Friday, August 10, 2012

The Unequal and Arbitrary Distribution of Priviledge of the Floor

On the JLL blog there is an interesting post that includes a transcript of the meeting were Harold Wiley presents his voter fraud petition to the Cape Vincent Town Board.  Harold gets into a discussion with Cape citizen Tom McMullen.  Then Harold wants to finish his comments but Suprvisor Urban Hirschey reminds him he has about run our of time for his privilege of the floor. Something in this exchange caught my eye.

Here is that exchange from that part of the transcript of the meeting.

"Harold Wiley: "Let me finish."
"Urban Hirschey: "OK, But, Harold you are overstepping your five minutes, but go ahead. You've got a couple more minutes."
Hhhmmm...I wonder why Urban didn't call the police on Harold when he ran over his 5 minutes, or why the other board members didn't object to Harold speaking over his time?????
Kind of ironic isn't it that Harold Wiley was about to light the fuse on one of Cape Vincent's biggest and most embarrassing controversies where even the NY Attorney General declared that the law that resulted from this petition was clearly unconstitutional, yet Hirschey or the other board members had absolutely no problem with him speaking over his allotted time.
On the other hand when CV citizen Dave Lamora, who worked tirelessly on the comp plan committee appointed by the Hirschey govt. recently tried to bring extremely pertinent points to the town board in a public hearing, which he felt would take longer than 3 minutes, after some discussion Dave was  challenged and the police were called.  And Dave ASKED for the longer time UP FRONT, he didn't just run over his time limit as Harold did.
What's wrong with this picture?  What were the other key factors here that led Hirschey and the board to call the police on a person who had worked on a committee they appointed and in cooperation with them?????

4 comments:

  1. LaMora took up the first hour of the meeting protesting and denying others the right to comment. A couple came to comment and had to leave because of him for a scheduled appointment. LaMora should not be squealing like a pig after denying two others their right to the expected 3 minutes. One other left and had to come back later.

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  2. OMG, Art! When you fart, do you lift your left cheek or your right cheek, or do you stand up and lift one of yur legs? Do you leave the room before you crack the fart or do you let it explode in front of whoever is present? Perhaps you have stopped eating foods that cause that intestinal problem? My point is that do you do EVERYTHING PERFECTLY. Must you point out every meaningless error that Urban and his board makes? I know Dave Lamora doesn't think his thoughts are meaningless, but he would have had a chance to say eveything he wanted to say if he chose to play by the rules. Instead, he thought of himself as JFK and wanted his thoughts to go down in Cape Vincent history books.
    Why don't you try to lighten up and enjoy the river?

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  3. 11:58

    I am not sure your wierd and detailed fascination with the inner workings or my large intestine has any relevence to this discussion. And when you say Oh My God....my intestines certainly are not a religious issue! And in the end however I do have the intestinal fortitude to put my name on my comments.

    The town board's over reaction on this matter actually IS a big issue to take notice of.

    Secondly you talk about playing by the rules. Well just hang on a little longer because if playing by the rules is what you want Article X and BP will be here to destroy your community, and then you will have plenty of rules they will expect YOU to play by and be nice.

    Good luck with that!!!

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  4. 10:52

    You said

    "LaMora took up the first hour of the meeting protesting and denying others the right to comment."

    That is pure horse pucky. The only reason the meeting was delayed and time was wasted and right to speak denied was a direct result and reponsibility of the faulty decsion making of the town board under pressure who decided to not use reason and turned it into an unnecessary pissing match.

    And for example where the hell was Councilman John Byrne who of all people should have defended Dave since Byrne was once under the threat of arrest and Dave defended him at that time standing up and saying they would ahve to arrest him too if they arrested John. At an absolute minimum Byrne could have turned to Hirschey and at least tried to be a moderating voice to convince Hirschey and the board to let Dave speak and not go to the extreme of calling the police. You have got to be kidding me!!! Where was Byrne? He was sitting there doing nothing. And that is not leadership. And there is a hell of a lot more to this story I have judisiously decided not to reveal.

    If the board had reacted differently and reasonably that situation could have been quickly and effectively diffused, instead of accelerating it into the fiasco it did not have to become just like Urban decided to do for Harold Wiley by not making that issue a pissing match.

    It is extremely relevent because we are likey to face an corporate and political attack on our community by Article X. How our leaders react to crisis is incredibly relevent now.

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