The Village has released edited recordings from the special Village Board meeting held at Countryside School on September 23rd to hear residents’ comments regarding the potential settlement of a lawsuit brought against the Village over the Commercial Horse Boarding amendment.
Twenty-six people spoke that evening, however there are twenty-eight recording tracks because two people ran over the time limit and others continued to read their prepared speeches. We’ll be providing our analysis of the comments later in the week, once we’ve had an opportunity to fully review them, but in the meantime, we do have some observations to share with our readers.
In 2014, multiple attorneys, including Village Counsel Patrick Bond, on multiple occasions advised the Village Board members at that time not to pursue or enact any legislation that might favor one party over another in a then private lawsuit (Drury v LeCompte). Doing so would most likely cause the Village to become a party in the suit they were warned.
Despite this advice, five Trustees voted for the Commercial Horse Boarding amendment. To make things worse, the amendment that was approved began with a proposed draft from one of the litigants in the private suit, Dr. LeCompte.
During Wednesday’s special meeting two former Trustees who voted in favor of passing that legislation certain to get the Village sued strongly advised the Village Board not settle the suit brought on by their ill-advised actions. In other words, they advocated that our tax dollars should be wastefully spent defending their actions.
Is it any wonder why these two are now former Trustees?
The link to the full menu of the September 23rd special meeting recordings can be accessed by clicking here.
Speaker 23, were you following Section 1-5-4 of the VBH Code when you compromised VBH zoning laws (after spending $186,000 of taxpayer funds) through issuance of the illegal “Schuman Letter” attempting to make Oakwood Farm home occupation compliant 34 days after the secret and illegal campaign donation from LeCompte to your “Save 5 Acre” political team of Messer, Meroni and Selman?
The amazing thing about Speaker 23 is when he spoke he knew he was lying; the person he was addressing knew he was lying and everyone in the auditorium who chose to listen knew he was lying; yet Speaker 23 proceeded anyway as if he was telling everyone the truth.
Any BHO reader with an understanding of the human mind(less) please describe for BHO readers the pathology exhibited by Speaker 23 at this meeting. It really was Madoffesque in both its style and content . . . truly political “flim-flam”.
On a slightly different subject:
Why can’t former trustees, Meroni and Selman understand it is not the illegal campaign donation from LeCompte per se which resulted in their “conflict of interest” concerning their involvement in commercial boarding legislation but the illegal campaign donation coupled with the illegal Schuman Letter, 34 days later. Why do Meroni and Selman always forget the second prong of their “actual or apparent impropriety”?
To be crass Ms. Selman and Meroni, there is an appearance of a “quid pro quo”, ie. your secret campaign donation by LeCompte in return for a favorable village letter taking the form of the Schuman Letter prepared by Abboud for LeCompte 34 days later for the purpose of negating the impact of an Appellate Court decision unfavorable to your donor, LeCompte.
Further, why does former Trustee Steven Knoop only appear at BOT meetings when commercial horse boarding is on the agenda and why is Steven so angry? . . . . Why didn’t Steven as former VBH trustee raise concern about the Schuman Letter and the 3 secret campaign donations? Steven was a member of the VBH BOT at the time authorizing expenditure of taxpayer monies totaling $186,000 in legal fees to Burke-Warren to close down commercial boarding operations at Oakwood Farm. Steven, what changed between then and now and could this possibly be the source of all that anger you released on Marty at the special meeting?
BHO readers, keep in mind, it is not so much “what” was said in support of Anderson II or against McLaughlin at the special meeting; but rather, “who” showed up to say it.
Remember, VBH finds itself where it is at today on commercial boarding because Speaker 23, Steven et al. played political roulette with this issue for many years in order to hold equestrians captive during election time. If you have a law providing certainty, you cannot create fear which is how “Save 5 Acres” remained relevant all these years . . . . But now, the jig is up!