A Civil Response to an Uncivil Critique

Author Robert Heinlein once wrote that writing is a dirty habit best done in private. Consequently, I usually limit myself to one blog post per day, if that. I try my best not to subject the few readers I have to more of my writing than a reasonable person can handle.

However, after I posted my last piece, I went through some of my recent essays and found the following comment submitted to the Ralph Nader piece (naturally, the author remained anonymous):

Anonymous said...

Oppressive Regime? Where do you think you are, North Korea?

I wonder if you believe your own gas. I am glad I found this site, however, because now I'll know exactly who not to vote for.

I love criticism. It shows that Freedom of Speech is still alive and well, despite the best efforts of our local elected officials. Moreover, rather than censor it, I am overjoyed to leave it on the blog and answer it. That is the essence of public debate. Town Board, take note.

Aside from the poor grammar (ending a sentence with a preposition), the writer reveals his utter lack of understanding of both local issues and global events. North Korea is not simply an Oppressive Regime (capitals as per the comment), it is a genocidal maniac's fun park. Would the writer truly have us believe that anything short of unimaginable starvation, capricious torture and the pursuit of a nuclear holocaust is acceptable government?

The word "oppressive" encompasses conditions which, although they may fall short of Kim Jong Il, are a clear violation of civil rights on an ongoing, systematic basis through the official acts of a governmental body. That is exactly what we have in the Town of Rochester.

Given that I have repeatedly covered the civil rights abuses we have been enduring in this Town since the current junta took office, I will refrain from repeating all the specific examples. However, the nutshell list of basic rights violated by our local government and/or its supporters is as follows:

• Freedom of Speech
  
• Freedom of Assembly
• Criticisms of the local papers in an attempt to violate Freedom of the Press
• Property Rights
• The right to not have one's good name smeared for political reasons
  
• Right to petition government officials

Do I believe my own "gas"? I can answer that in two ways:

(1) Yes, I absolutely believe what I write. It is the complete, factual truth, unadulterated by the Liberal penchant for denying the absolute nature of our human rights. Unlike so-called "Progressives," conservatives say what we mean and mean what we say. The practice of saying something in order to get your way is something invented and perfected by Liberals. It is not one I embrace.

(2) The only "gas" in this Town is the hot air we get from the Liberal propaganda machine which is doing a very poor job at muddying the waters, although they try. Not a single criticism leveled by them against the opponents of the Town Board has any validity whatsoever. One can only hope the "carbon offsets" they are buying is sufficient to counterbalance the global warming they are causing every time they open their mouths.

Finally, I'm glad this lady or gentleman found the blog, as well. Maybe he or she will learn something. However, given the publicity local events have gotten throughout Town, it's hard to believe that this person did not know which side they supported long before Word One was written or read here.

Unless the writer is from elsewhere becoming involved in something of which he or she has no knowledge. Nah, no outsiders ever come here to change our Town. Things like that just don't happen.

Stay Tuned

Turn on the TV any night of the week and you’re inundated by half hour comedies, full hour dramas and two hour movies, all designed to package reality into a time release capsule. The medicine you’re being force fed over and over again is the idea that not only can all the trials and tribulations you encounter be resolved in a matter of no more than a couple of hours, but you can have anything you want, any time you want with no regard for what others may want or need.

Sound familiar?

It certainly seems like many of our problems with government stem from the fact that our representatives have jumped right out of the TV set, talking to us in one liners packaged for cable news, thinking of nothing but their own immediate self-satisfaction. We’ve gone from Thomas Paine telling us that “These are the times that try men’s souls…” to Bill Clinton discussing his choice of underwear. Where once George Washington warned us that “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force,” we’re now being promised by Hillary Clinton (in between shrill screams sharp enough to shatter glass) that government will solve all our ills, from health care to the environment.

Abraham Lincoln assured us that “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time,” but what we’re finding is that in this age of democracy by Nielsen Ratings those who thrive on governance by fraud only need to fool those few who will tip the balance. They count on our short memories to obscure the promises of the past which they have failed to uphold. Like your typical sit-com where what happened last week is forgotten by the time the next new episode comes around, politicians will promise whatever they think will win them the most votes but delay delivery until enough of us have lost track of the original promise.

On a local level, this is the disease we’re facing in our own Town Government, but on steroids. We have a Town Board which was elected on the idea of Open Government. Not only do they completely ignore their own promise, they think we’re stupid enough to accept their lame explanation centered on the idea of “Closed Open Government.” They take an oath of office that requires only two things of them: to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the New York State Constitution, both of which guarantee that none us will lose our right to our own property without due process of the law. The laws this Town Government has passed and wants to continue passing are a direct violation of their oath of office.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face, but they’ll never listen. You see, we’re not in the script. We’re not the cute but goofy girl next door. We’re not the nerd who becomes a jock overnight. We’re not the trendy, witty friends hanging out in a Manhattan coffee shop. We’re not even the redneck farmers whose every financial hardship is suddenly solved because the rain has finally come, accompanied by music by John Williams.

As far as they’re concerned, we’re nothing but a reason to change the channel.

Well, we’re no TV show. We won’t be giving them instant gratification. They can’t get a team of writers to delete us from the screenplay.

On the other hand, Election Day is coming. The Supervisor and her Board are about to get cancelled.

Update on Ulster County Press Letter

My letter responding to Steven Fornal's attack on "longtimers" (among others) appeared in yesterday's Ulster County Press. Unfortunately, due to space restrictions (understandable, as I tend to be long winded), an edited version was published.

To read the original version, click here.

Hometown Security

“Power has to be insecure to be responsive.”

-Ralph Nader

I found this quote from Ralph Nader quite accidentally. It hit me as being immensely appropriate to our struggle in Rochester to retain our civil rights in the face of an oppressive regime which insists on making their goals more important than our freedoms.

At the same time, I find it ever so ironic that someone as unabashedly Liberal as Ralph Nader would be the one to come up with a 100% accurate description of the symptoms of our local disease. Then again, maybe it isn't so ironic. Those Liberals who have actually taken the time to truly think about their ideals have as little trust in government as Conservatives. Liberals for whom the principles of civil liberty form the foundation of their philosophy would be horrified to witness the abuse of power being perpetrated by the Town of Rochester's town Council, supposedly in the name of "progressivism."

The fact is, our Town Board is not insecure, it is arrogant. Never considering the possibility that they might face not only traditional minded townsfolk on Election Day, but many of their own who are becoming more and more disgusted by the rejection of their own values, this Board has decided it need not listen to anyone.

This was apparent from the first moratorium Public Hearing in early 2006. It was apparent when they appointed someone who had never served on the Planning Board previously to be its Chairman. It was apparent when they refused one of our neighbors a position on a Town Committee simply because his expression of his First Amendment rights didn't sync with theirs. It was apparent when they accused another neighbor of running a porn site in order to keep her off another Town Committee. It was apparent in many other Town Board meetings and Public Hearings. It is apparent in their claim that "Closed Open Government" is their way of living up to their campaign promises of 2003 and 2005 (with a straight face, no less). It is apparent in the way in which they have been running the current series of Public Hearings on the Zoning Code.

How can the Town Board possibly claim to be responsive to the people of the Town when the majority of speakers at Public Hearings are met with the Supervisor making faces and rolling her eyes? It doesn't take much in the way of introspection to realize that she is not listening, that she has rejected what is being said before it was ever uttered.

