary of funding, terms of the agreement, or a plan to resolve the issues that caused the funding cut in the first place. When the board was asked to share a summary with the public before the vote, no council member or supervisor spoke.

There has been a lot of confusion and murkiness surrounding the origin of this zeroing out of funding. Initially, we were told that it was cut because it was against the NY State Constitution. In the second meeting in February, the finance administrator characterized this as a financial issue exposed by a budget shortfall. In March, we found out that none of the council members were even aware of the cut in funding.

Now in April— almost 4 months into 2025–we still have no funding for the youth programs that have been a priority of our community for the past 30 years.

Our town board exists to work on our behalf. Regardless of political affiliation, no one should be tolerating this complete lack of transparency and trust from our elected officials on this matter.

July 2025

As I read the news each day, I see regular reports of youth getting into trouble in neighboring communities with acts of violence, theft, and vandalism. Some leaders are looking to create laws to punish youthful offenders or make examples out of them.

Right here in Depew and Lancaster, we have great programs through the Depew Lancaster Boys and Girls Clubs that engage our youth in arts, culture, and sports, providing them with outlets to focus their energy. With that said, our clubs are in jeopardy of cutting programs or worse.

In November 2024, in an unprecedented move, the Town Board voted in a budget that removed all town funding for the club with no notice to the club, and 4 of 5 board members apparently were unaware of these cuts. The town has funded the club for decades. Some funding was restored in May, five months after it was required, and only after several of us, including myself, stood up at Town Board meetings and called out our elected officials. Only after this was brought to light was the funding partially restored. The club was able to continue its programming thanks to the generous donations from the Stony Brook Legendary Lights Foundation. This is a one-year gift distributed to various organizations each year and will not be available again next year.

Going forward, our Town Board has cut funding by $50,000 every year until the organization is no longer able to provide programs for our youth. The club has been a part of this community, positively impacting lives since the 1930s, and has always been supported financially by our community. If you do the math, it costs us $4.00 per person per year in our community to support the club. It is up to us to lift our community up before we hear stories on the news about "our" kids being made an example of.

Related to this issue is the 2024 audit, which was recently completed. We all heard loud and clear from our Town Board that they violated the NY State Constitution by funding the club, but I have heard no mention of issues related to the funding of the club, nor was this ever brought up previously in a town audit. The auditors gave the Town Board a clean bill of health.

Our community is faced with a critical decision. By 2026, almost half of the funding for the club will have been cut. Will our council members stand up and fight for the club? Budget season is starting soon for the 2026 year, and something must be done. I am certainly not going to sit back and watch our kids end up on the news. Let's decide, like we always have, and support our youth right here, right now.