The Futility of Do-Nothing Elected Officials

Following the Memorial Day Parade, which honors our fallen war heroes, we had occasion to run into Assemblyman Democrat Tom Abinanti, who was doing the politician’s dance, Pressing The Flesh. In passing he made a comment about how he contributed to getting the Saw Mill River corridor cleaned out, aiding the homes and businesses that get flooded from storms every year. And, we challenged him that he has done nothing to aid the residents and businesses along the Bronx River corridor. His response was the usual, “I introduced a bill mandating the County be responsible for maintaining the river." It's a page right out of Mr Feiner’s playbook. Appear concerned, promise to "look into it" and then write a letter to another higher-up elected official and he has completed his obligation to do something.

When pushed, Abinanti tried to flip the conversation as to why we weren’t at some non-existent firematic event in Mt Pleasant the previous weekend, we countered this query with a response, "It wasn’t our district." His response was predictably, "Exactly.” He explained that the Bronx River corridor isn’t under his district. Oddly, it is! So why lie about it? Probably because he knew he’d been exposed. Then he claimed he couldn't talk because he was already late, mostly, we believe, for the pictures with local officials (re: media exposure – especially in a desperate election year).

Not surprisingly, Mr Feiner also panders to the media while excelling at pandering to residents. When residents along the Bronx River corridor were über-flooded by storms Irene and Ida, Mr Feiner once again promised action, which turned into a letter to Representatives Stewart-Cousins, Abinanti, A. Williams, Shimsky and probably a few others that wouldn’t be significant other than to reference a number of people he reached out to. The disingenuousness of this action was after he wrote the letter, not only was he done with his responsibility of helping his constituents, but he went to Fulton Park and promised residents there that FEMA (similar to another four-letter word) would purchase their homes from them, eliminating their nightmare. Never happened, plus FEMA explained there were numerous benchmarks the Town must meet before that would happen. Mr Feiner conveniently left that out.

Back to the campaigning, Abinanti claims he submitted the bill to the County, which passed and then he left for the State Assembly. He maintains it was then up to newly elected Shimsky to pick up that mantle and run with it. Maybe. The reality is it was up to Williams as “the Bronx River corridor falls in her jurisdiction” - to use Abinanti's words. The bigger issue that feel-good politicians like Abinanti utilize is pretending to address an issue through introducing legislation but not including funding for it. Yes, Abinanti drafted the plan but never drafted funding for it -- a waste of time!
“The Board of Legislators has done nothing on it since,” Abinanti said. “This is not a state function. My opponent is just trying to deflect from the failures of the Board of Legislators.” Shimsky countered with, “County government will need support at the state and federal levels on a year-over-year basis. Given the degree to which the problem is going to become more pervasive and severe, county government can’t do it alone.” Sounds good, but did they do anything about it? You know the answer.

His supporters claim he has co-sponsored over 500 bills, which passed both houses and he has been the prime sponsor of over 100 bills alone. One such “co-sponsored bill” was for fire department ambulance billing for fire departments that operate ambulance service to their community. What he doesn’t mention was that he only got on board as a co-sponsor after it left committee and it was assured of passage and being signed by the Governor. By the way, this bill has been introduced over 10 years ago and only got traction after the former Governor resigned. So, while Abinanti has been in office for 14 years, he again played it safe and sat on the sidelines. Just like with his impotent County flood responsibility bill.

I in a recent debate and discussions of housing and the high cost of living, Shimsky underscored that much of the county needs significantly subsidized and affordable housing.
“We have to make sure we get more affordable housing units built and think about where housing for a broader array of income levels can be built where it would not be as expensive,” Shimsky said. The obvious answer, never to even be whispered, would be upstate. Abinanti's solution? He said he and fellow state legislators have worked to control the high cost of living by eliminating taxes on gasoline, cutting taxes for the middle class, finding alternative resources for local governments to cut property taxes and allowing Westchester to increase its sales tax. For Abinanti’s 40 or so years as an elected official, he has helped increase all of these same taxes without regard to how expensive he has caused the area to get. “We’ve got to decrease the cost of living for people at this very expensive time,” Abinanti said. An expensive "time" that he is culpably responsible for creating as a 40-year career politician.

