March 2009 Sardinia Standard Editorials

March 2009 Sardinia Standard

Masthead:

The Sardinia Standard is proud to stand by its commitment to Respecting the Truth, Reporting the Facts.  If any reader finds that the Standard has reported inaccurate facts, we would be pleased to print a correction or a retraction.  The Standard is pleased to consider your letters to the editor, opinion editorials, calendar announcements, articles, advertisements, and announcements including weddings, obituaries, memorials, graduations, and retirements.  Please send your information to Jay Burney, Managing Editor, Sardinia Standard, PO BOX 79, Sardinia NY.

Editorial A

Chaffee Sardinia Volunteer Fire Company Awards Program Passes Town Wide Referendum 369-357.

The Standard offers its hearty congratulations to the members of the Chaffee Sardinia Volunteer Fire Company and to all residents and businesses of the Sardinia area that are served by that mutual aide company. The town wide referendum held in Sardinia on February 24 in which Sardinia voters were asked to authorize the establishment of a Fireman’s Award Package. That award program is essentially a retirement benefit package and is designed to help recruit new membership and maintain the roster of current members. Volunteer organizations and especially volunteer fire departments around America have been struggling in recent years as economic pressures and have shifted the capacity of individuals to invest time and effort into voluntary activities. As the cost of living increases, volunteer time becomes more precious.  A volunteer fireman can be called on to commit hundreds of hours each year in emergency response, training, and organizational activities.  The Fireman Award Package, which is based both on years of service and includes requirements that individual members meet certain monthly service goals, is an important step toward insuring that the Town of Sardinia will benefit from the essential services that the CSVFC provides.  We are all winners with this “yes” vote!

Editorial

The Sardinia Republican Committee (SRC) Lets Loose an All Out Assault Against the Chaffee Sardinia Volunteer Fire Company.

Voters Reject SRC Campaign of Lies and Deceit

We aren’t sure when or why Sardinia Republican Committee Chair Mike Hannon, his wife, Town Councilman Mary Hannon, and others associated with the SRC decided to make the town wide referendum on the Fireman’s Benefits Package a partisan Sardinia Republican Committee issue, but we do know that not all Republicans in the Town of Sardinia are pleased. We also know, judging by the high vote count, voters turned out.  We also know that the SRC let loose with both barrels of their reeling cannon.  They unleashed an ugly personality driven smearfest that has characterized many recent local elections under SRC Chair Mike Hannon's reign. And oh yes, the voters saw through it this time, and Hannon and the SRC, lost.

The way we see it, this assault on our volunteer fire department tried to make losers out of all of us.  Let’s be honest. Fair minded people have to be questioning Hannon and the SRC’s strategies, thinking, and tactics.  This terrible campaign included elements that are all too familiar to observers of recent local elections. These include vicious personal attacks, the spreading of malicious rumors, the presentations of lies as facts, and an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of long time Sardinia Republicans, residents, and taxpayers.  The campaign also featured the familiar electioneering and the gathering of “absentee ballots” by an employee of a well known large corporation that has in recent years been a substantial financial supporter of the SRC.  The last minute circulation of the anonymous and nasty “Taxpayer’s Newsletter” did more harm than good. Republicans, which for generations have formed the core of voters and voter values in this area, should be outraged that they were so cynically mislead and abused by the Hannon lead SRC.

The SRC campaign against the firemen began shortly after the November election when newly elected Republican Sardinia Councilman David Montgomery announced that the Volunteer Fireman’s Award Program was a “Cadillac program.” He said that taxpayers could not afford it and that had not been adequately thought about by the Town Board or anyone else.  This was a surprise to the many that had actually been working on defining the program for a long while. When he was told that it had been researched for eight years he arrogantly ignored the substantial material that was available to him. When he and the rest of us were shown by facts and figures showing that this was hardly a “Cadillac” program, and more of a low to middle end program, he blustered and fumed.  Frankly, it was difficult to understand his criticism. Hannon and Montgomery’s economic arguments were unpersuasive and lacked any authorative references. Their constant objections seemed more rooted in politics than common sense or community good. Then they came up with the false accusation that several current firemen, including current Town Board member Norm Uhteg, would be eligible for a $10,000 “lump sum” payment within a year of the plans adoption.  This was immediately shown to be false by Chaffee Sardinia Fire Department President Danny Heinemann and by the Tompkins Insurance Agency that proposed to administer the program.  “There just are no lump sum buy-outs, period”, Heinemann told Montgomery and anyone else that cared to listen. The truth didn’t stop Montgomery and others that pursued the SRC’s political buffoonery.

