Throwing Out the Baby and Keeping the Bath Water

It seems that the Pieman managed to piss off the Supervisor at the last Town Board meeting - Heaven Forfend!

The Board voted on three pieces of legislation: extension of the Water District, Extension of Highland Lakes Estates Sewage District and creation of a Storm Water District. The four council members voted in favor of each of these, and John Burke voted no.

Some background here - let's take the Sewage District because that's the clearest example - as part of the negotiations between Brodsky and the town on the WP3 project, Brodsky agreed to entirely rebuild the problematic High Lakes Estate sewer plant. He will also pay the back taxes on th old plant that the folks in HLE were paying off. This gives the people in HLE (and in Country Crossing) a lovely new state-of-the-art plant that actually works and, at the same time it, lowers their sewer bills. Nice work if you can get it.

If the town had voted no on the extension of the district, Brodsky would have built his own, smaller plant, just for the WP3 development, a major loss for the folks in HLE and Country Crossing.

But, at the previous Town Board Meeting, a few weeks back, John Burke made clear that he was going to vote against this. Swiller got up and said that when the vote did come he would appreciate it if the various board members would explain their votes. In other words, he gave Burke advance notice that he would be asking Burke to explain himself.

Now, let's make this clear - Swiller gave Burke two weeks notice that he was going to ask this question - if it were up to me, I would have blindsided the guy, but Swiller gave Burke two weeks to prepare a response.

So then comes the next board meeting, and sure enough Burke votes no. And sure enough, Swiller gets up and asks why.

And the amazing thing is, that despite advance notice of the question, Burke didn't have the foggiest idea what the vote was about or why a no vote made any sense.

Burke said that "we've been discussing this for over a year" and that there would be impact on "traffic and the schools."

HUH?

Did Burke think that voting "No" on the sewer district would stop the WP3 project?

WP3 is a done deal. This vote was to accept the givebacks that the town demanded from Brodsky.

Burke was throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater (a lovely phrase the Uncle has borrowed from the Pieman - credit where credit is due).

But Burke absolutely refused to get it - "It has something to do with WP3 so I'm against it, no matter what and don't confuse me with the facts!"

Shades of the vote on Senior Housing last year. That bill gave the same incentives for selling homes to seniors at a discount as already existed for renting homes to seniors. All that bill did was help seniors buy affordable housing.

And Burke voted no on that one too.

And when he was asked why, he said he was against WP3.

And when every member of the town board loudly explained that the bill had nothing to do with WP3, Burke did what he did this time. He absolutely refused to acknowledge reality.

And the kicker? Supervisor Burke was very displeased with the Pieman. Burke doesn't seem to feel that a supervisor should be questioned about his decisions.

This is a new position for Mr. Burke who, before taking office, acted as if Supervisor Sheila Conroy was the town's designated punching bag.

Then again, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..."