Political Season Heats Up In New Lebanon – Clark Removed From Deputy Supervisor Position

by Thaddeus Flint
New Lebanon Town Supervisor Margaret Robertson, in an announcement at the October 10 Town Board meeting, removed Council Member Doug Clark from his position as Deputy Town Supervisor.
According to Robertson, after the recent decision by Hannaford to no longer pursue their grocery store project in New Lebanon, “I learned a meeting arranged with our Hannaford representative was done so through my Deputy Supervisor, and another new member of the Business Association. I assumed I would be included in this discussion as I had been involved all along. So, I was extremely disappointed to find I was not part of the meeting at all. When I discovered the meeting was to be held at the Albany office of my political opponent, I was shocked as it became clear to me this economically challenging issue had suddenly become political, so I had to be excluded.”
The “political opponent” is Mike Benson, of the Independence Party, who will be running against Robertson for the Town Supervisor position this November. Robertson feels that since the Hannaford announcement, Benson has decided not to wait for the voters to choose who is the right man, or woman, to run New Lebanon and has gone off on his own to give press announcements and hold meetings with Congressmen as if he had already assumed the position.
While Benson is certainly free to meet with anyone he wishes, the actions of Deputy Supervisor Clark are constrained because he is a representative of the Town. He might have at the very least given Robertson a heads up about the Hannaford meeting. That apparently didn’t happen. Heads had to roll, deputy heads anyway.
“It is with regret I replace my Deputy Supervisor, Doug Clark,” continued Robertson. “I had chosen him as my Deputy for particular reasons which I felt would enhance the duties of my job as Town Supervisor. His vast amount of knowledge and wealth of experience with State entities that have affected this Town so negatively in the past three years, helped me to get much accomplished, as I performed the rest of my day to day duties. However, there also has to be an element of trust in the inner workings and that has sadly disappeared.”
Robertson said she will choose a new Deputy Supervisor within the coming days. The pool she has to choose from though is pretty parched. With Clark out and one Board position merely an empty folding chair that has never been refilled, she is left with Bruce Baldwin or K.B. Chittenden to be her new Deputy.
The rest of the meeting was pretty much déjà-vu all over again – again.
Town Hall – Back To Square One
Donna Smith of the Building Committee gave the latest news on the never-ending Town Hall search. She couldn’t have summarized it better when she said, “We are right back to where we started.” Where we started is the original Town Hall building, and like a game of monopoly the building committee went right around the board, or the Town in this case, with various stops along the way before landing right back on top of it.
A stop at Judy’s Gifts cost a few thousand dollars spent to find out it was not worth building on. “Judy’s was not going to be a good municipal building,” said Smith, “It’s out.”
A roll of the dice and a few spaces down was the Union Free School Building. The School Board owned that. It’s not for sale and will soon probably be a parking lot.
The last stop was the Donnelly building, which sits right next to the current Town Hall and matches it perfectly in that both are old and need plenty of money to fix. “I don’t think we should have another old building to take care of,” said Smith. After spending a few thousand more taxpayer dollars arriving at that decision, the Building Committee has indeed come back to where they started.
Their latest proposal is to spend around $255,000 on adding on to the original Town Hall to bring it back from the almost-dead and make it a usable structure once again. Construction would include a meeting room, two judges’ offices, a conference room and two handicapped accessible bathrooms. An additional $105,000 would go toward legal, architectural and engineering fees and handicapped entrances. The $360,000 total is around $100,000 less than what was previously voted down in a public referendum. In case anyone doubted that spending $360,000 on the old structure could actually produce any real improvement, Smith said, “It’s not going to be built out of junk. It’s going to be well built!”
The Board seemed impressed with the plan, although K.B. Chittenden was missing that night and the thoughts of the folding chair were hard to read. Clark said, “Maybe it’s not exactly what we want, but it’s the bare minimum of what we need.” He also pointed out that, were the project to take place, he wanted to make sure local contractors were given a good shot at doing as much of the project as possible. “Getting more local bidders can significantly reduce the cost,” he said. Baldwin agreed with the need to keep costs down. “Right now we probably have enough money to do the $255,000 part of it in 2012,” he said. The rest of the project could be done in 2013. A ten year plan would then be implemented to keep updating and rebuilding the structure, instead of letting it fall to the ground, seemingly in accordance with the previous plan. More discussion of this plan will take place at the November Board meeting when the 2012 budget is closer to finalization, but Robertson was already happy with the report so far. “A lot of good work was done there,” she said.
Putting Up A Parking Lot
This month’s savior of the Union Free School Building was resident Dave Mieschonz – attempted savior anyway. Mieschonz is one of a growing population of the Town’s citizens who refuses to accept that this building must be turned to dust. “Demolishing that school, to me, is criminal,” he said, comparing it with the unbelievably dim witted destruction of the original Pennsylvania Station building in New York City and replacing it with the mind boggling ugliness that is Madison Square Garden.
The Board agreed with Mieschonz, but, as Clark pointed out, there is nothing more they can do. “You are misinterpreting the power of this Board,” said Clark. Clark advised Mieschonz to contact the School Board or the Lebanon Valley Historical Society about finding a way to save it. Robertson backed Clark up. “We have gone the rounds as far as we can go,” she said. “We tried. We really tried.”
The Town did however vote unanimously (minus Chittenden and the folding chair which doesn’t have a voice to voice or hands to raise) on donating $250 to the Columbia County Heritage Diving Map project. This map would allow smart phone users to hear and see historical points of the Town as they drive through it. As the Union Free School probably will no longer be around by time the map is completed, tourists would be allowed to compare images showing the beauty of the historical building to the wretchedness of the new parking lot where it once stood. “The history of the Town is one of the things we really want to promote,” said Clark.
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
Finally in past events never going away, the New York State Comptroller’s Office is continuing to irritate the entire Board with inane requests for statements and information on an audit started over two years ago. The Comptroller refuses to meet the Board all together as a whole, demanding instead to meet each member one by one. “It’s right out of the Soviet Union,” stated Baldwin, “and you can quote me on that.” As if comparing the State of New York to a failed evil empire of mediocrity by a government official would not be quoted! A resolution was made to respectfully demand further information of an exit interview from the State before any other information would be provided. The resolution passed with all in favor, minus Chittenden and the folding chair.