 |
| May 04, 2025 |
Welcome! Click here to Login
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Click to visit the
Official Town Site
|
|
|
|
|
|
February 29, 2012
To the Editor:
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two years since my last village board meeting. I confess the following sins: I confess that I felt demoralized to witness a severely broken government and an audience divided between DPW employees who understandably want a degree of normalcy back in their jobs, and a large group of justifiably outraged residents seeking some redress of grievances from their government leaders, and being met instead with the most parochial, demeaning and disrespectful stonewalling I have experienced since I was in Sister Euphrezine’s third -grade class in 1964. But who are we, anyway? We just pay the bills.
I confess I felt embarrassed as a villager by the comptroller’s damning report of this village’s Etch-a-Sketch bookkeeping practices, and by the stupefying fact that it continues still, with a village clerk / treasurer who is well out of her depth (by her own admission) in municipal finance skills. The board approved, by the usual 3-to-2 stranglehold, a fund transfer to pay for DPW repairs, which is most likely illegal, since it includes money from the water fund. I wonder how town residents will feel knowing that they are unwittingly helping to compensate the village for its own ineptitude. And I also predict that, if this election does nothing to change the course of events, this fund transfer (wrought from the already tight-as-a-drum department budgets) will result in an end of year budget shortfall that the Village will paper over with yet another RAN.
The village of Cornwall-on-Hudson has become the municipal laughingstock of New York State. I confess that I feel ashamed that our government has spitefully forced out the most gifted and cost-effective professionals to come to us in a long time: Mr. Steven Auffredou, Mr. Paul Weber, and Mr. Charlie Frankel’s law firm, for solely political reasons. And lastly, I confess that I am terrified that we might choose anyone other that Barbara Gosda and Jan Smith in the March 20th election for two Trustee seats. There are precious few among us that have the stomach to enter this toxic political climate with wisdom, fortitude, experience, and grace. Please vote on March 20th for a sane future.
Rick Gioia
Cornwall-on-Hudson
Comments:
|
Go my son, down to your boulder in Donohue Park. Your Penance will be to kneel down and pray forgiveness for wasting two years as Village Trustee and promising never to run again. The Village has spoken in your last election.
posted by P W on 02/29/12 at 4:55 PM
|
|
I am offended by Mr. Gioia's mocking of religious practice. Quite rude. That being said, might I remind Mr. Gioia that when he, Barbara Gosda and Joe Gross represented the 3-2 majority, there was much happiness on the part of the then majority. Now that the 3-2 has shifted, it is amazing to listen to the the public bashing that has taken place by the "2" towards the "3". Mr. Gioia, you can be embarrassed all you want, but I wonder why when you were part of the "3 majority" you didn't start to fix all of this inherited mess?
posted by Nancy Bryan on 02/29/12 at 5:47 PM
|
|
Pray tell. who can throw the first stone?
posted by Lee Record on 02/29/12 at 6:24 PM
|
|
Ms.Bryan, my time spent serving this village as trustee was not a period of "much happiness", as you state, but rather a time of much struggle and compromise to achieve consensus for the good of the village. I've pointed out before that during that entire term, the board was divided 3 to 2 on only one or two votes. That number was probably tripled in one meeting last Monday! This is not a team sport, it's our government, and the current state of things should be an indicator of of what bad shape we're in. By the way, I was the swing vote in the 'other' direction in more than one instance. There have been bad decisions and bad practices that are going to take a lot of work for us to overcome. We have to find a way to come together or we will consume ourselves with this.
posted by Rick Gioia on 02/29/12 at 10:30 PM
|
|
Well, I'll go on record as saying I thought Mr. Gioia's letter was pretty funny.
Almost as funny as the anger certain Town and Village residents still harbor for a large rock by the river.
Ms. Bryan, I don't think the bashing is happening because of any specific configuration of the Board of Trustees. I think most of the bashing is because certain individuals (who have been in both the minority and majority at different times) seem to be going out of their way to obfuscate and cover up just exactly what went wrong with the construction of the DPW building.
posted by Ted Warren on 03/07/12 at 12:22 PM
|
Add a Comment:
Please signup or login to add a comment.
|
 |
|
|
|
