Town Board Attack Raises Questions

On the Local Level It's About a Candidates Stance on Issues Not Their Party

During the public comments at the August 8th Town Board meeting a Stony Point resident respectfully offered his thoughts on the need for an updated Master Plan. As he was finishing his comments a Board member attacked the speaker by declaring,

“In 7 years on the Board I haven’t heard you say once that this is a great project and try to help the people.”

“I actually walk in the street talking to people who are in business or want to invest in SP. They’re not going to come here. You know why?”

“Because of You!”

This attack was uncalled for and disrespectful.

Town Board members are elected officials who work for us!  No matter what their personal feelings may be about any individual person, ridiculing, blaming, and attacking residents in their official capacity, especially at a public meeting is just wrong. It’s an abuse of power.

Even though I wasn’t the one attacked I felt compelled to answer the Board member with a list of things that I’m FOR. The Town Supervisor promptly dismissed my concerns as Democratic politics.

It would be refreshing to have a Town Board that realizes that there are many Stony Pointers who aren’t Democrats that would like to see the Master Zoning Plan revised. Especially since the Town’s own planning consultant has said in public that the present plan is too “long in the tooth” (old) to be helpful in making zoning decisions today. That alone should be enough to move to the Board to action but in addition if we don't update the plan what's happening at 111 S. Liberty can happen again. What's to stop it unless we change our mixed use regulations.

And there are other items in our Master Plan that need to be tightened up like the interpretation that private balconies and rooftops can be substituted for recreational space when building high-density housing. Certainly the original zoning regulations were meant to be “ground based” recreational space.

What other issues are hidden in the zoning code that we won’t discover until the next developer finds a loophole we didn’t see 10 years ago?

When it comes to local issues we should be voting for Stony Pointers who represent our views on local issues. Trying to make this a Democratic vs Republican issue is just the Board's way of deflecting criticism and muddying the waters.

A good example is the 111 S. Liberty Dr. project that Monsey Affordable Housing is proposing. Hundreds of residents have come to Planning and Zoning Board meetings to object to this four story, 86 unit, 200 cars emptying onto 9W monstrosity. These aren’t just Democrats, They're a mix of common sense Stony Pointers.

And it was common sense Stony Pointers who didn’t think selling our 32 acre publicly owned land to a developer who wanted to build 500+ units of housing and add 800-1000 cars to Willow Grove Rd. was a good idea. They voted down the proposal 70% to 30%. These voters weren’t just Democrats. They were Stony Point residents and they spoke out resoundingly.

The fact that we still have a “gem” of a golf course. (Supervisor’s words) is due to the common sense of Stony Pointers. Not just Democrats.

The same is true for the new Community and Senior Center and the Patriot Grille.

And there were both Democrats and Republicans who were against building a garbage burning plant behind ShopRite. They weren’t willing to overlook the safety issues or the 400 tractor trailers of NYC garbage on 9W every day to gain a ratable.

So let’s stop playing political games.

•  Let's put together a cross section of Stony Pointers to update the Master plan.

• Get people together to decide the future of Letchworth.

• Put together an economic development plan for the town with help from the NR Chamber and other local business leaders.

• Apply for every grant that might save us money.

• Broadcast and record town board meetings and be sure not to edit out the public comments so that residents who can’t attend the meetings in person can keep up with what’s going on in town. Having the Supervisor say his door is always open isn’t the same.

• Support a cost effective library expansion which can be done using construction grants from the Ramapo Catskill Library System.

• Add some zoning code regulations that will help preserve and protect our neighborhoods from landlords renting single family homes to multiple families and turning them into boarding houses.

The issues listed above aren't Democratic issues. They’re local Stony Point issues. If the Board continues to refuse to consider them we should vote for local people who will. Common sense Stony Pointers should vote for people who support their views on these issues and not for a political party.

But let's circle back to my original point…the bottom line is that no resident should be ridiculed by an elected official for being FOR or AGAINST any issue, or for asking questions, or for making a public comment.

When a person we elect to represent us stoops to ridicule and tries to scapegoat a resident, no matter who it is, it’s wrong.

Remember, if they can do this to one person they can do it to any of us.