Lawsuit, here we come!

The village board loves a law suit.  Makes me glad that my tax dollars are going to attorneys rather than, oh, building a new sewer system.

This time, it's about Mayor West's salary.  A brief recap on that subject:

In 2007, after unsuccessfully pushing to get his salary boosted to $40,000 a year, Jason West was ousted as mayor after making a name for himself nationwide.

Last year, the village board decided to give themselves raises, for a job well done.  Trustee Rhoads swears that any pay changes must be done at budget time, but she has yet to explain to me why none of the candidates the prior year had broached the subject.  That Rhoads suggested it was, in large part, why it went through.

This past April, West asked for another 5-digit increase, and instead, the board pulled the rug out from under him.  He must have forgotten that he's only ever gotten raises when someone else does the asking.  I think he'll remember that now.

I joined with others, mostly supporters of the mayor, in denouncing the pay cuts which, like the raises the year before, I feel were morally reprehensible.  Let the voters decide if you're worth some extra cash, or deserve a cut, by proposing the changes before the election.  If you want to change someone's pay during their term, it should require a referendum, I believe.

He may irritate as many people as he ensorcels, but West is a studied man, so it's no surprise he found documents suggesting that the pay cut was illegal.  The village attorney was asked to chime in and, not surprisingly, found cases to support the pay cut.  This is what happens when people write laws to their benefit:  elected officials cover their asses, instead of protecting their constituents.

Early this afternoon, I encouraged the board via email to seek another comptroller's opinion.  The ones West produced referred to town officials, and they need one specifically addressing villages.  And I suggested that they ask about pay raises, as well as cuts, because I certainly don't expect West to go there on his own.

Instead, in an executive session which did not include the mayor, they did nothing.  "I was told a majority of the Trustees would rather have a lawsuit," he reported on Facebook.

I am not at all surprised.  After all, I pleaded with the board, and the mayor, to get the DPW to dig me a trench for a new sewer line, after an illegally-approved subdivision led to a house being built on my old one.  I offered to pay the three grand for the plumber, and wanted the village to dig and fill in the trench.  Instead, they told me too bad, so sad, and my wife and I had to sue.  Rest assured, the entire debacle cost village taxpayers far more than it would have to simply fix the problem the village created, but some members of the board chose to act out of spite, rather than protect the community.

A "majority" of the board, if there were four in the room, means three votes, correct?  So who voted what, I wonder?  And will there be accounting of how much this childishness is costing us?

The enemy of my enemy

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer," we are told, as well as, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."  Nothing like old proverbs to heighten suspicion and paranoia.

This week, I was greeted warmly by a village trustee as I arrived at the board meeting on Wednesday.  After I delivered a joint statement about why it's not okay to manipulate pay for political reasons, I wonder how many of the trustees now consider me an "enemy."

The fact that I don't believe in intra-term pay changes for elected officials, even when it involves sticking it to a mayor who decided I had categorized him "friend" and decided he'd rather have me in the "enemy" column, apparently puzzled them.  I'd been opposed to last year's pay hikes, so maybe they thought that I'd agree that two wrongs make a right.  After all, I was told, they have to set the pay during the budget process.

No one has explained to me why they have to change pay for officials whose terms aren't expiring at the end of the current budget year, though, or why we don't have a law expressly forbidding that practice.  (I think I differ from some of those who decried the pay cuts in that, if they had only applied to the two trustee seats with terms expiring this year, I would have had no objection.)

But I'm digressing when should be just placing my thoughts in context.  My theme for today is enemies.

I understand better where I erred with Jason West, in that helps me understand all these petty political fights a bit better.  My insight comes from studying the Delphic maxims, wisdom which has been handed down from the ancient Greeks.  One of the maxims can be translated as:

"If you are a stranger, act like one."

The Hellenes considered people to be friends, enemies, or strangers.  The latter were treated with cautious courtesy, such that a stranger knocking on the door would be given food, drink, and a chance to wash up before they were even asked their purpose.  Friends were people you could trust, and enemies had interests which were counter to your own.

I didn't see it at the time, but I gave West the impression that I thought we were friends, when we were strangers.  I try to be kind and courteous whenever I can, always guarding against the inner Long Islander who is more than capable of being . . . well, let's call it forthright and outspoken.  Maybe I tried too hard not to come off as a jerk, and in his mind, tipped it the other way.  Presuming friendship too quickly is a mistake, as is treating someone as an enemy when it's undeserved.  Both happened here.

That kind of balancing act -- determining if we are friends, enemies, or simply strangers -- happens all the time.  That village trustee, who greeted me so warmly this past Wednesday night?  That trustee expressed gratitude that I had a sewer line again . . . after saying nothing publicly to help that happen.  Is that silence the action of a friend, or simply a stranger?

Now, I may be categorized by some of the trustees as an enemy because I told them that I disagreed with them on an issue, and I did it even though the main victim of their actions hasn't treated me with the courtesy that any village resident should expect of his mayor.