On an upcoming Tuesday near you, the Democratic primary will be held. Between early voting and other contrivances that have been added to the existing system, It promises nothing new. We’ll be saddled with the same old faces, clichés, hollow promises and ultimately less action with more finger-pointing and blame. The Democrat stalwarts will come out and either decide more of the same with Abinanti is ok or they’ll decide he should be pastured and give Shimsky a shot. Either way, the people whose homes and businesses flood will be forced to endure more of the same as well as the deck gets shuffled yet again.

Inaction and Incompetence Guarantees More Damage

While the rest of us wait for the next drop of precipitation that will eventually build into the latest flood for our neighborhoods, our Town Board keeps busy by focusing on everything except properly running our Town. They certainly are ignoring real storm and disaster preparation. Countless people throughout the Town have complained to Mr Feiner and his Town Board, to our County Legislators, State leaders and the media about the need for flood mitigation. All of them have ignored these appeals for preparation to help the ever-increasing list of neighborhoods now flooding.

First, Mr Feiner seems to only be interested in flooding if there is a press conference or press release that can get his name in the media, or, if there is a flood and he can be interviewed with the destroyed beachfront property behind him, saying how terrible this is and he will contact every other elected leader to do something. He won’t actually do anything himself except stave off those nagging residents with copies of emails sent to others. Politics: why fix it when we can talk about it?

Second, in a meeting held with several Greenburgh Civic Associations, county Legislator Alfreda Williams stated the County’s Flood Mitigation Committee (we’re sure there’s a more formal name) hasn’t met for almost a year. So while the weather has been conducive to cleaning out the rivers, removing debris, and helping improve the flow of water, nothing has been done. Several residents at that meeting gave numerous ideas to improve the status quo to help mitigate some of the future flooding. In fact, our own Victor Carosi, Greenburgh’s Commissioner of Public Works, is a co-chair of the committee. And, even after he has seen the devastation caused by the flooding, he and others remain impassively disconnected to residents’ plight.

Third, some say it’s the homeowners problem that they bought a home in a flood zone. While this may be true to a miniscule degree for a very few of these homes and businesses, there are many areas that now flood that never flooded before or when residents purchased their homes years ago. In fact, in canvassing different neighborhood residents and discussing water issues with them, most said its only in the last 15 years that they had experienced some water in their basements, crawlspaces or businesses. The common thread has been while nothing has changed to expedite the flow of the two rivers that parallel both sides of the Town, Mr Feiner’s non-stop over-development in our Town has all of these new projects emptying their storm and other drainage into either the Saw Mill River or the Bronx River. With nothing being done to accommodate the runoff water that would have been absorbed into the ground, the surrounding low-lying areas flood. Many are anxious to see what happens to the 9A corridor after the new construction in Eastview is completed.

A study published in Nature Climate Change warned that the annual costs from flooding in the world’s largest coastal cities could grow from about $6 billion to $1 trillion  by 2050. Granted, 2050 may be some time away, but its that kind of thinking and lack of planning that has currently landed us in this morass of finger-pointing and lack of action. Sure, many politicians will say this is going to cost money and take a lot of time. They've been saying that about the 9A corridor for the last 50 years - maybe longer. The current National Flood Insurance Program is $24 billion in debt! This deficit will not be washed away (pun intended) without reform of the system. It’s also a bonafide indicator that increased investment in mitigation efforts prior to an event is imperative before we are hit with the costs of the next disaster which promise to be overwhelming.

True story: One neighborhood is a “A” rated flood zone (worst) neighborhood. A young couple with a young child from the Bronx purchased their first home here. They never knew that Mr Feiner held a press conference in their driveway after Hurricane Irene. They didn’t know he promised the couple living there to have FEMA purchase their home from them so they could leave. They didn’t know Mr Feiner was lying when he told them that. The young couple’s sale went through without much fanfare - although for them it was a pretty exhilarating moment. At the closing, however, they learned that the bank holding the mortgage requires them to have flood insurance. The sellers might have neglected to mention that. Regardless, while their checkbook was out, they wrote a $2,000 check to the bank for flood insurance. Closings are like that. Bring your checkbook, be prepared to empty it on fees and payments that would shame an IRS agent.

The Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) underwrites the National Flood Insurance Program. Yes, the Federal government. As mentioned earlier, they are $24 billion in debt. These are the same people who run Social Security, who don’t have enough money to pay retirees; the Veterans Administration, who can’t take care of our heroes; the Post Office, who has its own $8 billion deficit; Medicare and Medicaid, which both do everything not to pay benefits and are rife with corruption; Education, which many believe amounts to indoctrination – or just day care, and many more but you get the point. Back to FEMA. They charge homeowners thousands to pay back hundreds when you place a claim. By the way, there’s a mandatory $5,000 deductible. Government at its best?

