Dunkirk Mayor Kate Wdowiasz brushed off recent criticism Tuesday, portraying it as resistance to changes in City Hall.

A Dunkirk resident defended Mayor Kate Wdowiasz Tuesday, stating that recent criticism of her by the city assessor was unfair.

Gary Frederickson responded at a Common Council meeting to comments by Assessor Erica Munson at the previous meeting.

Munson said city workers had low morale under Wdowiasz’s leadership. “To lay that at the mayor, I think, is unfair,” Frederickson said.

“Any time a new administration comes in, or a new supervisor in any job — city government, manufacturing, business, anywhere — anybody that comes in new is going to come in with their own agenda, their own policies and procedures, and workers are going to be expected to follow them,” he said. “It’s not outrageous to expect that the mayor coming in new is going to come in with her own ideas on how things should be done.”

Frederickson criticized city workers who talk behind the scenes about their concerns with Wdowiasz. “It’s got to be brought out into the open, brought up the chain,” he said, suggesting that the city use a labor management committee.

Munson said city employees were concerned about poor working conditions. A former corrections officer, Frederickson belittled that sentiment.

“City workers are doing pretty good. They get eight-hour shifts, they know what time they’re going home at the end of the day — they know that they’re going home at the end of the day. Up there, sometimes, you didn’t know from one day to the next if you were going home or not. They know what their paychecks are going to be. … Those guys up there (corrections officers) are working 36-hour shifts straight through, no breaks, vacations are getting cancelled, days off are getting cancelled… That’s low morale. It just doesn’t seem to me that the city employees are in that bad of a shape.”

Wdowiasz thanked Frederickson for his comments, then added a few of her own.

“Change is difficult and it’s hard to implement changes,” she said. “There’s always going to be people that complain whenever changes are being made. My first goal is to stop the hemorrhage of funds being spent inappropriately in the city — and the only way to do that is by addressing changes, and implementing the council’s amendments to the proposed budget.

“So, correct, there’s going to be some people that are not happy with some of the changes that have to be made, but they have to be done so that the city stops spending money recklessly, and starts being more fiscally responsible in the long run.”

Munson was asked to attend an executive session regarding personnel at the end of Tuesday’s Common Council meeting. Councilman-at-large Nick Weiser also asked Anne Davis, city personnel administrator, to attend. Wdowiasz was not asked.