More On The Cape Vincent Town Board / Attorney Meeting

The Watertown Daily Times has a rather good article on the issue of the supposed "secret meeting" between town officials, their attorney, and some CV citizens attending as well.  Here is the link.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20131215/NEWS03/712149767

Mr. Freeman of NYS Committee On Open Govt. has some very interesting points. Particularly where he points out that since wind in CV is such a controversial matter the town officials should be extra careful. That is damn good advice.  He also raises very interesting points on who outside the town officials should be in attendance and how that relates to open meetings laws.

But let's apply a little history to this matter to put it into context.

Let's say it is 2008 and the wind issue is really heating up in CV. Back then we had the fancy Albany lawyers hired by the town.  Remember Mr. Mathis from Whitemann, Osterman, and Hanna?  They were obviously here to help the town site a wind farm just as some say attorney Curtin is here to oppose one.   

Ok...so let's say Tom Rienbeck who was town supervisor back then calls a closed door meeting with this attorney on attorney client privilege.  And let's say for the sake of argument that Rienbeck is just smart enough to bar any town officials with wind leases from attending the meeting. So no one at the meeting has a town officer  related conflict of interest.

Then let's say Rienbeck decides he is going to invite some town citizens who are NOT town officers with conflicts...like oh maybe some pro wind people who also don't have contracts but are in favor of wind development.

Now what do you think the reaction from WPEG and the Hirschey people would have been????
It's pretty simple.  They would have gone BALLISTIC!!!   So let's not get too hypocritical.

Then in this article we have John Byrne of  all people saying as an excuse they took the attorney's advice.  In other words..."Geee Mom the attorney told me to do it"   Yup...we have all heard that excuse before somewhere in the media.  John Byrne who was embroiled in the taping of a "secret meeting" with his smart phone of our previous town board.  I guess John has a short memory and might now want to be a little more sensitive to his own actions as councilman instead of running for cover  behind his attorneys coat!!!  And although many of you don't know it but Byrne is also trying to walk both sides of the street in the Hirschey govt.

But Byrne in his back peddling inadvertently brings up a point he may not have wanted to.  The attorney, as smart as we have all been told he is as an "expert" in the Hirschey zoning club,(and they love experts) may be at odds with the top state open govt. guy Mr. Freeman.  Byrne is sort of admitting Curtin may have been wrong? Just because they have an attorney doesn't mean he is right or they shouldn't question his advice.  But that is the Clif Schneider mantra...the experts have all the answers.  Well then...why are we in this controversy???

And BTW...the attorney client privilege under scrutiny here only exists because WE the CV tax payer are paying for it with our dime! It's not the town board's attorney.  IT IS OURS as citizens and tax payers of CV.  Maybe that should be part of the equation here in this controversy!

Imagine that!!!!  Is it possible one of the Hirschey club experts could  be wrong?  Sometimes wrapped  in their own arrogance they might miss that point.  In the solar zoning fiasco of last summer they when they screwed up, they went into cover mode instead of fessing up and setting it straight.  Such blatant behavior and bad judgment should be carefully scrutinized especially if it appears to be a trend supported by the dangerous belief that we can never be wrong as Wiley at JLL would like you to believe.

 I do not agree with Dennis Pearson and his overall beliefs on wind and his approach, or that  he may be sour because he lost the election...but I have no problem with him making town officials accountable to ethics and the law.  I can be sensitive to that since I spent a great deal of time and effort trying to get the NYAG's office to start an investigation here in CV on the previous wind conflicted govt.

My original thoughts were that this meeting, although questionable in judgment, may have been legal based on a letter previous from Freeman I posted last night and JLL has up this morning.  However, Mr. Freeman's comments and opinions in the WDT on this matter should raise our concern and bring other significant questions to light we should pay attention to.

And as I said in a comment under a previous post, my experience with these same town officials and their gross lack of judgment on the solar zoning issue last summer, and how they scrambled to sanitize it and run for cover makes me far less confident in the way things are being run, particularly on the Art. 10 and wind issue despite my  being at polar opposites from pro wind.

Also in the context of this issue, maybe we should all view the Nov 4th CV ZBA meeting on Steve Weed video (which I helped pay for)  where Ms. Hester Chase of the  CV ZBA exhibits frustrations and raises concerns over the way things are being done with records and minutes and the actions of her board and the planning board.  Seems that may suddenly have more relevance now in light of the solar issue and this latest closed door meeting.

http://www.steveweedproductions.com/videos.php

I made a big deal over the solar zoning fiasco last summer and the conditions that surrounded it with our town officials.  I was very uncomfortable with what was going on.  It wasn't so much  about the solar zoning as  it was mainly to point out the questionable practices of our town officers, not to mention that our own town supervisor became embroiled in it.   It appeared to me there was a lot of back peddling and gross lack of judgment going on that was distorting the rights of CV citizens, and our zoning law. So keep your eyes open CV citizens no matter where you stand on the wind issue!

It is disturbing we may have a trend.  Often things like this don't just happen in a vacuum or are isolated events.  Don't lose focus on just one issue,  and it certainly warrants close scrutiny, especially based on the comments of Mr Freeman of the NYS Committee On Open Govt.!