We just had elections. Mr Feiner wasn’t running. It doesn't matter - he’ll get re-elected next year. Job performance in Greenburgh doesn’t matter. What does matter is we keep the same people in office so we can get more proclamations, plaques with our names on them and “atta boys” from Mr Feiner and his ilk. Ms Williams is content to coast along for her base salary of $49, 200 and various stipends. And what of Mr Abinanti, handily re-elected as our “environmentally concerned” NYS Assemblyman? He remains AWOL during all of this. Why tackle something he’s impotent to fix? In fact, he used to live in Greenburgh until Mr Feiner started making too many bad decisions and moved to a safer area to distance himself from real issues. We keep electing the same people who do nothing but pander to us.

The young couple who only last year bought their new dream home? Here it is a year later and they now know who Senator Chuck Schumer is. He co-sponsored a bill that increased the cost of flood insurance. You see, after having to pay out claims for Hurricane/Tropical Storms Irene and Sandy, the program went broke. Naturally, the politicians did what they do best: they raised taxes, in the form of flood insurance premiums, but only to the people who get flooded. So they hammer the people suffering the most, again.

And what of our new homeowners formerly of the Bronx and now living in the A-rated flood prone Greenburgh? Their flood insurance went up a whopping $20,000! The Town needs to address the flooding issue they created with over-development, poor planning and developer carte blanche. It may be part of the solution to cause the Federal government to readjust the flood maps and reduce the young couple’s flood premiums. Although it’s not likely because we continue to fail ourselves by electing the same people over and over again and they always seek the latest tragedy for publicity. This guarantees them that publicity. This has to change. Only then might we get A Better Greenburgh.

Go For Broke

At the March 27, 2013 Town Board meeting, the G-10 representatives were the only participants willing to show up and speak. The topics du jour were the WestHelp debacle where Valhalla’s racist NIMBY’s and the Town Board continued encouraging The Paul to allow the degradation of the WestHelp facility in hopes of purchasing Valhalla votes in the upcoming election. Next was the former Frank’s Nursery at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, replete with contaminated soil, back-room deals, unanswered environmental concerns and “confidential information” the Town Attorney deemed inappropriate to discuss. ABG believes any offering to purchase Town property should be put on the table for scrutiny and review by the public. It’s our property! Ideally, an RFP should be proposed. Lewis’ opinion did not stop the G-10 from further questioning and comments. The third discussion topic was the never-ending, never-performed, town-wide revaluation plan (hereafter: reval). The Paul has talked about this for years and but never acted upon it . His motto might be, “Why fix it when I can talk about it and still get re-elected.”

Why is the Town reval such a hot, scary and hands-off topic? Why has The Paul stayed away from it for so long? Because it’s a politicians worst nightmare. Certiorari challenges are how taxpayers within the municipalities typically counter the seemingly high and unfair tax assessment for their property. There’s an explanation of why and how revaluations affect homeowners that is somewhat simple, yet effective. One-third of the properties that are revalued will see their property taxes increase, one third will remain the same and the final third will see a reduction. Senior citizens seem to get clobbered by revals most often as they have purchased their homes years earlier, paid ever-escalating property taxes, retired and live off of a fixed income in the same home. Once their home is revalued, it invariably increases in value and winds up costing them more in property taxes. Increasingly, there are  companies more available willing to assist a large number of businesses and a growing number of residential owners to get certiorari adjustments as a means to a lower end in the Town of Greenburgh. Each Town Board meeting sees a non-stop increase in certiorari adjustment payouts. The March 27th Town Board meeting saw the Town expend $719,240 in tax certiorari adjust payouts! And, that’s not the highest one to date!

Adding up the amounts of money The Paul and the Town Board routinely drain from the wallets of the Unincorporated residents on a bimonthly basis is staggering. Each twice-monthly Town Board meeting the focus on larger and larger amounts of certiorari adjustments, fines, settlements, etc. In fact, one recent certiorari payout several months ago was about $1.2 million dollars. Couple the Town Board bimonthly events with the monthly $100K in lost revenue from the County contract for the former WestHelp property, the impending guilty verdict from the Fortress Bible lawsuit for up to $8M, and one has to wonder if the Town will soon face bankruptcy under The Paul’s administration? Join us as we sing, “I hear the train a-comin’...”

