CHEEKTOWAGA, NY – The sale of a town-owned hovercraft, approved by the Cheektowaga Town Board in April, has apparently fallen through and the town’s supervisor is laying the blame at the feet of 2 On Your Side.
The town purchased the hovercraft in 2011 for $70,000. However, outside of occasional parade duty, it was never used.
After an attempt to sell it at an auction a few years ago drew a top bid of only $11,000, the town decided to keep it, until this spring when it reached an agreement with Universal Hovercraft of Rockford Illinois to purchase the hovercraft for $20,000.
The town board approved a resolution authorizing town Supervisor Diane Benczkowski to consummate the sale.
2 On Your Side aired reports on the proposed sale on April 24.
“We thought it was a done deal,” town councilman Jerry Kaminski said.
But Kaminski, while on a recent tour of the town highway department facilities, noticed that the hovercraft was still parked in its familiar spot.
At a town board work session on Tuesday, he asked Benczkowski why the hovercraft was still in the town’s possession, and she confirmed that the sale had fallen through, and blamed Channel 2 for that having occurred.
A tape of their conversation at the meeting, provided by the Cheektowaga Chronicle, revealed that after Kaminski asked, “Why is it still here?” Benczkowski replied, “Ask Channel 2 news and their reporters that scared the buyer away…and what changed his mind. Now we have to find a new buyer…that’s why it’s sitting there.”
Councilman Jim Ragowski is then heard to ask, “So we didn't sell it to them?
Benczkowski replied, “No we didn't. They backed out in the middle of all that stuff."
“This was the first we had heard of it,” Kaminski said. "I have no idea how anybody could even insinuate that the news media had anything to do with this."
He added that he was surprised to hear Benczkowski blaming the media.
“I looked back at the story and can’t find anything that was remotely derogatory in the reporting about it. It was just reporting that it was being sold for $20,000 according to the resolution,” Kaminski said.
"Benczkowski has not returned voice mail messages left by 2 On Your Side on her cell phone seeking comment, and her assistant at town hall expressed doubt that she would address the topic of the hovercraft or why she blamed us for the sale falling through.
We’ve reached out to Universal Hovercraft to get the company’s explanation of why the sale failed to materialize, but have not heard back from them. Kaminski says he has also tried to contact the company for an explanation without success.