More On The Cone of Silence......

Activate the Cone of Silence!

The Town Board Meeting tonight was one for the record book. Half way through the agenda, an executive meeting was called and everyone was dismissed. Some of the members of Concerned Citizens for Honest & Open Government asked to be notified when the executive session was over...we waited outside the Kellogg Road Community Center.

When we were called back, we learned that item 2 under Attorney Green; Executive Session - Preswick Glen involved discussion of a new cost-sharing agreement between the town and county regarding paying Mr. Vincelette for litigation in respect to Preswick Glen. If you remember, back on August 23, I reported that during a meeting Ed Wiatr and I had with Mr. Gilligan, we learned that the school would no longer be paying 68% of Mr. Vincelette's cost to litigate the Preswick Glen lawsuit. By the way, Mr. D'Onforio who represents Oneida Legislative District 15, was in attendance during the Executive Session. It will be interesting to see what the new cost-sharing agreement between the town and county will involve.

Item #4 Attorney Green - Executive Session - DEC Consent Order supposedly was pulled. According to the town clerk it was not going to be discussed at tonight's executive session, although it was on the agenda handed out. Have I mentioned the bridge I have for sale lately? Or, could it be because it does not qualify as one of the eight (8) reasons for going to executive session? At any rate, it wasn't discussed in open meeting either so I guess it wasn't that important. Either that or...it was discussed and we just aren't privy to that information.

Item #5 Attorney Green - Executive Session - Town Office Space - supposedly had to do with either the purchase or lease of a building. Rumor has it (actually, it really isn't rumor, it is fact) that someone is in the process of purchasing 1 Oxford Crossing...(that address sound familiar?)and it is someone we would all probably know. I will have more on that in the future.

Councilman Waszkiewicz had an interesting item on the agenda...funny, but they never even got to Councilman Waszkiewicz's agenda items until after the executive session. I will bet that Councilman Waszkiewicz's item #5 on the agenda had something to do with it...they probably wanted to discuss it after everyone left.

Stormwater Improvement Committee - Clerk Office had identified 24 different references in the minutes over the last 12 months. Because of the magnitude, I feel we need to get Board's current consensus on whether meeting should be open or not.

A little history...The board formed an advisory committee to help develop drainage improvement plans to be implemented under the recently approved $2 million bond issue. Initially, it was to be open to the public, but now by a vote of 3 to 2; meetings for the Stormwater Committee are no longer open to the public. The nay votes were Supervisor Reed; Ward 1 Councilman Robert A. Payne, III and Ward 3 Councilman David Reynolds. Why would you close a meeting to the public when the purpose of the meeting is to discuss spending $2 million of taxpayer monies? This will be the topic of my next blog. Stay tuned!

There are several other items as well that I will be discussing regarding this town board meeting. It is time for change.

An Open Letter to ALL Residents & Taxpayers in the Town of New Hartford!