One easy example to eliminate unnecessary and controllable expenses is to combine the two Recreation departments The Paul insists on maintaining. As an example, both recreation department’s pool chemicals are not purchased for both pool facilities by one department. It makes no sense but it continues as the Veteran’s Park pool purchases are made by “their” recreation department and the Theodore Young Community Center’s pool purchases are made by the other recreation department. It’s been publicly alleged at an open Town Board meeting that maintaining the two recreation departments as separate but equal is racist by nature. It’s also costly.

This despicable behavior fits The Paul like a glove. He has openly flaunted this demeanor as part of the “goresome foursome” with County Executive Rob Astorino, County Legislator Michael Smith and County Executive Communications Director Ned McCormack. How do we know about The Paul’s racism? ABG witnessed it at an NAACP meeting held in White Plains several months ago when he publicly slipped and put his foot in his mouth*. We also know because he was found guilty of discrimination, destroying evidence and more in the Fortress Bible case. A subsequent appeal of his guilty verdict by The Paul and Diana “Sleepy” Juettner was struck down by a Federal Appeals Court, validating the guilt of The Paul and Diana Juettner.

Running the Town requires basic management skills. ABG believes the department heads (Commissioners) are qualified to run their own departments. If they are doing their jobs well, the running of the Town becomes a bit easier. But even with qualified individuals at the helm, The Paul and his Board manage to screw things up. Morale is at an all time low. Teamster-member Town employees are forced to wait four years before The Paul will negotiate their contract. There’s a hiring freeze in place unless it’s a position The Paul wants to fill with one of his cronies. It was pointed out by one speaker that the Town Board maintains its vacancy of moral actions because they lack a moral compass. ABG believes this is mostly because they wish to be re-elected and helped by The Paul. Subsequently, they blindly and unconditionally follow The Paul’s mandates and lead – contrary to Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan’s pronouncement of independent thinking on behalf of the Board members. Could a contributing factor be that the Town Board consists of only one political party? Possibly. Regardless, ABG is of the mind that it may be time to vacate the holder of the Town Supervisor position for someone with management experience and the ability to judge right from wrong instead of whether they are gaining a vote or not. Maybe it’s time to go for broke! We can only hope.


* See: 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - Feiner Insults NAACP:

http://www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/feiner-insults-naacp.html

and

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - Feiner Insults NAACP - Part 2:

http://www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/feiner-insults-naacp-part-2.html

WestHelp Fiasco Has Gone On Far Too Long

ABG has previously posted the arguments as well as the illegal actions of The Paul toward the WestHelp facility as he tries to buy votes from the Mt. Pleasant/Valhalla N.I.M.B.Y. crowd. The Paul and his Board has purposefully allowed viable, structurally sound apartments that he in part, authorized, endorsed and even helped build while a County Legislator, fall into disrepair. Now, as Town Supervisor, he has changed his tune with affordable housing, claiming we have a glut of affordable housing in Greenburgh, and is doing a 180° reversal, insisting we tear down this affordable housing!

At a forum meeting sponsored by the N.A.A.C.P. last week, he showed his true colors by making racist remarks and insulting the members in attendance and the work they did years ago to get these apartments built! Visibly stunned after being held to task for making his comments, he stammered to come up with a tolerable answer. The audience wasn’t buying. You can read more on previous ABG posts, “Feiner Insults N.A.A.C.P.” in two parts.

There was a “Contacts” sheet provided at the meeting and we’ve had requests from our loyal readers for that information so they could reach out to our elected officials regarding this travesty that has gone on for far too long. ABG is happy to oblige.

Here is the contact information:

Town of Greenburgh:
Greenburgh Town Hall, 177 Hillside Ave., White Plains, NY 10603

Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner: pfeiner@greenburghny.com; 914-993-1540

Town Council members (914-993-1544 + Ext.):
Kevin Morgan: kmorgan@greenburghny.com; 914-993-1544 x 3
Diana Juettner: djuettner@greenburghny.com; 914-993-1544 x 2
Francis Sheehan: fsheehan@greenburghny.com; 914-993-1544 x 4
(Note: Sheehan repeatedly & openly states at meetings he does not read emails)
Kenneth Jones: kjones@greenburghny.com 914-993-1544 x1

Westchester County

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, 148 Martine A ve. White Plains, NY10601
914-995-2900