This complete and total lack of insecurity has convinced them that they can do as they please with no consequences to be considered. Their conviction that they can never lose has made them believe that they can simply walk all over half the Town as if we don't exist. Their rejection of the possibility of a loss at the polls is one of the most dangerous attacks on the principles of democracy one could ever perceive.

It makes no difference why a Government believes it will remain in power forever. It matters not one iota whether they are convinced they are invulnerable because of guns and tanks or because they think their supporters will vote them back in no matter what. What matters is that when such arrogance is what governs their actions, they will do as they please and damn the voters.

I never thought I would agree with Ralph Nader, but my only disagreement with his quote is that it doesn't go far enough. Insecurity on the part of those in power is the single, solitary factor which makes democracy work. The moment they lose that feeling of "What if I lose?" we are all in very serious trouble.

Don't take my word for it, just look at that brick building on Scenic Road. You'll find all the proof you need.

Little Gods, No Morals

For several decades, it has become obvious to anyone paying attention that something is happening in our country. Words which once meant something very specific have taken on meanings which are not only different, they are sinister.

For instance, the First Amendment of our Constitution very clearly protects our right to worship as we please, free of governmental interference, when it speaks of the “Freedom of Religion”. Certain very vocal and treacherous elements in our society have taken those three simple words, which can only have one logical meaning, and turned them into “Freedom from Religion.”

Not satisfied with redefining the English language, they have embarked on a path to make their new version of the First Amendment a reality, in a direct attack on the Constitution as framed by our Founding Fathers. In order to achieve this goal, they have sought to convince the American people that the phrase “separation of Church and State” is a Constitutional principle when, in fact, those words never appear anywhere in the Constitution. They even go so far as to redefine their own words by turning “separation of Church and State” into “subjugation of Church by State.”Now, these facts have been covered amply by writers and radio and TV talk show hosts, by priests and ministers and rabbis. The real question is not that they want to destroy Freedom of Religion. That is unarguable in any serious manner. The real question is why they want to destroy Freedom of Religion.

The most extreme wing of Liberalism is characterized by narcissism. Their most controversial political goals are all based on the idea of “I want” even when it is to the detriment of those around them. When one’s idea of reality stems from pure humanism, the idea that the only God one need worship is oneself, one’s sense of omnipotence would tend to overwhelm any sense of duty to others. Similarly, the New Age philosophies which have become increasingly prevalent since the 1960s tell us that we are all part of God, that we are, in essence God ourselves. A different way of saying the same thing: “I am God, therefore I owe explanation to no one but myself.”

Of course, there’s a little fly in the ointment. When religions which have been around for thousands of years and stood the test of time – Christianity and Judaism – tell us that there is a God, one single, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Creator of everything and everyone, that sort of makes the humanistic, New Age view of theology seem just a tad selfish and egotistical. When those same religions make it clear that there is a clear line between the Creator and His creations, people might wonder where Liberal presumptuousness comes from. Could it be a psychological self-delusion? Is it just wishful thinking? Or is it an excuse to do what they wish, no matter the consequence?

So, if you want to be a God unto yourself, what are you to do when religion tells you that you cannot do something you badly want to do? You have two options: either hijack religion and change its rules to suit your wishes or destroy it completely. So, Marx and Engels declare religion to be the “opiate of the people” and condemn its very existence. Hitler carries off any clergy who oppose him and condemns them to death in his concentration camps. Stalin does his best to co-opt the Russian Orthodox Church.

In America, the Liberal successors to Marx, Engels, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Mussolini are working feverishly to obliterate the Constitutionally guaranteed Freedom of Religion. At the same time, they have infiltrated the major Christian churches and Judaic communities in order to make it seem that there is legitimate debate as to the morality of such acts as abortion and homosexuality.

Naturally, a society has the right – and even the responsibility – to debate what they will and will not allow. A community can – and, indeed, must – tolerate and even encourage dissent in its quest to grow and advance. Societies and communities are secular creatures created by man to serve man’s needs. A Church, on the other hand, is a gathering of people who not only have similar values but are convinced that their values come not from themselves but directly from God. One can disagree with the principles a Church preaches. One cannot, however, try to change those principles. Morality cannot be determined democratically. It is not subject to headcounts or opinion polls. A ballot initiative can no more change the moral principles of a Church than it can change gravity.

One can only truly be the member of a religion if one is convinced that that particular religion is being led by the God one worships. Anyone who believes that the principles of his or her religion can be changed through the process of convincing other members does not, by definition, believe in the divine foundations of that religion’s principles.

If that is the case, that person should find a religion which better suits his or her view of morality. The right to stage a coup against the moral order of one’s religion simply does not exist.

What is even worse is when outsiders try to change a religion. That is not simply misguided, it is a vicious attack on the fundamental human rights of those who worship within the framework of that Church. It is a complete betrayal of the American principle of tolerance for differing understandings of reality, both natural and supernatural.

For any one person to be so arrogant as to tell another what he can or cannot believe about subjects on which the other’s Church has spoken definitively is reprehensible. It makes no difference whether you are for or against abortion rights or homosexuality or the death penalty or any one of several dozen topics of moral judgment. You can act politically to advance your agenda, we all have that right. To attack someone because he is true to his Church’s views on subjects which are clearly moral (at least in part) is unacceptable in the extreme. It is a prime example of the very intolerance against which Liberals rail publicly but practice religiously when they think no one’s looking.

Churches have an irreplaceable role in society: to give their believers a moral framework within which they can work with their neighbors and in a manner which does harm to no one. Every time a Liberal (or anyone else for that matter) attacks someone for their beliefs – even beliefs which are politically incorrect – the attacker is not only practicing intolerance and bigotry in its worst form but is taking a step towards creating a society which has lost all cohesiveness, a society based on the idea of “every man for himself.” That is a society in which no one can possibly be safe.

That is no society at all.

Deja Vu, anyone?

"People are tired of liberty. They have had a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer a chaste and austere virgin…. Today’s youth are moved by other slogans…Order, Hierarchy, Discipline."

-Benito Mussolini

One of the favorite tactics of the Socialist Liberal Left in both America and Europe is to accuse those who oppose them of being "fascists." They count on the fact that people lacking in a well-grounded knowledge of history consider fascism to be simply the extremist right wing movement in any given society. In point of fact, it isn't. To understand the Leftist nature of fascism, one must understand its roots.

The word "Fascism" comes from the Italian word "fascio" which means bundle of sticks, the idea being that it is much more difficult to break sticks when they are gathered together than singly. The original Italian Fascist movement believed in using State power to unite the various elements of society into a single cohesive unit in order to strengthen the State. Naturally, individual rights were an unacceptable obstacle to those who held such beliefs.

The founder of the Fascist Movement (later the Italian Fascist Party), Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, was born into a family of staunch Socialists. His parents named him, respectively, for Mexican Socialist Benito Juarez and Italian Socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani. Mussolini's parents were both Socialist activists. He and his sister were members of Marx and Engels' First Socialist International and he became one of the top leaders of the Italian Socialist Party by the age of 30.

