News Blackout Continues

ABG attended the Westchester County Republican Convention last night at the Manor House in Hastings. As an aside, the parking lot directly across the street remained closed, forcing all attendees to scramble for the few spaces available in the Manor House’s main lot or park precariously on the side of the street. With an official start time posted for 8PM, the main event didn’t start until 8:45PM. Does anything start on time anymore? 

After seats were finally taken, Westchester Republican Chairman began the meeting. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance during these events, although the Democratic Convention seemed less structured. Most of the evening was dedicated to nominating County Legislature positions, the County Clerk candidate and finally the County Executive candidate. Journal News columnist Phil Reisman was in attendance, probably trying to guarantee a position within the Republican party as his former colleague Matt Richter had done. Also there from the paper was reporter Elizabeth Ganga. Several other media representatives were there as well.

During the nominations process, District Leader James “Jimmy” Chism, made the motion to close the non-existant nominations for County Legislator. Before Mr Colety could proceed, he was interrupted by Mr Ed Ciafone, know as a Yorktown Watchdog, who objected, stating this would allow democratic legislator Mike Kaplowitz to run unopposed. He shouted, “We should not let Mike Kaplowitz, a democrat, run unopposed! I’d like to nominate Gregory Kane, who ran against him before and got 44% of the vote!” Stunned, Colety quickly recovered and told Ciafone his motion was out of order. Then Ciafone challenged Chism demanding he second Ciafone’s motion to prove he was being honest. Chism remained silent. Colety stated Ciafone could nominate Kane on June 7th but his motion was out of order. Ciafone stormed out of the event.

Shortly thereafter, Colety announced they had a special guest and they were going to change the order of the schedule to accommodate County Executive Rob Astorino. Nancy Meehan was called upon to make the nominating speech for the CE. Nancy was appointed to and works for the Board of Elections. Her husband Robert, former Mt Pleasant Supervisor, is the County Attorney, appointed by Astorino. This seemed to be a great night for family and friends.

Astorino made a predictable acceptance speech and received several standing ovations. He stated he couldn’t have won without all the voters from all the parties in 2009. He pledged to continue the fight against Washington DC’s intrusion into Westchester’s housing and zoning, maintaining his other pledge to “Stop the tax madness”. He touched on the lack of tax increases while he’s been in office but not the cuts that had correspondingly been made.

With all of this happening, the Journal News and other media outlets chose once again to ignore the event and write nothing about it. Sadly, we see the news blackout continuing in Westchester, ignoring what they choose and quite possibly believe might hurt their progressive agenda in the region. And yet, these same news organizations have no issue attending the event, eating the free food and having a drink or two without offering even a small paragraph. Why the news blackout for certain events and not others remains a mystery. Although, it is becoming clearer day by day.

What do we want in our Town, County and State? You’ll have a chance to decide.