Westchester County Board of Legislators
800 Michaelian Office Building 148 Martine Avenue, 8th Floor White Plains, New York 10601
Main Tel: (914)995-2800;

Chairman Ken Jenkins
995-2829

John Testa, Peekskill
995-2828

Peter Harckham, Bedford, Majority Leader
995-2810

Michael Smith, Greenburgh
995-2847

Michael Kaplowitz, Somers
995-2848

David Gelfarb, Rye
995-2834

Bill Ryan, White Plains
995-2827

Judith Myers, Mamaroneck
995-2802

Alfreda Williams, Greenburgh
995-2833

Catherine Borgia, Ossining
995-2812

Sheila Marcotte, Eastchester
995-2817

Jim Maisano, Minority Leader, New Rochelle
995-2826

Mary Jane Shimsky, Greenburgh
995-2821


Lyndon Williams, Mount Vernon
995-2837

Bernice Spreckman, Yonkers
995-2815

Gordon Burrows, Yonkers
995-2830

Ken Jenkins, Yonkers, Chariman
995-2829

Virginia Perez, Yonkers
995-2846

New York State
NY State Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
(518) 474-8390

Representing Greenburgh in Albany:
State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins,
28 Wells Avenue Building 3

Yonkers, NY 10701
914-423-4031

Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti
303 South Broadway Suite 229 

Tarrytown, NY 10591
914-631-1605

Feiner Insults NAACP - Part 2

ABG inadvertently omitted several points in our previous post about the forum held by the NAACP on Monday night. We hope to correct that with this post, hence, part 2.

While The Paul had the floor, he bragged about the scatter site housing near Manhattan Avenue that would be torn down to have new low income apartment buildings built in their place. Subsequent to that comment, when Legislator Alfreda Williams had the floor, she correctly pointed out that The Paul has purposely contained almost all of the low income housing in the Fairview section of the Town. And this latest project would just be a further continuation of that policy. She said the result has been the “ghetto-izing” the area! She also correctly pointed out that this is another form of discrimination that appears to have gone unchecked by The Paul.

When the creation of the WestHelp housing was being discussed, formulated and created, this same chapter of the NAACP was a participant group struggling to develop this property as a project for affordable housing. Back then, affordable housing was sometimes considered Welfare Housing and was often met with all kinds of resistance and derision, relegated mostly to the cities. In time, that moniker was eliminated. Regardless of what it was called, the Mayfair-Knollwood Civic Association, as well as several now, high ranking County leaders (Astorino, McCormack, Smith) were, and still are, against the facility as a low income, affordable housing facility. They remain the embodiment of a portion of the Mt. Pleasant/Valhalla’s Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) crowd! You would hope high-ranking public officials would understand the value this property holds as existing housing?

To Williams’ credit, she also stated that The Paul requested RFP’s for this property. For the uninitiated, that is a Request For Proposal that developers will submit to the Town proposing work to be done. Bidders would like to receive the awarded contract. There were six proposals, with the Ferncliff School being one of them. Ferncliff’s proposal is to tear down the apartments and build a new facility. The others were all proposing some kind of affordable, senior, low-income, municipal and/or emergency services housing. Williams’ point was that after inspection, they all maintained that while the apartments needed various levels of work, these were still well-built, viable and usable apartments that will have a long future of use. This is contrary to The Paul’s statements that these apartments are in such disrepair the facility needs to be destroyed. ABG would like to point out that while these RFP’s were submitted in ernest, they weren’t requested in ernest by The Paul. It was another deflection on his part.

As The Paul rattled off a list of affordable housing in the Town, focused primarily in Fairview, he touted the new soon to be opened Westhab housing facility at Tarrytown and Old Kensico Roads. He lied about working with the neighborhood. He lied about the neighborhood being in favor of the project. He lied when he said Greenburgh’s employees will live there. They will only live there if their name might be chosen from a tri-state lottery. William’s countered with the truth and acknowledged that a resident was in the audience and willing speak to The Paul’s comments. He was never called on to speak.

ABG knows that The Paul had promised the Fulton Park neighborhood something completely different. Some twenty years earlier, when the old property was a former hotel called the King’s Inn, he told the neighborhood that if and when the homeless population were removed by the County, he would want to see a Senior Citizen Living Facility at the site. The neighborhood worked intimately with Westhab and it’s residents to maintain a pleasant relationship. The facility that will be opening in a few months will not have seniors, municipal employees and might have two or three veterans - as promised to the Town Board after they Spot-Zoned the property to accommodate the developer. ABG’s guess it it will invariably be filled with DSS and Section 8 recipients, hardly the senior facility he promised.