Mussolini fled military service in Italy by escaping to Switzerland, where he again became deeply involved in Socialist activism. He was almost deported from Switzerland, but for the intervention of Socialist members of Parliament. He soon found work in Austria-Hungary, in the ethnically Italian city of Trento, where he became the editor of a Socialist newspaper, L'Avvenire del Lavoratore ("The Future of the Worker"). Again, he began working on behalf of the local Socialist Party and soon switched to another Socialist newspaper, Il Popolo ("The People").

After being deported from Austria-Hungary back into Italy, Mussolini joined the staff of yet another Socialist paper, Avanti! ("Forward!"), which called itself the "Central Organ of the Socialist Party."

In 1919, Mussolini formed what became known as the Fascist Movement and was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1921. In October of 1922, he was elected the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history. In 1925, all semblance of democratic freedom was dropped and a complete dictatorship ensued throughout Italy.

Mussolini's policies included direct attacks on private property ownership through the establishment of 5,000 government owned farms and the settlement of peasants on "redistributed" land. He introduced a program called "Gold for the Fatherland" in which the people were called to "donate" their gold jewelery (including wedding rings) to be melted down into ingots. In exchange, they received steel armbands inscribed with the "Gold for the Fatherland" slogan.

By 1935, Mussolini made the claim that 3/4 of all Italian businesses were under government control. He instituted wage and price controls and forced Italians to give up any shares they owned in foreign businesses.

Il Duce, as he became known (meaning "The Leader"), undertook a propaganda campaign early on. Using any and all organs of communications, he sought to convince the Italian people that Fascism was the only true philosophy for the Twentieth Century. Anyone who opposed the Fascist way of thinking was belittled as being backwards and part of a very small minority which was trying to stop progress.

Italy entered world War II as one of the three major Axis powers, but was patently unsuccessful in most of his military campaigns, leading to abandonment of Italy by German forces and an American invasion. In 1943, he was deposed and arrested. He was moved around for several months to keep the Germans from rescuing him but was eventually taken into German custody. In 1945, as he was on his way to board a plane to Austria, he was captured by Italian partisans and executed. His body was taken to Milan, where it was hung from a meathook in a public square, where it was left for days for the people to abuse and spit on.

Fascism was clearly a Socialist, Left Wing philosophy. There is very little on which Mussolini and modern day Socialist Liberals actually disagree. Both in Italy and in Nazi Germany, the persecution of Bolsheviks and Communists of all types was not a struggle between Right and Left. It was sibling rivalry. For American Liberals and Socialists to call their opponents Fascists is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy, considering that they themselves are the philosophical brethren of Mussolini and his cadre.

Many of the the principles espoused by and tactics used by Benito Mussolini sound suspiciously like the goals set forth by the Rochester Town Board and the means they are using to achieve them. History has proven, however, that such philosophies can only win out through the ruthless annihilation of individual civil rights. It has also proven that, eventually and inevitably, human rights will win out and dictatorships will fall.

Fortunately, we have a far more peaceful way of ridding ourselves of our local despots. We have the ballot box and the great American tradition know as "Throw the scoundrels out."

Come this November, the people of the Town of Rochester will rid ourselves of those who believe a bundle of sticks is more important than the rights of the people.

Far more than an "empty mantra"

"The moment that idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist."

-John Adams

Our Founding Fathers believed, with great justification, that when government is given power over the property of the citizens, all other rights belonging to them became null and void. Real property was (and is to this day) not only a place to live, but the source of the ability to survive. Farmers produced food not only for themselves but others as well. Merchants bought and sold. Manufacturers created products. And all of them provided jobs. Without the economic activity stemming from private property, people would starve.

History has proven our Founding Fathers right. Socialism, that grand experiment in denying the very existence of the right to own property, was a dismal failure in every single nation where it was tried. Whether we consider the Marxist-Leninist version of the Soviet Union and its slave states throughout Eastern and Central Europe, Maoist agricultural Communism, the National Socialism of Adolph Hitler or the social democracies of Western Europe which are in the process of moving towards true market economies, socialism has never worked. Socialism can never work. People need the incentive of getting ahead on their own labors. They need the goal of owning something significant. Without those two factors, the economy will eventually collapse.

Beyond the economic implications, giving Government the right to take away one's property or just take away the right to determine what one can do with it effectively gives Government, if taken to the extreme, the power over jobs, food and even life and death. All other rights then become meaningless.

Of course, many live in Neverland and will say, "Oh, local Government would never use its powers for anything but the benefit of the community." Really? Let's ask the property owners in New London, Connecticut whose properties were robbed from them by the municipality with the Supreme Court's blessing. Or ask Jon Dogar-Marinesco, whose exercise of free speech kept him off a Town Committee. Or ask Manuela Mihailescu who was accused of running a porn site in order to keep her off another Town Committee. Or myself, given the floor at a Town Board Meeting only to have the Town Attorney interrupt me after two sentences after which the meeting was adjourned before I (or anyone else, for that matter) had my say.

Government is, and always will be, abusive by nature unless forced to be subservient by its constituents. Government is never an instrument of service out of the goodness of the hearts of our politicians. If it serves us, it does so because it is forced to do so, no other reason. Thomas Jefferson told us that "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." That is one of the most profoundly accurate statements ever made about the nature of freedom. We will only be able to exercise our rights as long as we do not allow government to encroach upon them. We must maintain a watchful eye over every single act of government because politicians will, inevitably, try to increase their own powers at the expense of our freedom. History offers evidence of this principle being one of the few absolutes man has experienced. It is just short of being a Law of Nature.

Censorship and the trampling of our property rights are just the beginning. The Town of Rochester Town Board will be seen by future generations as one of the most repressive municipal governments in American history. The only question is, will we be known as those who fought it or the ones who let it happen.

Behind the Curtain

The following letter was sent out to the Ulster County Press today in response to Mr. Steven L. Fornal's letter in the current issue:

To the Editor:

Mr. Steven Fornal's Letter to the Editor (August 29, 2007) is a gourmet serving of demagoguery with a pinch of sleight of hand and a dash of smoke and mirrors thrown in. While I have often disagreed with Mr. Fornal's positions, I had been under the impression that he was above resorting to ad hominem statements which seem aimed at belittling those with whom he disagrees. Apparently, I was mistaken.

He refers to a previous letter writer's personal relationship to an elected official as if that should disqualify her from having or expressing her own opinion. The unwritten implication is that a woman's opinion is not her own but is, instead, her husband's. Hardly a "liberal" or "progressive" viewpoint.

Mr. Fornal also refers to another letter writer as "an ever affable but clueless former supervisor." That "former supervisor" has served in almost every elected town position and, as Supervisor, kept our property taxes from increasing for several years, an achievement the current Administration has not come close to matching. He also did not use his position or influence to have his job re-defined as full time, complete with a horrendous pay raise. Nor did that Supervisor divide this Town into two classes, with differing categories of rights and abilities to participate in the definition of their own destinies. The latter two "achievements" came from the Supervisor Mr. Fornal goes on to praise later in his letter. In point of fact, there are few (if any) in the Town of Rochester whose knowledge and understanding of the way a municipality operates matches that of the former Supervisor in question.

Of course, Mr. Fornal fails to mention his own lockstep political relationship with certain members of the Town Board and its backers. Likewise, he does not see fit to reveal that he owes his position as Chairman of the Planning Board to Supervisor Duke and her Board. Apparently such revelations are only important when criticizing those with whom he finds fault.

