Chad Zambito, an appointed Town of Batavia board member and candidate for the GOP nomination for that seat, expected the assets of his former laundromat to sell for somewhere close to $30,000.
The actual highest bid on Tuesday, in an auction conducted by the Bank of Castile, was $3,500.
That's enough to cover Zambito's debt to the bank, but he still owes more than $14,000 to the Batavia Development Corporation, which provided Zambito with a low-interest loan in 2010 to finance upgrades to the laundromat.
This morning, Zambito issued the following statement:
I continue to work towards resolving the issues related to the closing of my business and intend to meet with the BDC board to resolve any outstanding issues. I have started the Chapter 13 process which in the short term will provide me 60-90 days to get my finances in order. If I complete the process, the result would be a court ordered and monitored five-year repayment plan.
Grammy's Laundry closed earlier this year and Zambito said much of the business's difficulties stemmed from a plumbing problem in the mall where Grammy's was located. He said the business never recovered from the set back.
A former laundromat owner who observed Tuesday's auction said just one of the high capacity dryers at Grammy's retails new for about $3,500. There was some 40 or so washers and dryers, some in apparent disrepair, in the facility. The buyer is an out-of-county laundry owner who reportedly plans to remove all the machines and take them to another of his laundromats.
Zambito's GOP primary opponent is John Gerace, who held the office for nearly a decade before resigning in April after a Town of Batavia Fire Department awards and installation dinner where Gerace reportedly had some sort of confrontation with Supervisor Greg Post.
Shouldn't the BDC be paid first before the bank..Should there be more oversight at the BDC..How many more owe money that can't pay to the BDC...The tax payer should come first before the bank...