More Cape Vincent Republican Election Hoopla

I see we are right back to the typical Republican  election  hoopla of who will be the candidate to fill the town board seat after Mickey Orvis resigned.  In terms of the wind issue it doesn’t really matter much. Hirschey already has a super majority.  The 5^th seat either adds to an already Republican super majority or if a pro wind person wins they will be powerless just like Orvis.  In terms of the wind issue concerning the Comp Plan and Zoning and other upcoming wind decisions this is a lot of hoopla over nothing.

But here is the absolutely hilarious and hypocritical part.  Wiley at JLL blog and the Republicans have suddenly given any new candidate a litmus test with the following questions.

Do you support the Village/Town Comp Plan?

Do you support the Town of Cape Vincent zoning laws?

Do you support local rule by the Town Board who is duly elected by the citizens?

Typical CV Republican hypocrisy!!!!  And why is that so????? 

Because Wiley’s Republican candidates prior to the 2011 election didn’t have to answer any such litmus test thrust upon them, nor would they allow any such specific questioning of their stance. I tried many times to get all three Rep. candidates to outline a specific stance on wind development in CV.  There was NO response from those candidates in any specifics as Wiley is demanding now of any new candidate.  We were all supposed to go on blind faith that there was a “plan” and to get in line behind it.  A plan no candidate was told to define in specific terms.

Hell …even Wiley himself doesn’t hold himself up to this standard and completely and blindly support the new CV zoning law.  It was he after all that recently said on his blog that the town  may have made dangerous and unnecessary concessions to BP and VFW.

Looks like the old saying “do as I say not as I do”!!! 

Maybe a new candidate would think for themselves and  not support the current zoning law and comp plan and would in fact like stronger protections against wind development in Cape Vincent. 

Or maybe a candidate might think for themselves and  disagree with this irrational support of solar energy in both documents that needs the same subsidies as wind, still has large impacts when used on a commercial scale, and has WORSE energy production capacity factors than wind, and costs more. 

Maybe some new candidate would think for themselves and  like more detailed research on gas  hydrofracking before we outright ban it with no polling data or science. Because there was virtually none.  May be some candidate would see the serious inconsistency of banning hydrofracking and its impacts, and not industrial wind which is a similar threat to the community. 

Maybe some candidate would think for themselves and  like stronger property protections against industrial wind development for people in the CV interior where the current board members and zoning committee have unfairly shoved back the impacts of industrial wind energy. 

Maybe some candidate would not support this zoning setback game and would prefer to not appease the Article X process, but rather prohibit turbines outright, and also pass a resolution opposing Article X and wind development in the Lake as this current board refuses to do. 

Wiley’s questions are the epitome of hypocrisy, and the typical partisan,  blind, group think  get on the band wagon partisan crap that has absolutely  no depth and stifles critical thinking. I think any candidates that are confronted with this BS should start thinking for themselves and  tell Wiley and the Republican party they are not going to be held hostage by this group think nonsense.  

I don’t care if we have a woman of a man on the board.  I want someone who can think for themselves and see a little deeper into the realities and subtleties in the wind issue that Wiley is desperately trying to distort with this partisan crap.

Michelle Oswald might be a good person and possibly a good town board member, but she would have to do significantly better than this.  I have only met and talked to her briefly, but if she allows herself to be swept up  into this blind Republican partisan nonsense then she is not responsible, not thinking critically or clearly, AND not what we should have on our town board. And if she is to be a representative for women in CV or beyond by being the first woman on the CV town board, then to it would be a sad thing for her to be swept up in Wiley’s partisan group think agenda or simply fall in line with the new board and show she has no backbone to think for herself.  If there is now a gender component to argue in CV politics then I  don’t think that represents the women’s cause very well to suck up to anyone else’s blind  litmus test on anything, especially some guy with a Republican blog who thinks he can set the agenda for women in CV or anybody else. That to me seems to significantly defeat that whole purpose if gender is part of the argument now.  And BTW, isn’t it the Republicans that are supposedly waging a war on women????

There are serious questions to be asked and dealt with like I outline above, and I would hope any new candidate would have some back bone to challenge and ask questions of the new zoning and comp plan, and new board  instead of rolling over to the same old same old partisan group think. 

We don’t need another clone from either party or either gender,  pro or  anti wind  sitting there just taking up space and warming a seat using somebody else’s  script like the one Wiley wrote! 

That is the job of an actress, not a serious govt. official.