Mr. Fornal then proceeds to criticize the current Tax Assessor by citing a property tax example wherein two similarly priced homes were levied with broadly differing tax burdens. This is where the smoke and mirrors come into play. One would expect Mr. Fornal, as Chairman of the Town's Planning Board, to understand the difference between a property's assessed value and the tax burden levied thereupon. First and second homes are treated very differently. Between basic STAR exemptions and other differentials created by the State in order to owners of primary residences from a tax auction, similar homes may be taxed at a very different level, even assuming the assessment is also similar. Rather than speaking of whether or not the assessed values were dissimilar, Mr. Fornal would have the reader jump to the conclusion that the discrepancy between tax burdens is the responsibility of the tax assessor. It most certainly is not. The tax assessor simply determines the assessed (roughly market) value of the homes in the municipality. The rest comes from State Law, our School Board and the County and, yes, Town
Governments.

Similarly, Mr. Fornal's claims with regard to a townwide revaluation are nothing but sleight of hand. He would have us looking in one direction while the real action is taking place in another. Tax revaluations are not set or scheduled by the Tax Assessor, but by the Town Board. If Mr. Fornal has problems with the manner in which revaluations are being performed, he should turn to the Town Board, not the Tax Assessor.

So why would Mr. Fornal make such wild and easily refutable claims with regard to responsibility for taxation and revaluations? Simple. He is part of the cheering section for a Town Government gone wild with power. The Tax Assessor who is the target of Mr. Fornal's nonsensical fairy tales has been denied a new contract by the Town Board less than two years before she is eligible for full retirement. The "compassionate" liberals running our Town Government have seen fit to deny her a significant portion of her retirement benefits for the rest of her life. The reason? That, too, is simple. The Tax Assessor happens to be a member of the Conservative Party. Her husband is a Past Chairman of the Party in the Town of Rochester.

The Town Board has made it amply clear that all such positions must be filled by their philosophical brethren. Such metaphorical Liberal nepotism is now (practically speaking) the only factor in filling Town positions. Time and time again this Town Board has made administrative and operational decisions based on how they can best attack their opponents and strengthen their political ramparts, not on basis of what is best for our Town. As more and more people are becoming aware of this mean spirited, Machiavellian strategy, Mr. Fornal has taken it upon himself to advise us all to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

Mr. Fornal also all but admits that there are now two classes of people in Town when referring to "longtimers." In point of fact, many of the current Regime's opponents are not "longtimers" in any sense of the word. Manuela Mihailescu, who was found to be victimized by the Town Government by a court of law recently has been a resident of the Town for less than a decade. My parents moved here from Eastern Europe by way of New Jersey. A major portion of those who are fed up and disgusted by the behavior of a Town Government Mr. Fornal views through rose colored glasses have been here no longer than the majority of his political allies, having come from places like New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, other parts of the Hudson Valley and places much farther away. The difference is, however, that when we moved here we decided that we wanted to become a part of what was already here. Mr. Fornal's crowd came here and decided that they were far more intelligent than the "banshees" who are "shrieking their shrill complaints." They decided that the redneck hicks need to be taken in hand and forced to change the Town for the "better," as they see it.

The fact that Mr. Fornal claims that his "sector of the population" is subsidizing the other "sectors" shows just how patronizing he and others like him are. We never asked to have them come into our Town and "subsidize" anything. In fact, I don't see them subsidizing our Town at all. On the contrary, 300 years of work, heart, spirit and money have gone into making this Town what it is today. It is the legacy of the "longtimers" which is "subsidizing" Mr. Fornal's ability to live in a beautiful, rural atmosphere. The Liberal aristocracy which has come into Town of late has done nothing to make us what we are. Those who lived here for three centuries did it all.

Finally, Mr. Fornal repeatedly refers to "residents." His allies have formed a "Residents' Association." This is the ultimate proof that they do not understand rural life in the slightest. Country families are not residents of a Town. We do not define ourselves by where we live. We define ourselves by those who surround us, by those who help us when the need arises and those whom we, in turn, help. No, we are not residents. We are neighbors. It is truly sad that Mr. Fornal, the Town Board and their supporters and allies seem to be incapable of comprehending this simple truth.

Respectfully,


Imre Beke, Jr., Chairman
Town of Rochester Conservative Committee

Socialism is Alive and Well in Rochester

The Town Board has done it again. Yet another Public Hearing was held which was nothing but lip service to the concept of the rule of the people, otherwise known as democracy. As 41 people stood up (and only six spoke in favor of the new Zoning Code), members of the Rochester Politburo shook their heads and rolled their eyes, as if to say "What are these people doing here? Don't they realize that we are the ones with all the brains? If they would only go home, watch TV and let us make all the decisions, we would all be better off."

Like dictators throughout history, they seek to clothe their lust for power in a cloak of beneficence. They claim to be doing it in our best interests. They say that they are only thinking of the good of the Town. They kiss the babies and pet the dogs in order to seem likable. When someone points out the similarities of this Town Board when compared to various Socialist despots and military juntas, they poo-poo the comparison, yet anyone who reads history can plainly see the family resemblance. There can be no serious doubt. We are, in fact, living in the People's Republic of Rochester. Be sure to show your official ID Card to the Secret Police before you leave, please.

The Zoning Code as proposed is a ludicrous, overbearing, busybody piece of legislation which seeks to interfere in just about anything having to do with private property rights: from digging holes to cutting trees, from how much land to leave undeveloped to forcing houses to be far closer together than is normal in a rural Town. They claim to be protecting us from suburban style development by bringing suburban style rules to our backyards. Inpoint of fact, they are doing what Socialists have been trying to do since Marx and Engels published their Communist Manifesto in 1848: destroy the rights of property owners.

The vast majority of those present spoke against this law, but it will pass. It will pass because the Town Board is unequivocally unconcerned with the will of the people. They have rejected the idea that they answer to us. They have broken their promise to serve us, over and over again. They have betrayed the public trust by turning their backs on their neighbors and are preparing to completely destroy the fabric of our Town and, in doing so, our very community.

The only way to stop them is to turn out on Election Day and vote everyone of them who is up for re-election out of office. It is time to show them who is boss. They think they rule with impunity, we can show them the way to the unemployment line. All it takes is resolution and strength of will.

True Rural Character will, I am confident, carry the day and reclaim the Town for the people who love it.

Humbling experience?

Someone asked me this morning if losing my campaign for re-election to the School Board last night was a humbling experience. After giving it some thought, I surprised myself by answering "No." You see, I realized something. To say that losing an election is humbling is to say, by extension, that winning is an ego boost. Neither should be the case.

What should be (and for me is, indeed) humbling is the experience of running for office, results not withstanding. To ask people to give me their trust, to know that I am committing myself to years of asking their opinions, their desires, their wants and their needs, that is humbling.

Public service, community service should be just that: service. In its simplest, purest form, it is an oath by the candidates to put their own interests aside in favor of standing for the desires and defending the rights of those whom we hope to represent.

Representation is the most difficult form of service possible because the public's freedoms and demands must come first. They must come before the personal interests of the representative, because he or she is standing in the place of those who are being represented. Agendas must be set aside, considerations from our full time jobs ignored, demands from our political parties relegated to the back burner. When one is acting in an official capacity, one can be nothing but the vessel through which the public speaks and acts.

