Scarcely
had Dr. Dick set foot in town hall before he was being spotted in the village
mayor’s office, having heart-to-hearts with the village’s volunteer director of
recreation. Reliable sources overheard Dick promising her a paid position at
the town. As he and the mayor schemed to find funding for the job, the mayor
thought that merging the town and village departments might qualify them for a
state subsidy due to the village’s low household income. In his plan, the
taxpayer money they received could go towards paying for the new position.
However,
Dick had higher aspirations, chuckling over his desire to dismiss the current
town director, despite that by all reports she has been quite capably managing
the department for years. Ducking out of town hall in February and March for
secret meetings at the Airport Café, he conspired with Michael Kuzmitz, fourth
ward councilman and wanna-be Judge Wapner, looking for trumped up reasons to
cut the director loose.
They
were aided in the plotting by Angie Bettina, sister of highway super Vinny “Il
Stronzo” Bettina and occasional councilwoman for the second ward. Bettina, who
has yet to make good on the first campaign promise out of her lips–that she
donate her salary increase to the VA–offered to vouch that the director’s work
was sub-par. During prolonged email and “off the record” discussions, the three
of them decided to heap additional busywork on the director, both to hopefully
goad her into quitting and to create a paper trail to provide “evidence” to
support her dismissal. (A legal source tells us that three board members
constitutes a quorum and New York law requires public business conducted in
public, so these discussions may well have been illegal–but Dick’s only a
patent lawyer so you can’t expect to him to keep up on these things and Kuzmitz
is too busy pursing a seat on the .town court.
Simultaneously,
Dick was flogging the idea of dumping $8 million into the decaying Carnwath Farms buildings, so the senior center–a part of the recreation department–could
be moved there. Apparently Dick doesn’t like having to deal with whiny seniors
in his office. Aside from the fact that Carnwath is a money pit that needs
rebuilding from the foundation up, the seniors have no interest in moving
there. By all accounts, they are quite happy in their current location at town
hall. As Dick has already raided the town’s slush fund on multiple occasions,
it’s unclear where the 8 million smackaroos needed to fuel this pipe dream
would be coming from? Another gofundme campaign?
Being
unable to bully the current director into resigning, the Dicktor has gone back
to scheming in secret with the village director. As she is clinging
precariously to her current position, being able to slither into the town
department would be a neat escape. Folks in the know tell us that the village
trustees have been seeking to remove her for months, citing a long history of
financial mismanagement including filing undocumented expense, losing tables
and chairs that were supposedly purchased but are nowhere to be found, and
engaging in uncontrolled spending sprees such as $19,000 for the holiday
display.
One
of the trustees was overheard asking the of village treasurer what had happened
to the vendor fees from the Sunday farmers markets, to which the treasurer
replied that no funds had ever been turned in. (Deposits paid by the Christmas
Parade participants have similarly gone up in smoke rather than hitting the
village bank account.) The director cries and pouts to the mayor, who for some
reason has been protecting her from dismissal, despite receiving intel that the
director was previously questioned about missing funds at a local elementary
school.
It’s a mystery why Dr. Dick wants to
give a taxpayer funded position to this bungler, although she was helpful in
spreading his web of lies during his campaign. Maybe he sees her as a kindred
spirit, as there’s no evidence to suggest that Dick has any concept of fiscal
responsibility himself. In recent months he has proposed onerous tax increases
for town residents while simultaneously bleeding the reserve fund dry. The two
of them might be very happy together, but the residents shouldn’t have to foot
the bill.

No comments:
Post a Comment