Last month we described how the Town of Sardinia’s “official” newspapers, the Arcade Herald and the Springville Journal, joined in the smear campaign by publishing letters that repeated the lies about the lump sum payments and fostered fear that Sardinia firemen would not respond to calls from voters that had voted against the firemen. These ridiculous rumor mongering and untruthful letters, signed by Clint Salmon and Robert Church, apparently passed the smell test of the editors of those papers.  Next, the lies about the lump sum payments were repeated in an editorial by Judy Kessler Rix. By the time the referendum rolled around, there had been no retractions or corrections in these papers, and the voters of Sardinia that read those “official papers” were left with false ideas about Fireman’s Award Program.

There is much more

-During February the SRC and others purporting to represent Sardinia Republican interests continued to act against the Firemen.  Schroder Joseph Associates, a law firm that Mike Hannon has publically described as his “personal attorneys”, and whom he hired to represent the ZBA in legal actions against the Town Board when he was still chair of the ZBA, (at $220 per hour) apparently is now engaged to represent the SRC in actions against the Town and the Firemen. They have been getting a lot of work.  This time they sent a letter as attorneys for the SRC to the Town Board demanding that the referendum be canceled. And we thought that Mike Hannon wanted to stop “all the lawsuits”.

-Carole Morrell, public relations consultant affiliated with Waste Management, a long time major financial supporter of the SRC, collected and delivered a number of absentee ballots, some of which she acted as agent for. She is well known for this kind of election activity and absentee ballots have often made a critical difference in close Sardinia elections.

-Both the Arcade and Springville Pennysavers ran paid advertisements the weekend before the election admonishing voters to vote against the Sardinia Volunteer Fire Department. The ads were menacing, misleading, and claimed ominously to have been paid for by the “Concerned Taxpayers of Sardinia.” It didn’t take a whole lot of research to discover that they were in fact paid for by “Hannon Excavating and Lands”. This is a gravel business owned by Mike and Mary Hannon.

-The coup-de-grace came just two days before the election when every registered voter in Sardinia received in their mailbox, the newest version of the anonymous “Sardinia Taxpayers Newsletter.”  This one, part of a series that began early last year allegedly from concerned Sardinia taxpayers, is aimed at smearing the Fireman. It contains personal attacks, promotes divisiveness, and presents outright lies that the previous “editions” have been known for. The language of this letter is familiar and repeats misinformation that we have heard from the Hannons, Montgomery, Salmon, Church and the few others that have engaged in this deceitful campaign.  Among other things, this letter lists the names of everyone on the fire department roster, and repeats the pay-out lie by pretending to show what each member will receive in “lump sum payments.” 

This whole campaign by Hannon and the SRC is political pornography. They must think that the voters of Sardinia are really dumb.  The lies and disinformation that they distribute makes losers of everyone in Sardinia, especially those that are registered Republicans. Especially those that want a better future, or any future for their party and their values in Sardinia. The current leadership of the SRC have chosen a path of shady deception that has visited everyone’s homes.  That cannot sit well with honest people.

Editorial

SRC Bankrupt?

