Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Want To See An Odd Blend Cape Vincent Politics??? Wonder What Was Going On Here???

 The documents  you see below are  portions of the Cape Vincent town board minutes from Dec. 2010.  As you read keep in mind that Art. X is not in the picture yet, there is no wind law, and wind development siting is still in hands of Edsall and his pro wind planning board. 

However, George Mingle and Andrew Binsley have quit the PB, so new people need to be appointed.  Hirschey and Bragdon were elected to the TB in fall 2009. Now they have to help select and vote for new PB appointments.




Note that after the executive session to discuss  potential selections to the PB, Mickey Orvis (pro wind) puts Dick Macsherry's name up for nomination.  And look who seconds it, Marty Mason (pro wind).  These two councilman have been staunchly pro wind, and one has wind contracts.  I wonder what they were thinking when they put Macsherry's name in play?  Think they did that without talking to their pro wind conflicted PB chairman Edsall????  Not likely.  So why are all these pro wind people lining up behind Macsherry?

Take a look at the vote.  Macsherry  is appointed unanimously with the votes of both pro wind Masons and Orvis.  If they thought Macsherry was going to go against their wind agenda they had the majority to block  him right then and there and Hirschey and Bragdon could not stop it.  I doubt the pro wind guys thought Macsherry was going to stand in their way in any significant manner or his name would not have been floated by them.

Now note what Brooks Bragdon says during the discussion on Macsherry.

" Brooks Bragdon said he thought Mr. Macsherry was a compromise candidate who was very qualified"

A compromise candidate?????  Hhhmmmm!

Essentially Hirschey is voting with pro wind.  He supports Macsherry who is nominated with apparently little concern by 3 very pro wind councilmen Orvis, Mason, and Mason, keeping in mind Macsherry ran as Dem. and friendly to Rienbeck and crew but wasn't elected. 

Then Hirschey votes for pro wind MacCarthy, even though his  Rep. colleague Bragdon apparently strongly opposes MacCarthy.  MacCarthy who is nominated by pro wind Orvis and seconded by pro wind Don Mason!

Hirschey... along with Bragdon in one case... has voted along to stack the critical planning board controlling the wind issue for pro wind, and with Macsherry as a compromiser at this point friendly enough  with pro wind to whiz right through his appointment vote!!!

Now I realize Hirschey and Bragdon had no real power then since they had no majority.  That hope was stripped away when Macsherry ran for TB and probably sucked up enough critical votes that could have gone to John Byrne and might have given Hirschey a majority. By why just go along?
Why not at least do a protest vote?

So what exactly is Hirschey's thinking  here? It boggles my mind! Does he think he can appease pro wind and "heal" the community?  Does he really think they will just roll over and compromise with him, and he has Macsherry ( who Bragdon says is a compromise candidate!) their to broker some type of  BS deal pro wind might be happy enough with???

Very odd allegiances!

 But keep in mind Hirschey has never run anti wind, but has instead made some comments over time that he is not against wind.

And there is another odd thing here.  Bragdon while objecting to MacCarthy says that candidate Bob Brown is "stratospherically'"qualified with his apparent long experience in zoning.

So how come he isn't nominating Brown and Hirschey seconding Brown.  Macsherry who has virtually NO zoning experience got appointed and not Brown?  Why was it apparently so important to get Macsherry on the PB over Brown?

Now fast forward a bit. Hirschey gets a majority after the 2011 elections. He still has a pro wind planning board.  Yet he still doesn't remove the pro wind players!!!  Rienbeck, Edsall, and MacCarthy in July of 2011 quit all on their own.  Macsherry gets quickly moved up to chairman.

And later when the planning board is finally filled in, Hirschey and the TB picks Roche Burns who has a wind lease, and leaves Bourcy with a wind conflict as an alternate and still technically under investigation by the NY AG's office, andalso appoints pro wind Bob Cardarelli
as an alternate.

And people accuse me of hurting the supposed "anti wind"  Hirschey cause?????

I'm glad I keep some of these records!!!



No comments:

Post a Comment