Marginalized - Par For The Course!

5:16  If you think this is just Faulknham and Chase you are missing the big picture.

Talking about the possibility of Faulknham not liking Chase (which I believe is correct) and how the Hirschey crew deals with people who don't follow marching orders, let me add a few details that show the bigger picture...and pattern.

First, obviously I have been a target of that wrath for some time now when I parted ways with WPEG and the Hirschey Republican crowd.  Not whining about it...that is just fact when you don't play by their script.

My observation is that it isn't just Faulknham.  I'm betting it was Bob Brown and Macsherry of the planning board and probably others across the town govt because Chase chose to dare to question things particularly on the solar zoning screw up of summer 2013 that I uncovered and voted against approving the permits on that matter.  There are other matters as well.

And BTW, some people think it was Hester Chase who fed me information to uncover that mess, but that is outright false.  I first learned of it when Mrs. Grogan a friend of mine called me asking if I knew of a public hearing where a solar project was proposed by her neighbor.  I said I would look into it.  From there I started digging and looking at minutes and videos and making some calls to zoning officials and figured out they had screwed up big time and this solar project was illegal.

Now what you have to understand is that CV super. Hirschey (unknown to me at that time) also had a solar project up and running that was also illegal by our zoning law.  Which he chose to take down as a result.

So there was a lot at stake here, and our zoning officials knew it, and apparently by the later nutty action of the ZBA and planning board and others across town govt including the town attorney it became obvious they were covering their butts on this mess trying to sanitize it and justify this fiasco which even made the newspaper.  They even had to go into a town board executive session on this mess and that session didn’t just include the town board, it had other zoning officials in it.  They even attempted to exclude Ms. Chase but were unsuccessful.

It was such a mess and something had to be done to sanitize it they needed an executive session with the town attorney mind you!

But instead of following the “cover your rear end” script Chase chose to try to support open and good govt and support an obviously innocent and aggrieved town citizen. She started asking questions and ultimately voted against the permits on the one solar project. 

And Hirschey on his own took down his solar project temporarily.  He told me so himself in a visit to  my cottage.  When he showed up knowing I had uncovered a big mess that went deep into CV zoning, and telling me personally about his solar project I knew this was a fiasco. He rarely visits my CV residence, even when I was in WPEG.  And when I did a FOIL request of town records for his solar project permits etc he met me at the door basically asking what I was going to do with the records.

So as I said there was a lot at stake, and I think it highly likely Ms. Chase pissed off a number of the key Hirschey players across town govt. and then she raised concerns about how ZBA and PB records were accessed and who controlled what.

Look at these minutes of the ZBA hearing on 10/7/13. These are on the town website under the ZBA minutes.  They reveal a lot of other stuff as well about this zoning mess.

 You can see where Macsherry of the PB is disgruntled and suggests Chase and I and others should reveal any emails on the subject at hand.  He is pissed at me because I uncovered a real zoning mess with his board and the ZBA and Chase has not been willing to cave into pressure.

Richard Macsherry – as past Chair of the Planning Board, offered to speak to ZBA board members as to why he feels Ms. Chase is conflicted on this issue. He stated that Mr. Pundt has, over the past several weeks, made comments on the adequacy of the process. He shared that any emails sent to any board members from either Mr. Dave LaMora or Mr. Art Pundt on this issue should be seen by all board members. He said he believed that

individuals were contacted to influence a vote.

So why is Macsherry, and as I remember Mr. Brown as well of the planning board, even at this particular ZBA meeting?  I don’t think that is a regular event.

Because it is basically a public hearing on an appeal of the solar zoning fiasco they and other zoning officials had created and even swept the supervisor into with his own illegal solar project. A lot is at stake.

They need to make sure Ms. Chase and I and others raising real uncomfortable questions are marginalized.

Now think about … if you have been to various town meetings over past years, have you ever been to one where a town officer from another board shows up and asks another board to actually dig into the private emails of citizen???

That is feakin bizarre behavior!!!  Oh and it just so happens those citizens don’t agree with them on other zoning matters and have been saying so rather loud and publicly.  What a coincidence!!!

And let me tell you…the very LAST thing Macsherry would want if he had a clue was to go through my emails of the past few years.  It would get real ugly for some members of the Hirschey crowd!

And Mr. Macsherry should be careful about what he was requesting. He should have considered that when I found out about this mess he was the FIRST person in town govt I contacted and had a lengthy PRIVATE phone conversation about it.  I also had a few subsequent private emails and personal conversations with him on this zoning matter.  Was I trying to influence his vote?  Maybe he should have recused himself from the entire issue as well!

If anything should be revealed it should have been the emails and phone calls among all the town officials who got caught up in this zoning mess and spent many weeks scrambling very questionably trying to justify it.  It even resulted in a secret executive session with the town attorney and with town board and some  CV zoning officials.  That is rare…and bizarre!

See the minutes below from a town board meeting of    where they go into executive session.  All it says is the session was about ” personal matters”.  I believe NYS laws indicate they need to at least outline the basics of what they are going into executive session for.  Well apparently not this time! It’s pretty vague.

