Niagara Democratic Party

Date: May 21, 2009 6:09 AM
Author: Mark Scheer/ Niagara Gazettee

— The head of Niagara County’s Democratic Party is taking a North Tonawanda legislator to task for moving out of her district, violating an election law provision that requires office holders to live in the communities they represent.
Niagara County Democratic Party Chairman Dan Rivera, citing documents he obtained under state Freedom of Information law, has charged that Legislator Andrea McNulty, a registered Democrat from North Tonawanda who caucuses with the Legislature’s
Republican-led majority, has for months actually lived in a home in the Town of Pendleton that is owned by her husband, Randall Klyczek.
It is a charge that is backed in a sworn affidavit from a Pendleton Democrat who lives around the corner from the home where Rivera says McNulty has actually been staying.
Based on the findings of his research, Rivera contends that, under election law, the ninth district legislative seat currently held by McNulty should be vacated and she should be required to reimburse the county for pay collected during the period in which he says she did not call North Tonawanda her permanent residence.
Under election law, public officials who cease to live in the state, political subdivision or municipality they represent must vacate their positions in office.
“I think that the evidence is clear that Andrea McNulty has been perpetrating a fraud against the citizens of Niagara County,” Rivera said. “I think it’s clear that the office is vacant and she needs to pay all that money back for the checks she received.”
Records show McNulty and Klyczek have both previously listed a home on

North Jesella Drive

in North Tonawanda as their address. A September 2008 warranty deed, minutes from a 2007 North Tonawanda Common Council meeting and a 2005 New York Tax warrant all show Klyczek living at the North Tonawanda address. Voter registration cards from 2007 for both Klyczek and McNulty also list the same

North Jesella Drive

property. A copy of a 2008 notice from the county clerk’s office shows McNulty paid in full an HSBC bank mortgage on the home.
Rivera contends that several months ago, McNulty started making her primary address at a home owned by Klyczek at

6004 Colony Court

in the Town of Pendleton. County records show Klyczek purchased the home in September of202008 for $255,000. Records from the Town of Pendleton assessor’s office indicate that Klyczek is receiving veterans and STAR exemptions for taxes owed on a property as well.
McNulty insists she continues to live at the North Tonawanda residence with her family, including her mother-in-law and two disabled relatives who came to live with her last year. While she acknowledged that Klyczek did purchase a home in Pendleton last summer, McNulty said she personally does not have any legal ownership stake in the property and that she and her husband keep separate finances.
The neighbor who signed the affidavit is James Sacco Jr., the Town of Pendleton Democratic Committee chairman, who lives at

6944 Creekview Drive

in Pendleton, around the corner from the home owned by McNulty’s husband.
Sacco said he first met McNulty a few weeks ago because the two have children who are the same age. Sacco said he didn’t know McNulty was a Niagara County legislator when he first met her, but that in the course of conversation while their children were playing together, McNulty told him that she “had moved in over the winter.”
During a subsequent trip to the Pendleton home in question, Sacco said McNulty answered the door wearing a bathrobe, which he took as further evidence that she lives with her husband at the address.
Sacco said he signed an affidavit after consulting with his fellow Democrat, Rivera, who showed him a photo of McNulty from a piece of her campaign literature20to see whether she was the same woman who he’d met in Pendleton.
Sacco says he’s sure McNulty is his neighbor.
“I said to Dan, ‘This is not right. She’s still getting a salary from Niagara County and she doesn’t live (in her district).’ That’s not right.”
McNulty insists that while she is indeed married to Klyczek, the pair keep separate finances and all of her legal, personal affairs are maintained out of the home she continues to own in the legislative district she represents.
“As I have since 2004, I own and reside at my home at

28 N. Jesella Drive

in the City of North Tonawanda,” McNulty said in a statement e-mailed Thursday.
Reporters first called McNulty seeking comment, prior to receiving her written statement. During a subsequent reporter’s trip to the

North Jesella Drive

home Thursday evening, an older woman who declined to identify herself answered the door. The woman said McNulty was not there, but she would “be home later.”
The woman took the reporter’s information and said she would have McNulty call when she returned, but no communication other than the e-mail had been received as of press time Thursday night.