TownBoard to kick Barb and Carl off the ZBA... again!

Most people learn from their mistakes, but not our town board.

After their disastrous failed attempt to kick Barb and Carl off the board last month, they are back to try it again. They voted to change the town law, an ordinance change, to change the ZBA from 7 members to 5, thus kicking Carl Grillo and Barb Frier off the board. A public hearing is scheduled for Monday 10/23/2000 at 8 PM.

Be there to watch your rights fade away!

In case you were living in a cave last month... The Preble Town board illegally tried to kick Barb Frier and Carl Grillo off the ZBA, because they didn't like the way they voted. You can read the full account here.

Maybe this is going to be a Town Board annual event...

Screw the people of Preble out of their rights!

In this particular case, like last year... the right to vote!

A little over a year ago the current leaders of our town, John Steger, Supervisor and Peter Knapp, Deputy Supervisor, rigged the Democratic caucus so that they were cross endorsed with the help, I'm told, of Max Stoker. In the following election Peter Knapp got the lowest vote count of any Republican running for office, or any one else for that matter and had he not been cross endorsed, he would have been in last place and would have lost the election! John Steger also got a paltry low number of votes as a Republican. If he had not been cross-endorsed in the Democratic caucus he wouldn't have won! If you take just the Republican vote count and compare that to the write-in count plus the lost votes due to voter manipulation at the polls and add in the Democrat votes then Joe Oliver would have been the hands down winner by a 3 to 2 margin!

Take a look at Marylyn Stoker. She was also cross-endorsed at the Republican caucus. As a Democrat she only got 110 votes! The lowest vote count of anyone in that election! She too would have lost if the election were fair. Max Stoker only won his seat in the legislature by a miserable 12 votes. He actually LOST in Preble. Now they are back doing the same thing. They want to control the town by taking away yourvoting rights, as they did in the last election, by removing people from the ZBA who don't vote the way they like. This was evidenced with quotes from Carl Grillo and Barb Frier in the Cortland Standard last month, who both said "They want us off the ZBA because they don't like the way we vote."

For some reason, (hint hint,) I don't know what it is, (wink wink), this group of people want the Flying J project in Preble so bad, that they will violate the rights of Americans, their right to vote and the right to have fair representation, in order to rig it so that Flying J will get in here. I wonder why that is? What could have induced them to do that? I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

What's going to happen, of course, is that they are going to have the public hearing and put on a show, a dog and pony show, and make it appear like they are doing the right thing. But Peter Knapp when he said that Town Board members could, "call people they respect for their opinion" gave away their whole game plan. Because what's going to happen is this...they are going to have the public hearing, a whole bunch of people are going to get up and object to what they are doing because of the way they are doing it, far more than a majority. They are then going to say... well that's all well and good, but we called a whole bunch of people and the people we called were for this, so we're going to do what those people say and we are going to do this. It's a bunch of hooey!

It's a plain simple attempt to manipulate the vote! Now how do I know this? I have, from a variety of sources, credible information that town board members have in the past, called up members of the ZBA and Planning Board and told them how they should vote! Despite the fact that back in March they told me that the boards should be autonomous and not be influenced by the town board. Crock of baloney! The Town Board is trying to run the whole town.

How do they all do this? Well let's look at then individually. John Steger, he's been on the town board for a long time and I believe he was supervisor before and is real good buds with Max Stoker. He's been seen many times on Max Stokers front porch gabbing away. Nothing wrong with that, but it lets you know something. Peter Knapp, quiet fellow, doesn't say much, but it's pretty obvious if you go to any of these meetings, that he is the one who is really running the show. Everyone defers to him; he's the alpha dog in that kennel.

The three women, Anne Brennen, boy I haven't a clue. Sometimes I think she's losing it, other times I think she's a wiley old fox. Whatever the case, she calls a lot of people, and spends a lot of time on the phone, and tries to ,influence what people do. Betty Ann Pitman, she's also involved with the fire department, treasurer and an EMT, I believe. More there than meets the eye. Kate Etinger, only on the board this year. I think she defers to the other board members and follows the pack.

So there you have it my friends. That's what I think these people are doing.

Of course now that I've exposed their game plan, they may, if they're smart, decide not to do it. Ha! Of course if they were smart they wouldn't have done what they did tonight. There were three options that could have chosen to do tonight, two dumb ones and one smart one. Although I won't tell what the other dumb one was, I will tell you they didn't chose the smart one. Because, I suspect that if they decide to back out on this plan, they will do the second dumb thing. Well... why don' I tell you what that is anyway. What they'll do is this... They'll come up with some cockamamie story about why they need to replace Carl and Barb with two different people on the board. Of course only if they are forced to keep it as a seven member board. They already sent out letters to Carl and Barb telling them that they haven't been renewed for another term. If they replace Carl and Barb with two of their cronies who will vote as instructed, that would be kind of the same thing. It may even be better for them...

Frank.

Tape Transcription fo this part of the meeting.