OBSERVER File Photo Dunkirk’s Music on the Pier Concert Series included bands playing to residents, guests and vendors in Memorial Park last summer.

A Dunkirk Common Council committee meeting put forth as an opportunity to find out more about plans for a welcome center in Memorial Park, later devolved into a dispute between a councilwoman and a city employee about the end of a small business loan program.

Councilwoman Natalie Luczkowiak had touted last week’s Economic Development Committee meeting as a chance for the public to hear about, and make comments on, the welcome center that’s supposed to be funded by a state grant.

However, Deputy Planning and Development Director EJ Hayes, the city’s point man on the project, stated that it is still early in its planning stages. He feels it’s too early in the process to put out feelers to the public — noting that the $1.6 million state grant isn’t even officially signed, sealed and delivered yet.

“We’re kind of putting the cart before the horse with this,” he said.

A plan to move the Neptune statue to the welcome center from SUNY Fredonia has drawn public interest. Hayes said planners were reluctant to publicize the idea “because it wasn’t something we were sure we could do.”

The statue, formerly in Washington Park, would be in an enclosed glass casing at the welcome center “to be prominently displayed… it’s a big part of our history,” Hayes said.

He noted that he gave a presentation about the welcome center at a previous Economic Development Committee session and offered to revisit it with the dozen or so members of the public attending Tuesday’s meeting, after the meeting concluded.

“Right now, I’m kind of holding the line saying that I don’t have anything else to present to the public,” Hayes said. It’s “just the beginning” of the dialogue process with residents as to what they want with the welcome center.

City Historian Diane Andrasik spoke at some length about Neptune. She said the Dunkirk Historical Society would like to see the statue return to its hometown, “but it has to happen the right way.” She said a good start would be to note that Neptune “is possibly the museum’s most important asset.”

Andrasik asked that the society be represented in the future when Neptune is discussed. She suggested that city officials shut down anyone with suggestions for placement of the statue because the Historical Society and its associated museum own it.

Hayes noted the welcome center is part of larger plans for Memorial Park improvements — and added the city has five years to spend the state grant for the center, “so it’s not like we have to do this next week, next year.”

Hayes initially said the “best case scenario” for a groundbreaking would be late fall, but hesitated and changed to early spring 2026.

Vince DeJoy, Hayes’ boss, stated that “we are not going to build this whole thing for $1.6 million.” The city will need, and will seek, other grants for the project, he said.

The welcome center discussion turned out to be rather dry. However, Nicole Clift, director of Dunkirk’s Community Development Block Grant program, inadvertently spiced up the meeting when she announced that the city wants to stop using the CDBG small business loan program. A couple of the businesses currently in the program aren’t paying the loans back, she said. There are just three businesses in the city program in total.

The announcement irritated Luczkowiak. “You can’t fault all in the city” for two delinquencies, she said.

She told Clift, “There are other things you shouldn’t be doing,” not specifying what those things are.

Clift strongly defended herself, offering to show everyone the spreadsheet of her CDBG work. She and Luczkowiak snapped at each other a bit, and at one point, Councilwoman Nancy Nichols appeared to encourage Clift to calm down.

Hayes and DeJoy defended Clift. “We don’t have the staff capacity here to administer and underwrite these loans,” DeJoy said. There are many other programs that help small businesses but CDBG’s “has too many regulations, and is too onerous.”

Hayes said no new loans have been made in the program for many years.

Clift said the loans could be reestablished eventually. She bemoaned an alleged lack of support from the Dunkirk Local Development Corp., stating that it does not provide certain necessary information and does not meet enough to make timely decisions.

Luczkowiak summed up her position at the end of the loan program: “I disagree, that’s all.”