Lying in the Weeds

An overgrown strip of tall grass in the village of Cobleskill’s East End has yielded a virtual bumper crop of material for critics of Village officials. The Times-Journal, eager to blow the slightest village misstep grossly out of proportion, has called it a “flashpoint” for the future direction of the Village. Letters to the editor offered a similar lament.

But as the weeds grew taller, Cobleskill supervisor Roger Cohn clearly saw an opportunity to make political hay out of the weedy median and gathered a few of his friends to help. In what was obviously a cheap political stunt, Cohn and several others decided to take matters into their own hands and remove the weeds themselves.

At the next village board meeting, trustees argued over who is actually responsible for the maintaining the median. Trustee Bill Gilmore angrily chastised Tom Fissell, the village’s highway superintendent, for not tending to the median. Trustee Mark Galasso cited a lack of planning on the part of the Village Board, and argued that officials should have budgeted money for median maintenance. Clearly, someone goofed.

Does that mean that there is a “leadership vacuum” in the village of Cobleskill as the Times-Journal editorialized (8-13-2008)? Not really, it just means that village officials made an honest mistake. What I find particularly troubling is the way in which the Cobleskill town supervisor opportunistically seized on this “honest mistake” for political expediency. Cohn could have easily called Mayor Sellers and the other trustees and asked them all to come out and weed the median. Instead, he called the Times-Journal to tell them of a photo opportunity.

This kind of realpolitik shows that Cobleskill town officials are interested not in working together with village officials but in embarrassing them. The problem is not with village officials, any random group of trustees is capable of making such an oversight. The problem is the mean-spirited hardball politics that people like Cohn are playing and that the Times-Journal is encouraging.

I’m glad that somebody took the time to weed out the tall grass. I just hope that the people of Cobleskill are able to weed out the naked political grandstanding.

Democracy Inaction

As expected it looks like Town of Richmondville voters decided to take out their anger on incumbent Supervisor Betsy Bernocco for her role in the recent wind turbine controversy. Unfortunately for Richmondville voters, the guy they just elected, John Barlow, has the exact same stance on the wind turbine issue as Bernocco. But people were frustrated and someone had to pay, I guess. To me, it looks like the voters traded an incumbent with an accomplished record and history of service for someone who barely campaigned for the job, and who didn’t even pledge to stop wind turbines from being developed. Way to go, Richmondville!

In the Village of Cobleskill, incumbent Rebecca Burgos-Thillet was trounced by former Mayor Bill Gilmore in a race for Village trustee. Naturally, this doesn’t bode well for Mayor Sellers and Deputy Mayor MacKay, both of whom seem to be bearing the brunt of criticism over some recent problems that seem to be beyond their control. Gilmore’s win –a huge 80%- will likely lead to his running for re-election as Mayor in 2009. Unfortunately, for Sellers and MacKay, the Times Journal has decided that anything from now until 2009 that happens to go wrong in the Village of Cobleskill will be blamed on Mayor Sellers’ youth and inexperience.

In the Cobleskill Supervisor’s race Republican Roger Cohn defeated Democrat Bob Strother. This is a disappointment. Hopefully, Cohn will not continue the entrenched position of outgoing Supervisor Mike Montario who essentially refused to consider any sharing of services with the Village unless they agreed to extend water and sewer services to Lowe’s. For two years, Montario held the process hostage because he apparently believed that the Town of Cobleskill was entitled to Village services. Strother had a lot of great ideas for improving participation, town-village negotiations, and helping Downtown. But the election of Roger Cohn seems like voters are saying they want more of the same. Hopefully I’m wrong.