While The Paul was a Westchester County Legislator, he was in favor of the WestHelp affordable housing site. Wilson’s one and only question asked of The Paul, was, “Why did you support the WestHelp affordable housing when you were a County Legislator but now as Town supervisor you won’t support it?” The question went unanswered. Time would ultimately be the audience’s enemy and The Paul’s rescuer. Before they could extract an answer from The Paul, the NAACP President was forced to end the dialog as their time for the space had run out and the crowd had to leave.

It was apparent to those in attendance that The Paul insulted the NAACP’s members and good work they have done to create affordable housing in Westchester and Greenburgh. More importantly, The Paul exposed himself as the racist he is when he discussed people of color and the segregated clustering of affordable housing in the Fairview section of the Town! He has ruled the Town for 21 years and while he’s been able to mask his bad behavior with his bumbling persona, his armor has finally wore thin and the chinks are beginning to expose him for what he is. It’s time for him to go. We can only hope.

Feiner Insults NAACP

Dave Wilson of the Journal News was the moderator for the night. The NAACP was the host and a church in White Plains was the location. The forum on Monday night was a sounding board over the low income housing dilemma facing the County and the Town. The panel for the forum was composed of David “Tax Watch” Wilson, Robert Bernstein, an attorney who intervened with retired judge Herb Rosenberg on behalf of the Town to reclaim $1.2M illegally paid to the Valhalla School District by The Paul. Alfreda Williams and MaryJane Shimsky, both County Legislators representing Greenburgh and other communities, were joined by County Legislator and County Executive Candidate, Ken Jenkins. Arriving late, as had been announced to the crowd, was The Paul.

Wilson began the evening with a slide presentation showing the WestHelp facility on the Westchester Community College campus. Bernstein was the first panelist to speak and highlighted several key points that appear to be in violation by The Paul and his Town Board. He read specific sections of the original contract and the case against The Paul seems damning! It basically said that the Town shall maintain the facility and the Town will continue to house low income residents in the facility. Both of those points have been unequivocally violated. Then the three legislators spoke. Jenkins assured everyone that the County is not against Ferncliff, a private company, and is also working closely with them to find an appropriate site for their school. He continued that The Paul should not be pitting the WestHelp property against Ferncliff. Both are equally worthy causes. Shimsky said that WestHelp is a valuable public asset that we cannot let go to waste under any circumstance. She furthered that there is obviously a need for affordable housing in our community. The crowd wholeheartedly agreed. Williams suggested that organizations such as this one could help by continuing to stay involved.

By arriving late, The Paul knew he would have limited exposure at this meeting. If he was lucky, he knew he could bloviate, dance a bit, get his agenda across and hope to be out of there without answering any real questions. After letting The Paul ramble on for about five minutes with an “opening statement”, Wilson asked Feiner one question, “Why did you support the WestHelp affordable housing when you were a County Legislator but now as Town supervisor you won’t support it?” Performing “The Paul shuffle”, he read from a piece of paper all the points he wanted to make, but never answered the question!

One woman in the back row put her head down on the table, shaking her head in disbelief while others could be overheard saying he wasn’t answering the question. After Wilson interrupted him twice and asked him to answer the question, he continued his rambling. We all know this is The Paul’s main deflection tactic. The woman in the back raised her hand and asked why he wouldn’t answer the question. People in the audience wanted substance. The audience was not happy with The Paul’s deflection. They demanded answers. After The Paul claimed that the DSS referred people mostly of color to affordable housing, one gentleman took offense to Feiner’s statement and asked why Feiner would put “people of color” in his statement? The Paul’s response was because he was at a meeting held by the NAACP. This did not bode well with the crowd, who let their displeasure be known.

Without a doubt, this could have been a good back-and-forth session with good questions and perhaps honest answers. But The Paul wasn’t there to participate in an honest dialog. Rather, he was there to campaign. But tonight, the crowd The Paul thought he could pander to wasn’t buying the goods – finally! Overheard after the meeting was the comment that, “The Town has a lot of bad things happening to it because of The Paul’s mismanagement and illegal actions, but we have a lot more good things happening to it too.” We just need to make sure we keep the good outweighing the bad.

To keep the good outweighing the bad, we need to vote The Paul out of office. This meeting may have been one of the first steps toward that end. We can only hope.