Times-Herald Record Article No. 2

PORNO CHARGES CAUSE CHAOS DURING ROCHESTER TOWN BOARD MEETING

By Paul Brooks
February 02, 2007

Accord - The porno showdown with the Rochester Town Board last night dissolved in shouting matches, the blaring horns of pickup trucks and a legal standoff.

The jampacked meeting never got to the demands for the resignation of Supervisor Pam Duke and Councilman Francis Gray. Members of the Rochester Republican Club had mailed 2,000 multi-colored, slick paper fliers to town residents urging them to attend the meeting at Town Hall last night.

“WARNING: Sexually Explicit Material,” the flier blared across the top. The flier said Duke and Gray, among other board members, charged a local woman with being associated with a pornographic Web site. The charge came during an executive session to interview the woman, Manuela Mihailescu, for a position on the town’s Historic Preservation Commission.

“Ridiculous,” Mihailescu said last night. “Absurd. Inconceivable.” That’s one side of the dispute, Town Attorney Rod Futerfas told the crowd of about 80 that jammed Town Hall. Another 50 to 80 people milled in the cold outside and pickup trucks circled in the parking lot, blaring their horns and flashing their headlights. State police were on hand, but made no arrests during the session.

If, Futerfas said, Mihailescu waived her right to confidentiality from the executive session, the Town Board could present its side.‘I have already waived confidentiality,” she told the board. But she refused to sign a written waiver. Instead, she challenged the board members to waive their own confidentiality. Not without a written waiver from her, Futerfas said.

Not good enough for Imre Beke, a Mihailescu supporter. “This is our town. You answer to us,” he shouted in a loud, hoarse voice.

Futerfas said the board refused to hold a one-sided discussion and accused Beke of climbing atop a soapbox. “I and the rest of these people will speak tonight,” Beke said.

That was it for Councilman Alex Miller. His motion to adjourn the meeting passed unanimously. “See you next month,” Miller said, and the board disappeared into a side office.