HMHA May Owe Hamburg Thousands!

Hamburg First has learned that the Hamburg Municipal Hockey Association may be in “hawk” to the Town of Hamburg to the tune of thousands of dollars. This revelation comes on the heals of the failed referendum and smacks of revenge for threatening the jobs of Recreation Department employees.

Let me explain. This story starts a year ago with my Freedom of information request to the town asking for any and all related material and documents regarding HMHA and the Town of Hamburg. The answer to my request was that thier wasn’t any info that the town maintains regarding my request.

Fast forward a year. I’m siting at a Recreation Advisory Board meeting and Recreation Director Mart Deneke tells the Advisory board that he has gotten a lot of calls from Hamburg residents complaining that they are being refused admittance into the HMHA because they are letting non-residents fill spots on rosters that rightfully belong to Hamburg residents. In reality HMHA allows any player who participated the year before to continue the next year, but many residents think that Hamburg residents should have first chance regardless.

So apparently Marty assigned employee Kurt Herman to look for the vary same info I requested more than a year ago. At the board meeting Kurt announces to the Board that he has discovered documents outlining how HMHA was ordered by the 1999 Hamburg Town Council to increase the fees for non-residents. This fee increase was to be turned over to the Hamburg Recreation Department every year to help cover maintanance costs of the Ice Facility.

Shortly there after HMHA instituted a fee increase of fifty dollars for non-residents to play in the league. To the best of my knowledge, and as announced by Kurt Herman, HMHA has never given any money to the Town or the Recreation Department as was required. This may very well mean and certainly looks as if HMHA owes Hamburg thousands of past due fee collections.

I asked for this info and copies of documents in Kurt Herman’s possession at the meeting, but was told I needed a FOIL Request to get it. Then a day or so later I remembered the former FOIL from a year ago. Ultimately, I received the info after letting our Town Clerk know about the lie that town told having no info on HMHA. So here we are.

All the documentation shows a deception has been underway for some time and HMHA has kept a lot of money and interest that is rightfully due to the Hamburg Recreation Department. What is even more interesting is the timing of all this. I must say it’s interesting how as soon as the referendum is shot down, then the Rec Department comes up with paperwork that potentially hurts the one organization that stood for the private take over of a facility that employs so many political appointees in the Recreation Department.  Maybe it has a tinge of revenge to it and maybe there wasn’t, but it sure as hell stinks of it. I also wonder how many Demon-crats took political contrabutions from HMHA over the years while looking the other way as HMHA fails to make payments as required?

Never-the-less, it’s time HMHA pays up all of it. Any attempt of the town giving HMHA a break on whats owed should be met with a large out cry of foul play. They collected the money for one reason and shouldn’t benefit from it at our expense.