There are few tasks more difficult to perform honorably and conscientiously than representation of one's community.

Am I humbled by losing? No. Am I humbled by participating? Very much so. Was I humbled by serving for the last three years? More than you can imagine.

Anyone who is not humbled, who finds the exhiliration of exercising power too much to resist, who cannot understand that public officials have many, many employers and every one of them must be respected to the utmost... Well, people like might want to consider another line of work. They're probably not fit for public service.

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

In one of the most famous dystopian novels of all time, George Orwell paints a picture of a society completely dominated by the Government. The world of 1984 is one in which even language is controlled by those in power. By creating a new language they call "Newspeak", the rulers of England clamp their iron fists around not only the actions of their subjects, but their thoughts as well.

After all, we use the language we speak when we think. By removing certain concepts, the Government would, in effect, remove the ability of the people to long for certain things. Words like "freedom" and "rebellion" disappear from the language and thus from the collective consciousness of an entire nation.

Another trick used by the creators of "Newspeak" is to change the meaning of a word until it signifies the diametric opposite of what it once did. This is a trick being used to great effect by the Lib-Dem Establishment hell bent on destroying our fundamental freedoms today.

Take the word "Progressive," for instance. On the surface, it would denote someone who is interested in progress, in building on what has come before to leave the next generation with something that is greater and better than that which the previous generation left us. That, however, is not at all the case with those who call themselves "progressives" today.

After the word “liberal” came to be viewed as a pejorative term in the 1980s, liberals sought to find a new term with which to label themselves and settled upon the word “progressive”. In doing so, they hoped to indicate to the world that they represented the path forward where conservatives, in their attempts to preserve age old traditions, values ethics and mores, were holding back society from its natural evolution.

The problem with this idea is that liberals are not, in fact, looking to progress from where we are to where we seek to be. They are seeking to replace today’s state of being with a new set of circumstances. In the process, they would destroy what we have and set something else in place.

This path is inherently destructive. It results in a state of rootlessness, in a erasure of history, in an annihilation of tradition and culture. It is, in essence, circular because the process becomes an unending loop of destruction of the past, replacement with what they want and a repeat of the destruction which led to the new state. It is circular but even more so, it makes destruction the foundation of society. The so-called progress of liberalism is fundamentally so circular and destructive that – in the process – the society it seeks to create becomes, by nature, unstable, thereby facilitating its own destruction to make way for the next “progressive” phase of evolution.

Is this, in fact, progress? Of course not. By destroying before building anew, you never end up with more, you have never in fact moved ahead. You have simply cobbled together something to replace that which was, but – at best – you remain in the same place. At worst, you have a pale imitation of what you had before, something which has never had to stand the rigorous tests of time and history.

True progress (and, by extension, true "progressivism") comes when one examines what is already in place, improves upon it and adds to it. Imagine society being like a building, with each generation having the opportunity to construct one, single story.
One half of the generation decides to get to work right away and begin building, placing brick on top of brick throughout their entire adult lives. They learn from the floors below, trying to avoid the mistakes while learning from the glories of their predecessors' successes.

Now, the other half of the generation is convinced that they have no need to learn from the past, the past has nothing to offer. Instead, they spend half their lives obliterating as many of the floors below as they can in order to clear the lot for their single story. While they have inherited an edifice with so many floors that it would be all but impossible to learn everything there is to learn about it, their children's legacy will be a single floor shack.

Progress? Really? I must be rather nearsighted because I just don't see it.

I, for one, want to leave my children the Library at Alexandria, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Roman Aqueducts, the bridges by which we have forded the world's greatest rivers and the skyscrapers which reach out to caress the heavens all rolled into one.

The so-called "Progressives" want to leave their progeny a double-wide.

Reviewing the Review - Part 1

I've given a great deal of thought to whether or not I should respond to the so-called "Rochester Review." With consideration for the fact that one of the most outrageous statements in that propaganda sheet was aimed directly at me by way of quoting one of my remarks, I wondered whether or not I should be the one to take that so-called "newspaper" apart piece by piece.

In the end, I decided that the "Review" could not be left unanswered. Given the fact that the Democrats have given us so much material with which to work (by the way, if any Democrats are reading this, thanks so much, it was really thoughtful of you to put your feet in your collective mouths yet again), my review of the "Review" will come in several parts.

Instead of going page by page, I'm going to start with the mudslinging attack leveled by the Democrats at me. The Nameless Editor and Reporters of the Review have seen fit to claim that the statement "The Tea Party begins tonight" is a call to violence. The fact is, the Tea Party quote came from me. Furthermore, the Democrats know - for a fact! - that I would never call anyone to violence. I was one of the few people who called Supervisor Duke and Councilman Miller following the "nails in the driveway" incidents at their homes and expressed my outrage and condemnation of those acts.

This statement in their propaganda publication is an unarguable indicator of the fact that Liberal Democrats will not hesitate to stoop to twisting (and, at times, falsifying) the truth in order to achieve their goals. Not only did they interpret a statement by someone who has always condemned the use of force in politics as a call to violence, they have shown an astounding lack of understanding for American History.

What is commonly referred to as the "Boston Tea Party" was anything but violent. The events leading to the Tea Party began with the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Act of 1767, which decreed a tax on tea to be paid to the British Government despite the lack of colonial representation in Parliament ("No taxation without representation.") John Hancock (who later became the first signer of the Declaration of Independence) was arrested for tea smuggling and was defended by John Adams (who was later the President of the United States as well as the father of President John Quincy Adams). The charges were eventually dropped.

Hancock then organized a boycott of Chinese tea imported by the British East India Company, which resulted in their tea sales dropping from 320,000 pounds to 520 pounds. In response, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act allowing the Company to sell directly to colonists, which it could not do previously.

In November of 1773, the first ship filled with direct sale tea, the HMS Dartmouth, arrived in Boston Harbor. The boycotters organized a series of protest meetings, each larger than the previous. Over 8,000 people attended the protest meeting of December 16, 1773. That night, 30 protesters dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded the Dartmouth and her sister ships - the HMS Beaver and the HMS Eleanour and quickly moved 45 tons of tea to the deck and dumped it into Boston Harbor.

According to Wikipedia, "Nothing else had been damaged or stolen, except a single padlock accidentally broken and anonymously replaced not long thereafter."

The Boston Tea Party was not violent by any stretch of the imagination. It was the first in a long line of honorable acts of the civil disobedience which has long served as a check on Government power run amok. Its moral successors included the Underground Railroad and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Invoking the memory of the Boston Tea Party has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with finding ways in which to refuse the edicts of a power mad Town Government. By doing so, by finding the laws which are unjust and anti-freedom and refusing to obey them, we will make the Town Board irrelevant. That, by the way, is one of their greatest fears.

The fact of the matter is, not only do we realize that violence is unacceptable, we know that it is unnecessary. The real power already belongs to the people. No Town laws will have any force if half of the Town view them as having no authority over our lives.

That is not violence, it is simply democracy.

Edelweiss

The other night, I was flipping through the channels on TV. As usual, I was having difficulty finding anything worth watching. Just as I was about to give up, I happened to come upon a rerun of "The Sound of Music." That particular movie had always been one of my parents' favorites and it became a family tradition in my childhood to watch it whenever it was on.