“Councilman Byrne made a motion to adjourn to Executive Session at 6:40pm to discuss personnel issues and legal matters with Attorney Gebo, seconded by Councilwoman Oswald.

Councilman Byrne made a motion to return from Executive Session and open Regular Meeting at 7:30pm, seconded by Councilman Bragdon.”

 

What was so secret they could not discuss it publicly???  I also believe they tried to keep Ms. Chase out of this executive session. Imagine that. 

Considering what I have said above, when Ms. Chase was up for re-appointment my opinion  it was pay back time!!!

Oswald asking for fairness in town appointments goes a lot deeper than the technicality of how appointments are handled.  And I think she knows that.

Now do I have anything else to base this on.  Well yes I do from personal experience.

In 2012 when the new zoning law was being worked on in committee, I was not on board with the way it was being done or where it was going.  It was locked in stone from the get go as to what the Hirschey crew wanted.  Of course I was commenting on this often on my blog and others which I know pissed them off.

But I still sent the committee, headed by Bob Brown, detailed input on CD’s since I had a fair amount of experience in CV zoning by this time. There was one CD for each committee person.

Brown and several others absolutely refused to look at them and shoved them across the table.  I was told this by somebody who was there to observe this behavior and got pretty upset and notified me.  The apparent reasoning was Brown simply didn’t like me and wasn’t going to take any of my input.

Geee…sound familiar????

The astonishing thing to me was after asking for input from the community that he would single out and punish one citizen simply because he wasn’t happy with what they were saying…again…sound familiar???

So at a minimum…when you think about Faulkinham and Chase at odds...it’s probably goes way beyond that to Brown and Macsherry as well as others.

But does it end there?  No!

Somebody should talk to John Byrne who has been a real Hirschey loyalist…at least in public.  Note that he ultimately used a lame “community healing” excuse to side with Oswald about appointments contrary to Hirschey.  I’m not sure Mr. Byrne is all warm and fuzzy about how things are run at times.  He just doesn’t have the brass to really question Hirschey. 

Of course on the other hand you have Councilman Bragdon who outright said in the last meeting he defers to Hirschey.  Of course he is probably weighing his future as deputy supervisor and maybe supervisor.

Unknown to many Byrne has been on the wrong side of the Hirschey script a couple times and had to pay.

He once declared publicly on a blog when he wanted to run for town board the second time around he was against industrial wind in CV which was a no no  in the Hirschey WPEG camp .  It was also my stance since day one.  This got him into campaign trouble.  Suddenly the Hirschey /WPEG machine went into their famous marginalization scheme and tried also to connect him to me.

Byrne indicated to me that he felt he was being socially and politically marginalized, and the Hirschey crew was indicating he was probably not electable.

Of course Bynre had a sudden epiphany about his political future and how Hirschey and the Republicans were connected to it, and he suddenly started playing by the script.  And as we now know he had big NYS assembly dreams he probably saw going down the tubes if he didn’t play by the right rules.

Unknown to some is that in 2009 Byrne wanted to run for supervisor.  Called me and asked if I would support him.  I said I would if he took a no wind development stance.  But Hirschey stepped in and edged him out behind the scenes for the supervisor job.  Byrne was livid, but played by team rules anyhow.

And on an interesting side note, I got word from a reliable source who had talked to Byrne about a zoning concern Last summer, that Byrne off handedly said he thought zoning and who and how it was controlled “was out of control.”  Interesting!!!  The why did you vote to approve the law John, and sit by silent in the 2013 solar zoning fiasco?

The case of Faulknham maybe not liking Ms. Chase and what Ms. Oswald I think is eluding to about appointments is only scratching the surface of how people are handled if they don’t follow the script.

And in the past both Wiley and the JLL bog and the Pandora blog have been mouth pieces and tools to make sure people get effectively marginalized if not on script.

Something I have been trying to alert people in CV to for some time now.

In many respects the solar zoning fiasco of 2013 that caught up supervisor Hirschey as well and his entire zoning establishment was a far bigger deal and reached deeper into the fundamentals of the CV govt and its supposed leaders than most people realize.  And what really fries them is it is all in the record on video or minutes to see…as are their actions of appointments now.

I am glad that Ms. Oswald has made an issue of it.  You are seeing why in the past when there was an empty board seat and Oswald was available Hirschey and Bragdon were actually toying with the idea of appointing Paul Aubertine instead.

The solar zoning fiasco of 2013 demonstrated what type of people and leaders they are when they had their backs against the wall.  Instead of just admitting mistakes were made and openly correcting them (big fundamental zoning mistakes) in my opinion big egos got in the way and they opted for the cover our butts mode. Even the WDT paper figured something wasn’t right.

You think Chase got interviewed and questioned when her reappointment came up, because Faulknham (and others) didn’t like her and her actions. 

In my opinion you can bet your ass that’s the case.

And you can bet they would probably like to marginalize her further as they have done with others. 

But guess what, there is a record and you can read it right here to be an informed CV citizen and maybe keep this kind of political nonsense in check.

 

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