That's because I am loathe to classify someone as an enemy myself (a lesson that didn't come quickly), and I prefer to get people off that list as quickly as possible.  I'm even more reluctant to consider someone a friend.

Imagine how politics in New Paltz might function if we looked at each other as strangers, rather than as friends and enemies.  Strangers can't betray one another, because we are guarded against them.  Likewise, we don't presume strangers are up to something, so we are more likely to judge their actions and ideas on their own merits, rather than on our bitter, personal histories.

It would make it trickier for the popularity contest we call election day, but I really can't see any downside for the community if we treated each other with guarded courtesy for a change.

Politics hits village paychecks

In a surprise move last Wednesday night, the New Paltz village board voted to return trustee and mayoral salaries to the levels they were a year ago.  What's amazing is that the reasons for doing so were even worse than the ones that justified voting themselves a raise in the first place.

Check out video of the meeting, which I have cued up to start at 1:55:30, which is when the discussion begins.  Then come on back for some context and analysis.

Recall that back in 2006, after getting a raise from $8,000 to $25,000, Jason West was rebuffed when he asked for the job to be defined as full-time, with a $40,000 salary and benefits.  He expressed at the time that he would have to go back to painting houses, and the village would not get as much of him as it needed.

Somehow, it survived.  West lost an election, and then won the next.  Apparently unaware that the job description and pay rate was the same as it had been, the returned mayor did recall how heavily his request to a second large raise had factored into his defeat, so he got trustee Sally Rhoads to make the pitch for raises all around a year into his new term.

At the time, I denounced the idea of midterm raises, as did some trustees.  Stewart Glenn expressed then, and this past week, the same argument I did:  elected officials know how much the job pays when they're running for it, so they should either put the idea of a raise into their campaign platform, or defer any increase until past the next election.  (A comment on the post linked at the beginning of this paragraph claims that West stated publicly in 2011 that he would neither seek nor accept an increase in pay, but I haven't confirmed that.)

Which brings us to this week, when four trustees voted to strip themselves and the mayor of last year's boost for the coming year, and knock the big job back to a part-time position.  Last year the arguments for the the raises had to do with attracting the right sort of people, acknowledging how hard the jobs are (our village board meets at three or more times a month and spend far more hours doing their jobs than I have ever understood), and so forth.

But this time around, in voting to roll back the reasons, the effectively said it was because they all think Jason West is a lazy jerk.

I'm going to put my cards on the table here:  I don't like Jason West.  I supported his return to office after six months of questioning him to see if he was a better man for his years off, but soon thereafter he decided he didn't have the time to talk to me about village business . . . despite having appointed me to a volunteer board.  When I called him on it, he likened me to a stalker, and when my sewer line was destroyed by village incompetence, he told me to get a port-a-potty.

I read Pride and Politics, Erin Quinn's book about the same-sex weddings (which is apparently out of print), and it was obvious that West did the right thing for the wrong reasons:  he wanted to officiate at a friend's wedding, plain and simple.  To help those friends, he told the village attorney for find a legal justification for marrying them.  Because I'm not a friend, when my family needed help, he told the village attorney to handle me.  (In the end, that decision cost the village close to $9,000, when all I wanted was a couple of days for the DPW guys to put back in what the planning board had illegally allowed to be taken out.)

So as someone who doesn't like Jason West and doesn't think New Paltz needs a man like him, let me state clearly:  the village board was wrong to cut Jason West's salary.  It was wrong for two big reasons:

1. Just like a raise, it may be legal to push the cut through mid-term, but it's completely inappropriate.  Don't change the terms of the employment contract, period.  It's nice to see it rolled back because it was the height of hubris to pass the raise in the first place, but who on earth is going to run for a job if they are committed to four years and have no clue how much they're going to make each year?  Running for office is a balancing act:  can I afford what the position pays, and is it a reasonable trade-off for the power I will wield?  Candidates need to be able to make that determination.
2. It's immature.  I plan on voting against West in 2015, but I don't spit in his face when I meet him on the street.  That's what the board has done, because they don't like him.  He has resisted consolidation efforts, almost certainly to protect his own job, but he's raised perfectly valid points along the way.  If you didn't know who he was when you voted for him, like me, then you'll just have to act like an adult and put up with him for another two years.

Incidentally, this problem is by no means just a village issue.  Sue Zimet shouldn't have gotten a pay raise, either, and when Mike Nielson got one as highway superintendent back in 2010, he sent them a letter telling them to take it back, saying in part, "When I ran for my current position I understood the length of term and compensation provided. Bearing that in mind I respectfully request that the salary of the Superintendent of Highways remain at the current level for the entirety of my current term."

Nielson's letter was never discussed at any public meeting, and his request was ignored.

Nielson also pointed out all of the arguments regarding attracting the best people to the job, and in fact suggested that a higher salary for that position was appropriate . . . for the next term.  That was the only time I have seen an elected official in this town who really cared more about the community than his own political future.  I really hope we can find a way to attract more like him.