As I was watching that night, I realized that what I had thought (as a child) was a nice little story about a man and a woman and a bunch of kids was really a cautionary tale about freedom and the choices we make to preserve it. I'm not talking about Maria's choices to follow her heart rather than staying in the convent or the regimented manner in which the von Trapp children were being raised. I'm talking about the life and death, good vs. evil struggle of World War II and how the choices made in those days influenced not only the world at the time but the world of today, as well.

At one point in the movie, Captain von Trapp is lost in thought, looking out into the distance. The Baroness whom he is courting asks him where he is. He replies, "In a world that is quickly disappearing." Not long after, the Captain ends up marrying Maria. While on their honeymoon, the Anschluss takes place and they rush back to Salzburg, which is now officially part of Nazi Germany.

The Anschluss was the event in 1938 wherein Austria "chose" to peacefully become part of Germany. The Austrian people actually had the opportunity to vote in a referendum on whether or not to do so. The official results were 99.73% in favor. In point of fact, there was no freedom of choice in the matter. The outcome of the plebiscite was predetermined.

What is worth noting, however, is that there were Austrians at the time who truly favored union with Germany. Some of them saw the Germans as being the ethnic brethren of Austria. Some were attracted by the fact that Hitler was actually Austrian and not German. Some had relatives in Germany. Some actually believed Hitler's inhuman and abhorrent philosophies.

Many, on the other hand, were simply afraid of conflict with Germany. These people would be the 1930s equivalent of those Americans who drive around with bumper stickers saying "War is never the answer." There are people in every era of history who view conflict as inherently wrong, regardless of the purpose or who is the aggressor or even who is being victimized prior to the commencement of hostilities.

This would be a lovely philosophy, were it true. The fact is that war freed us from the tyranny of Great Britain. War freed Texas from Mexico, allowing it to become a sovereign nation and later a member State of our Union. War freed the slaves not just in the South but throughout the U.S. War ended the Holocaust (not soon enough for the millions upon millions who became the victims of Hitler's evil). War freed China and Korea and most of the Pacific from Japanese domination and dictatorship. War forced North Korea back across its border with the South. A series of smaller conflicts and America's preparedness to fight a major war against the U.S.S.R. ended the barbarism that was Marxist-Leninist Communism in Europe when we won the Cold War. War evicted Saddam's goons from Kuwait. War freed Afghanistan from the monstrosities perpetrated by the Taliban regime. War toppled Saddam from power and is allowing Kurdish Iraq to flourish while bringing true democracy to the whole of Iraq. The current World War against Islamo-fascist terrorism will make Islamic extremism a footnote in history and allow the majority of Muslims to take back their religion from the fundamentalists who have hijacked it.

The point is not that war is good. It isn't. The point is that when no other choice is left, to reject conflict as a way of defending our rights and those of others is to commit suicide and to contribute to the murders of the victims.

On a local scale, political conflict seems to be unavoidable. We, too, are living in a world which is quickly disappearing. We are not the only community which is faced with a local government whose selfish agenda requires the subjugation of the rights and freedoms of the townspeople. It is happening all over the U.S., but especially in the so-called "blue states."

The America I was taught to love and cherish was a nation where people of goodwill could agree to disagree without those in power trashing the rights of those who were not. It was not a nation of "empty mantras." Words and phrases like "tolerance," "freedom of speech," "civil rights" and "open government" would have meant something in that America. That America, however, is rapidly fading into the mists of memory. If the Liberal Establishment has its way, the true meaning of our rights and freedoms will not even be found in history books, lest someone develop unwelcome ideas about resurrecting American liberty.

If we shy away from conflict, if we decide that political peace with those who would turn us into an underclass is preferable to taking a stand and consistently speaking out against the terrible deeds of those who would rob us of our liberty, the future of our community, our families and even our nation as a whole will be lost.

Anyone who has seen "The Sound of Music" will certainly remember Captain von Trapp singing:

Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me

Blossom of snow
May you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever

Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever

Our Edelweiss, that clean and bright flower which greets us each day and makes it possible to live our lives, is our Constitution and the freedoms it embodies. Let us pray that our homeland, the greatest Nation in human history, will be forever blessed by its liberties and let us take a stand to ensure that blessing for ourselves and our posterity.

Open Government Attacked by Town Board

Well, it seems that the Town Board has decided yet again that its own public commitments to Open Government are to be thrown on the rubbish heap. Not one, but TWO articles in the Kingston Daily Freeman today shed light on the fact that the Town Board has nothing but disdain for the people of the Town of Rochester when it comes to letting us know what is going on in our Town.

In one case, the Board decided that it was going to go into Executive Session to discuss the terms of a contract to be negotiated with Homeland Towers, the company who has been anointed by royal decree to construct two cell towers in our Town. Now, Executive Sessions are not, in and of themselves, a problem. They have their legitimate place in Government. The problem with this Executive Session is that it did not live up to the legal requirements imposed on governmental bodies under Article VII of the Public Meetings Law (commonly referred to as the Open Government Law).

This interpretation is not mine alone. It comes from none other than the Chairman of the New York State Committee on Open Government, Robert Freeman. Mr. Freeman is held by most people who deal with Open Government related legal issues to be the foremost authority on the subject in New York and one of the great experts nationwide.

The fact is, however, that it doesn't take an expert to realize that something is rotten in Denmark (or just off Granite Road) when it comes to this last Executive Session. All you have to do is read the Open Meetings Law. It's not written in legalese (well, not too much) and is plain to see, in black and white, for anyone who is interested.

Section 105 of the Law sets forth the ONLY conditions under which an Executive Session may be convened:

a. matters which will imperil the public safety if disclosed;

b. any matter which may disclose the identity of a law enforcement agent or informer;

c. information relating to current or future investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense which would imperil effective law enforcement if disclosed;

d. discussions regarding proposed, pending or current litigation;

e. collective negotiations pursuant to article fourteen of the civil service law;

f. the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation, or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation;

g. the preparation, grading or administration of examinations; and

h. the proposed acquisition, sale or lease of real property or the proposed acquisition of securities, or sale or exchange of securities held by such public body, but only when publicity would substantially affect the value thereof.

So, let's take a look at the cell tower issue:

Would disclosing negotiations "imperil the public safety"? NO
Would the Board be disclosing the identity of a law enforcement officer? NO
Would they be impeding the investigation or prosecution of a crime? NO
Is anyone planning on suing the Town or is the Town planning on suing someone else? We can't know for certain, but that was not the reason they gave for going into Executive Session, so we can assume for the time being that the answer here, too, is NO.
Are they negotiating with a union to build these towers? NO
Are they dealing with any of the specific personnel issues listed in the law? NO
Are they preparing, grading or administering examinations? NO
Are they proposing to sell, purchase or lease public land, and (if so) would public discussion substantially effect its value? NO
Are they proposing to buy, sell or exchange securities, and (if so) would public discussion substantially effect its value? NO

If none of the above are true, the facts are crystal clear: they had no legally acceptable reason for going into Executive Session.

Of course, the Town Attorney told the press that the State Opinion was not correct. With due respect to the Town Attorney, there's probably a very good reason why Robert Freeman is the head of the Committee on Open Government, that reason being the fact that he is the quintessential expert on the subject. Mr. Freeman breathes, sleeps and eats Open Government. We shouldn't be surprised at the Town Attorney's reaction. I, for one, am unable to recall a single instance when the Town Attorney told the Board that what they were doing is wrong or illegal. I'm not saying it never happened, but if it did, it was an exceedingly rare instance.

