Report: Firefighters suspect Mayor Mark-Paul Serafin of repeatedly taking food.
Mark-Paul Serafin Manlius, NY -- Manlius Village Mayor Mark-Paul Serafin has been charged a second time by town of Manlius police with taking returnables from a resident’s blue bin, a violation of the village’s recycling regulations.
Additionally, the mayor was named as a suspect in a police report detailing a Sept. 30 theft of sausage from the Manlius Fire Department. That case was closed with no one charged.
Serafin, 52, of 4609 N. Brookhill Drive, Manlius was issued a criminal summons Monday after a village resident filed a complaint on Oct. 20 alleging he took returnables, according to Manlius police. Serafin is scheduled to appear in Manlius Village Court at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 on that violation, a charge similar to a speeding ticket.
Serafin said Tuesday his lawyer, Tom Cerio, has advised him not to comment. Cerio said he doesn’t have all the documents yet on the recent charge, and can’t comment until then.
“Mark is a wonderful guy, and if this turns out to be a politically motivated act, then it’s sad,” he said. “But we won’t know that until we have all the documents. Meanwhile, he’s continuing to perform his duties as a mayor. He is a good guy, and he does a good job as mayor.”
In late September, the mayor was charged with violating the village’s recycling regulations after a resident filed a complaint on Aug. 24. He is scheduled to appear in town of DeWitt court on that charge, although a date hasn’t been set.
At the time, Serafin said the complaint was a politically motivated attack on him. He said he’d been collecting bottles and cans in neighborhoods around the village for a decade, and used the $25 to $50 he collected monthly for medicine for his sick Labrador, Bacchus. His dog died this summer.
Serafin said in September he didn’t realize he was violating village code, and said he’d already begun “phasing out” his collections when he was ticketed.
Manlius Village’s code stipulates that all recyclable containers are county or village property. The code states that recyclables placed at or near the curb for purposes of collection by the village become village property and no else can collect or pick them up.
Serafin’s name also came up in a police report which was filed in response to a Sept. 30 larceny at the Manlius Fire Station on Stickley Drive. Manlius fire department members had prepared a sausage lunch for everyone on duty and placed the lunch for about six people in the refrigerator. When they came back after a fire call, the sausage was gone.
In the report, Manlius Fire Chief Paul Whorrall said he learned after an informal in-house investigation “that there have been repeated suspected incidents where members have suspected the Village of Manlius Mayor Mark Serafin of stealing food items from within the station on a repetitive basis.”
On the day of the theft, Serafin was using the gym which is adjacent to the kitchen area, and was the only unsupervised person in the building, according to the report.
Asked about the incident Tuesday, Serafin denied taking the food. “It is not true,” he said. “I know what I did, and I know what I didn’t do and I did not take their food,” he said Tuesday. “I’m trying to keep my weight down.”
Serafin said he has occasionally taken bottled water or a piece of fruit in the past from the common area in the fire station, but would never take the members’ lunch
.
The fire department chose not to press charges, therefore the Manlius Police Department closed the case. Whorrall has said he filed the report on the police chief’s advice so it would be on the record.
Since then, the chief decided to lock its Stickley Drive station, and prohibit any village employee except fire department members from entering the building without an escort. Whorrall said there’s an implicit trust among firefighters, and that’s why they’ve agreed not to let any village workers in unaccompanied, or to allow them to use their workout facility on the second floor.
At the close of the regularly scheduled village board meeting Tuesday night, Trustee Marc Baum brought up the village's code of ethics, which he said specifies that elected officials should not "pursue a code of conduct" that raises suspicion among the public.
Serafin has been mayor since April 2009 when he started his four-year term. He is paid $16,500 a year as mayor.
Elizabeth Doran can be reached at edoran@syracuse.com or 470-3012.