SALAMANCA — After 15 months behind the mayor’s desk, Michael “Smitty” Smith is thankful to everyone who’s shown confidence in him and in improving the city of Salamanca.

At Wednesday’s Common Council meeting, Mayor Smith gave a State of the City address, looking back on the first part of his term as mayor and ahead to the rest of 2018.

Smith said the accomplishments of 2017 are the direct results of the “outstanding people who work for the city” and the community that supports them in developing Team Salamanca and pride in the city.

He said the partnerships between the youth and senior citizens, school district, volunteer services and the Seneca Nation of Indians have helped to establish that pride.

“We can solve the vast majority of our city’s issues just by showing some pride and some good neighborliness,” he added.

During his first year in office, Smith said the city earned the city a $100,000 grant for clean energy and a $450,000 grant to refurbish a Main Street property. Ongoing projects to improve the city Smith mentioned include beautifying Main Street, a community garden, garbage pickup and development of the city’s State Park Avenue property.

In February 2017, the Joint Venture Committee, a group of city and Seneca Nation officials, met for the first time in 16 years, according to Smith. He said those meetings led to placing United States and Nation flags on city bridges and streets, replacing a scoreboard at a city park, removing damaged trees after storms and Celebrate Salamanca Day, among other things.

“But let’s face facts: there is much work to do to re-develop the trust between the city of Salamanca and the Seneca Nation of Indians,” he continued.

However, he said the issue of loopholes in the lease settlement agreement with increased Native-owned property and decreasing taxpayer properties aren’t going away.

“Our departments provide services to all of our residents … but this cannot continue to be successful without a solution to the problem,” Smith said.

The Board of Public Utilities (BPU) worked on projects to improve water and electricity use in the city and worked with the Department of Public Works (DPW) on demolitions and support of city festivals, Smith said. He said the DPW employees work hard every day improving the roads, sidewalks, plant life and city properties.

“In the case of the year’s two major power outages, they worked above and beyond to restore the city’s operations,” Smith said of the BPU and DPW. “The latest outage, March 1 through 4, was the longest in city history and required back-to-back 16- and 20-hour days.”

In the fire department, replacements and upgrades to some of the firefighters’ equipment and a city-wide fire inspection to all businesses by the codes office had been done to make customers, employers and city residents all safer, Smith said.

The police department also added and updated equipment to increase community safety, Smith said. He officers have worked with the community through donations, services and awareness events, all while facing potential life or death situations nearly every day.

Smith also recognized the Salamanca Industrial Development Agency for improving the look and perception of the city, the Salamanca Youth Center for its work with community children and their well-being, the Salamanca Public library for its services to the community by providing access into information and the school district for its involvement in all aspects of the community.

Looking to the future, Smith said the city is watching “with great interest” the casino compact negotiations between New York state and the Seneca Nation. He said due to planning by previous administrations, the city has financial resources to withstand a three-year delay.

“However, we will carry on with plans to improve and grow the city,” he said. “Every event that occurred in our city last year will occur again this year and be bigger and better.”

Smith said the city employees and residents alike must cling to the dream of a better city as he hopes to never lose sight of his reason for doing the mayor’s job.

“My only reason for running for mayor was to try to make our city a better place, and I think we have done that in our first term,” he said.

(Contact editor Kellen Quigley at kquigleysp@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter, @Kellen_Quigley)