The Town Attorney's job should be to represent the Town, as a whole. In reality, all Town Attorneys actually represent the political powers that be in a Town: the Town Board and other municipal departments and agencies. He is simply doing his job when he states that the Town is correct in doing what they did. Keeping in mind, however, what his job actually is, we have very little reason to place any faith in his statements as unbiased interpretations of the Law. Robert Freeman, however, has no dog in this fight. His opinions are far more likely to be accurate and fair.

By the way Councilman Ron Santosky deserves recognition and congratulations for have the courage to refuse to participate in this Executive Session. Kudos, Ron.

The second Freeman article today points to the fact that there are some DEC related problems at the Transfer Station regarding the disposal of petroleum products. OK, fine. Many of us have serious misgivings about DEC interference in local affairs. Problems happen all the time and many of them are not the fault of the governing body.

So, what's the difficulty here? When the reporter asked the Town Supervisor if the list of problems would be made available under a State Freedom of Information Law request, Supervisor Duke responded that the list is something "...I really don't want in the paper because we haven't really discussed this, and I have not even discussed this with the employees or anything." She further went on to say, "I'm not going to send that copy to anybody right now... The reason being is that we have to sit down and discuss what we're doing. This is not in stone... That was the first time the board has seen anything. We have not had a discussion about it. I don't feel comfortable sending it out."

Come again? Now, I'm not going to reproduce the entire Freedom of Information Law here. Even the Executive Session discussion above was probably overkill. Links to both laws may be found at the end of this post, for all who might be interested.

Suffice it to say, that neither the Town Supervisor nor the Town Board have any authority to deny a request for information based on the fact that she (or they) "don't feel comfortable sending it out." In fact, nothing the Supervisor is quoted to have said in the newspaper even comes close to constituting acceptable grounds for refusing to provide the public or the press with a particular piece of requested information.

Of course, it is entirely possible that they will come up with some other explanation for the refusal, after the fact. They've done it before. When Robert Freeman stated that they have no Open Government Law related reason for refusing to discuss the infamous "Porn Interview," the Town Attorney decided that they would keep quiet because it could lead to litigation. This Town Government changes direction more often than a weather vane in the Spring.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Supervisor and the majority of the Town Board were elected on promises of bringing Open Government to the Town of Rochester. To say that they have failed in this commitment would be a severe understatement. The truth is that the Town Board and the Supervisor are the most serious violators of the principles of Open Government in my memory. They have been far more secretive than any previous Town Board. They perceive the people of the Town as their enemies and turn every act into an exercise in counterintelligence. In short, they have not simply failed, they have betrayed the people of this Town and have completely decimated any semblance of Open Government they may have started off with.

They do not deserve our continued trust. They do not deserve to be believed. They do not deserve to be re-elected.

We do not deserve this Town Government.

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Open Government Law
Freedom of Information Law

Rochester Supervisor Withholds Details on Transfer Station Problem (from the Daily Freeman)

ROCHESTER SUPERVISOR WITHHOLDS DETAILS ON TRANSFER STATION PROBLEM
By William J. Kemble, Correspondent
04/10/2007

ACCORD - The Town Board has been told that new procedures are needed at the town transfer station for disposal of petroleum products, but town Supervisor Pam Duke isn't giving details of problems.

Duke said during a Town Board meeting last week that the problem was part of a list of corrections needed at the facility.

"We are really not in compliance with quite a lot of things so we have a laundry list that is quite lengthy," she said.

The comments by Duke were made when taking a bid resolution off the agenda for improvements to a storage building for oil and batteries.

"The biggest thing that we've got to do is we've got to get those tanks registered that are out at the transfer station," she said. "It has a lot to do with DEC (state Department of Environmental Conservation) and to be in DEC compliance."

Information discussed during the session included learning of a buried oil and apparent commingling oil with other types of liquids.

Duke on Monday declined a reporter's request for the list of problems. Asked if it would be available under the state Freedom of Information Law she said, "Sure, but you know it's just a list of things that we need to look at I really don't want in the paper because we haven't really discussed this, and I have not even discussed this with the employees or anything."

Duke added that town Councilman Tony Spano, liaison to the transfer station, had not been given the list because he was absent from the Town Board meeting.

"I'm not going to send that copy to anybody right now," she said. "The reason being is that we have to sit down and discuss what we're doing. This is not in stone."

Duke said the information came from Conklin Construction as a free study of municipal waste oil disposal practices.

"That was the first time the board has seen anything. We have not had a discussion about it. I don't feel comfortable sending it out," she said.

Town Attorney Defends Executive Session (from the Daily Freeman)

TOWN ATTORNEY DEFENDS EXECUTIVE SESSION
By William J. Kemble, Correspondent
04/10/2007

ACCORD - Three members of the Rochester Town Board went into executive session last week to discuss proposed terms of lease for two 150-foot towers on town of Rochester properties, but a fourth Town Board member declined to join in the session.

The closed-door session was conducted for about 20 minutes last week, as Town Attorney Rod Futerfas contended state opinions regarding executive sessions were wrong and said negotiations were covered by laws governing contract negotiations.

The session included town Supervisor Pam Duke, and Councilmen Francis Gray, and Alex Miller, while Councilman Ronald Santosky declined to participate and left the meeting. Councilman Tony Spano was absent.

During a telephone interview following the meeting, Futerfas said the session was also covered by state Open Meetings Law governing the effect on property value but declined to explain how it would meet the criteria for "substantially" affecting the value.

"This is a negotiation over whether or not we are doing this, and how we're doing it, and what we are doing it for," he said.


"There are two locations where cell towers are going," Futerfas said. "They are both on public property. One is near the transfer station ... the specific locations I'm not that familiar with."

Town officials have scheduled a 4:30 p.m. April 25 meeting with the owner of Homeland Towers to provide public details of the project.

"We are going to ask for the principal of Homeland to come in and go through the entire project and what they are proposing to do and how they are proposing to do it," Futerfas said.

State Committee on Open Government Executive Director Robert Freeman said the law is intended to cover land value and not equipment or tower costs.

"Since we're talking about town-owned property that is not being sold or purchased I don't see there would have been a basis for going into executive session," he said.

During public comment period, Santosky's wife Kandi Santosky chided board members for discussing the lease privately. Following the session, she said discussions have included details about tower setbacks and construction issues without any basis for secrecy.

"My contention is that they're sidestepping the law," she said. "When the law has to apply to (town Supervisor Pam Duke) she wants to waive it, and they are going to waive a whole lot to put these cell towers in because she wants money the coming in."

More of the Same

What can I say about last night's Town Board meeting other than "More of the same." The meeting started with a Public Hearing about the new Building Code Enforcement law (Chapter 111 of the Town Code, if you ever need to look it up). In general, there would be no major problem with the law if it had actually been implemented as the State mandated it to be.

The problem is that our Town Politburo feels an uncontrollable urge (almost like a political Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) to add language anywhere and everywhere that whittles away at the rights of property owners. In this case, they added language allowing themselves to toss permitting requirements all over the Town Code, anywhere they felt like it, making it all but impossible for the average person to figure out what they need to do in order to get a permit.