Many of us are Republicans. Many lifelong. And so it was disturbing to read the January Board of Elections disclosure forms filed by the Sardinia Republican Committee that indicates that the Committee has a deficit of almost $1,000.  The same disclosure form indicated a debt to Schroder Joseph Associates of $648.91 for unspecified activity that took place prior to the January disclosure deadline. Since that time we know that this law firm has continued to represent the SRC, as it has tried to bring legal action against the Town preventing the February 24 fireman’s referendum.  We are glad to see that the SRC engaged in a fundraising activity at Sprague Brook Casino on February 22, and we hope that the good Republicans of Sardinia are committed to rebuilding the Republican Party’s coffers here.  We are not sure if honest people can remain committed to funding Mike and Mary Hannon’s and the Montgomery’s many endeavors such as deceitful campaigns and especially the lawsuits that this group advocates.  Donors to the SRC should be beginning to ask pointed questions, especially now that the SRC is in debt. Sardinia Republicans need to make sure that the SRC remains a vital force in our town, and not a financially and morally bankrupt group of self interested “deciders”.

editorial

Compromise with Gernatt? Mary Hannon Lets a Confession Slip Out?

At the February 2009 regular Sardinia Town Board meeting, held on February 11, during a discussion which resulted in a resolution by the Town Board to remove Mike Hannon from the ZBA, newly elected Councilman Mary Hannon, Mikes wife, stated to the Town Board “You don’t know what you are doing, you don’t know what you are opening up here.”  She then went on to say “The ZBA “compromised” with Gernatt Gravel “to prevent problems”. “This vote (to remove Mike from the ZBA) is going to cause a lot of trouble.”

What exactly was this “compromise” and what business does a ZBA have compromising the community’s future? Why the threatening language by Mary Hannon? In addition, it raised more than a few eyebrows when during this discussion, Councilmember Hannon invoked the name of former Town Board member Carla Fuller. Hannon said that Fuller told her that the 2004 Town Board action creating the illegal term of office for Mike Hannon was “deliberately done”.  Mary Hannon said that someone should talk to Carla Fuller because she is “someone that knows”. This needs a little more clarification.

Mike Hannon’s tenure as ZBA Chair was controversial and many residents complained that their voices were not heard during the process of granting Gernatt Asphalt a variance to mine the Gabel Thomas site.  Subsequently, his leadership caused the Town to have to pay for both sides of a lawsuit. The Town Board chose to bring legal action against the ZBA because of the board’s narrow decision to grant the variance, which legally could have gone either way. Because of the way the decision by the ZBA was constructed, Gernatt was left out of paying for the lawyers. The fact that Mike Hannon was removed from office by the Town Board to correct a legal violation of the term of office should not be part of the problem, as Mary Hannon wants us to believe, but instead it should be a part of the day lighting of the solution. We hope that Mary Hannon will be able to better explain what she has described as a “compromise” with Gernatt. 

Editorial

New Truck for the Highway Department? How about an Audit?

We were as shocked as anyone when newly elected Councilmembers Mary Hannon and Dave Montgomery, and Town Highway Supervisor Walt Baker announced at the February Town Board meeting that Baker needed a new $190,000 plow and truck. It was even more disturbing that the trio insisted that the Board had to vote on the expenditure immediately, that night!  When Supervisor Balus and Councilmembers Uhteg and Phelps indicated that this was the first that they had heard of this problem, Balus asked Baker why he had not anticipated the expenditure during the recently concluded yearly budget process. Baker announced that he had not been a part of the Department’s budget process, and that “someone else had handled it”.  Baker, Sardinia’s highest paid regular employee at $45,066 annually, plus benefits, who has had well known personal health problems, runs a department with a nearly half million dollar budget.  It would seem that there may be some serious problems with the highway department if one of Sardinia’s relatively new trucks (purchased in 2006 after an emergency appropriation of $130,000 by then Supervisor Bill Hare) has become so unusable as to need total replacement.  Baker, who said that the department “really beats up the trucks”, is still being paid to keep on top of things, right?  We sympathize with his personal health problems, but someone has to still have to be accountable to taxpayers.  Perhaps it is time to consider an audit of the Highway Department. This is not intended as any kind of reflection on Walt Baker, who by all accounts has been an outstanding Highway Superintendent and has very ably served the Town of Sardinia during his years of service. However, in this new era of accountability which has included on going State audits of the Supervisors accounts and an about to be released audit of the Towns financial relationship with Waste Management it would seem prudent and fiscally wise to have a look at the highway department.  Given this year’s election cycle which will include Sardinia Highway Supervisor, this would be the perfect time to engage in a real audit of Sardinia’s most expensive government operation.