Why is it so difficult to simply put all the permitting requirements in the Building and Zoning Codes? Simple. They want to be able to slip new requirements in places where no one will think to look because they have no business being there. This is not an assumption or a guess. This is a well-founded prediction based on what they have done in the past. Look at all the nonsense they tried to insert into the Historical Preservation Law last year.

In the section about Complaints, I requested one simple addition: that we not put weapons in the hands of those cowardly individuals who love to make anonymous attacks on our neighbors. Specifically, I asked that the name of the person or persons filing a complaint be made a part of the record, so that a homeowner against whom a complaint is filed can mount a proper defense. The answer given was that no, we cannot do that. The privacy of the Complainant must be respected. His rights must be upheld. He might be subject to retribution.

Not a single mention was made of the fact that the complaints themselves could become a form of retribution for unrelated acts. No one on the Left stood up to say that in the interests of fairness, the property owner's rights should be upheld. The complaint process was viewed in a skewed, one-sided manner completely devoid of any sense of justice or fair play.

The Town Board and its supporters are hell bent on doing as much damage to property rights as humanly possible before being kicked out of office by the voters this coming November. Then, when the new Town Board changes things to ensure our protection as property and homeowners, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will go to Court over each and every change that is made. The Liberal Left lambastes anyone who criticizes the current Board as being "anti-democratic" but they will (mark my words!) have zero respect for a Town Board dominated by those who respect property rights. That lack of respect will be characterized by two years of delaying tactics (lawsuits, complaints to State and Federal agencies, etc.) to keep any favorable changes from going into effect until they can re-take the Town Government.

Nothing in the way they act towards a new Town Board will reflect the principles they claim to espouse pertaining to respect for the democratic decision made by the Town. Just as they have allowed the ideals of Open Government to be thrown out in the trash as soon as they became inconvenient to them, so will their much vaunted love of democracy become so much rubbish once they have lost the power which they enjoy so very much.

When speaking out last night, I made mention of the fact that the Town Government works for us, not the other way around. Immediately, my comments were greeted by remarks of "Here we go again." Well, yes. Here we go again. And we will keep on going, month after month because that simple principle, the ideal of Government working for the People, is what democracy is. Without that ideal, there is no democracy.

To me and, I am convinced, to all of us who understand just how precious the centuries of traditions of our Town and Nation are, the basic American ideal of true public service is something that is sacrosanct. There is never a good reason for a public official to act in a manner which breaches that ideal.

There is a little known rock musician named Steve Vai. One of his songs reflects precisely what I feel about public service and true leadership:

I'm not a savior
I'm not a king
The power lies in your hands
But I feel your anger
I speak your peace
Freedom time is here

No public official should think of themselves as being "in charge," of being a king or boss. They should always keep in mind that true authority comes from those we serve, not from those who pass laws in Albany or Washington. What we say should reflect the passions, ideals, concerns and desires of those we represent. And, above all, freedom should be what we strive to achieve for those we serve. The people dictate, the officials serve. That is what democracy really is all about.

Those who prefer to be Residents instead of Neighbors, however, don't truly care about principles like democracy, representation, fair play, justice or - in point of fact - any other principle. They are concerned with one thing: getting what they want. Like a petulant child throwing a tantrum because mommy didn't buy him the toy he wanted, the Liberal Left in Town lashes out at anyone and everyone who stands in the way of their goals.

Well, they are about to get a very unpleasant surprise when the voters of the Town of Rochester give them a Time Out in November. Maybe a few years sitting in the corner thinking about what they have done will teach them how to play nice with their peers.

Maybe, but I'm not too optimistic. Bullies never learn from their own mistakes.

Barn Raising Anyone?

As we drive up and down the winding country roads that characterize our beautiful Town, we realize that we are losing something with every passing day. We may be remaining rural, but we are becoming less and less a farm community. Sometimes, the former farms we pass may not even look like what they once were. The lands which once grew grains and vegetables have been subdivided and now grow the next generation of our neighbors in the houses built there, houses teeming now with life and joy.

Some, however, still have old barns on them. A very few of these barns are still in use after a century or more - still housing cows or horses or bales of hay. These old barns, working or not, are far more a symbol of our historical heritage than the old stone houses scattered around Town. Don't get me wrong, I find the old homes beautiful and I am amazed when I hear that the families living in them are four, five generations or more removed from those who built them, their many times great grandparents.

A barn, on the other hand... Well, a barn is something special. It is a symbol of the values which made our Town what it was for three centuries. Few of us give any thought to how barns were constructed in the old days, days before electricity and gasoline and machines to make heavy work light.

America - and especially Towns like ours - was built through the tradition of "barn raising". Wikipedia defines barn raising as "an event during which a community comes together to assemble a barn for one or more of its households, particularly in 18th- and 19th-century rural North America." That's a rather dry description for something that was an astounding example of all that is good and noble about America.

Neighbors would gather in the early morning hours to begin work on a building that would take form before their very eyes, rising almost magically from the ground up. Dozens, sometimes hundreds of people would each take on a role, whether it was sawing or hammering, pulling on ropes in unison to lift heavy beams 20, 30 feet in the air, wives and children cooking, making lemonade, bringing sustenance to those whose muscles were reaching the breaking point. The community was a family, the Town a tapestry of people instead of threads, all working as one towards a common goal.

As unimaginable the efforts they made is to us today, what is even more incredible is the fact that no one was paid for this, not in money. They all knew that their neighbors had either helped them raise a barn in the past or they would sometime soon. No books were kept, people were not made to feel as if they owed a debt. The debt was kept track of in each person's conscience.

Imagine a Town where there were no Comprehensive Plans, no Zoning Codes, no Code Enforcement Officer. Imagine a State that had never heard of Environmental Impact Statements or Wetlands which have no water. Imagine a community where your neighbors came to help when you were building something rather than complain about their "viewshed". Imagine a world where the only time anyone got involved in another's personal affairs or in what they did with their private property was when they came to help rather than criticize.

That was America more than a century ago. Today, busybodies are the norm rather than the exception. Today, instead of the tension of muscles pulling on ropes, we have the tension instilled in our souls by those who care only for themselves. Today, we are told over and over again that we cannot do for ourselves, that the only way we can get what we need is if Government reaches into someone's pocket and uses the money it finds to do everything for us. Today, we are no longer free because we are denied the freedom to do for ourselves and for one another.

What America needs, what the Town of Rochester is crying out for, is a modern day barn raising. We need to help ourselves. We need to do for our neighbors. We need to re-form the bonds of community and family that made us strong and great and proud and free. When we do that, when we turn to one another for what the community needs and simply do it, we make the rules of Government irrelevant. We return it to its original role - to do those very few things which cannot be done by individuals, things like schools and roads and law enforcement. Everything else we can accomplish better, faster, at less cost and with far greater pride than the High Priests of Big Government could ever dream of.

No, we're not talking about literally building brand new barns, but there are dozens of things which we can do together, things more appropriate to the times in which we live. The only limits on what we can achieve are our imaginations and our collective will to act and excel.

Let's dare to dream, dare to imagine, dare to build and accomplish! We are the Town. We are the Community. We can be a great, extended family once again.

The nails and wood are there, the hammers and saws eager to do their work, the ropes waiting for strong hands to pull them taut. All that is missing is us.

What do you say?