Support, Confusion Over CEO Dean Herrick
By Thaddeus Flint
You know something is up in Stephentown when you find yourself driving around the dirt piles at the Highway Garage like it’s a Manhattan street looking for a parking spot. This was the case last Monday night when not the entire Town, but seemingly a decent portion of it, came out to the February Board meeting, most to show their support for Dean Herrick, the Town’s Code Enforcement Officer.
At this meeting, on February 19, Herrick was no longer the Stephentown CEO, although he was the still working as the CEO, if that makes any sense. The Town Board, at the January Organizational Meeting, did not reappoint Herrick to the same job he has been doing for over 30 years. The vote then was 2 to 2, with Town Supervisor Larry Eckhardt and Councilman P.J. Roder in favor of reappointing Herrick and Council Members Gerald Robinson and Pam Kueppers voting against. So a tie. That doesn’t usually happen, but Councilman Bill Jennings stated that he was recusing himself from the vote because he had some project that Herrick would need to look at and so to do the right thing he abstained from casting a vote. The tie left the Town in a kind of Code Enforcement limbo, with nobody to take over what Herrick had been doing for the last few decades. The Deputy CEO, Owen Cassavaugh, was still the Deputy, but with a tie vote there wasn’t much point in going further and so Herrick was provisionally allowed to continue as the CEO until someone figured out what to do next.
The reason for Herrick’s non-reappointment seems to largely stem from the trailer park Tom Hanson wants to open up more-or-less in Attorney Brian Baker’s back yard on Brown Road. While the land does belong to Hanson, Baker maintains that the permitting is defective and described the process as having been done in a “clandestine manner.” That battle is going to continue, probably for a long time, and Stephentown is going to continue paying lawyers, probably for a long time, as it drags on. In fact, a bill for $3,300 was approved that Monday night to be paid to Girvin & Ferlazzo, the attorneys handling the Hanson trailer park case. Baker and his wife were sitting at the front of the room when that bill came up and the stares from pretty much the rest of the room, many of whom were wearing “Elect Dean” buttons, if you had put them through a magnifying glass, probably would have set Baker on fire. All those times Supervisor Eckhardt started meetings off by pointing out the fire exits suddenly started to make sense.
So that’s the quick background. The update to this is that Herrick is now, once again, the appointed CEO. What changed? Did Robinson and/or Kueppers reconsider and change their vote this time? No, they did not. Whatever one might think about their decisions, it certainly took some amount of courage to stick to their guns and vote No in the heated room that night. Kueppers actually thanked everyone for coming out and warming the place up, but it wasn’t body heat as much as angry heat that was steaming up the windows, and much of it that wasn’t directed at Baker seemed to be aimed at the Kueppers and Robinson. Both Council Members stated that they would reconsider their votes once the Board had a “conversation” with Dean.
Baker said he felt like “Atticus Finch,” the lawyer the whole town of Maycomb, Alabama is up against in the book To Kill a Mockingbird. “The Constitution and that flag rules in all proceedings in this Town,” Baker said, “not mob rule.”
It might not have really been a “mob” in the strict sense of the word, but there was certainly a feeling of many against the few. One after the other, resident after resident got up and defended Herrick, starting with Highway Superintendent Aldi Goodermote, who described the problem as a “glitch,” blamed “the Democrats,” and said “for you people not to back this man because of one glitch, it’s wrong, strictly wrong.” Eventually, when it seemed that the personal defenses of Herrick might go on all night, those who were there to support Herrick were asked to stand up, which pretty much the entire room then did.
The message was powerful. And it’s possible that it achieved the objective of those sending it: Reappoint Herrick. Councilman Roder made the motion to vote once again on Herrick’s appointment, saying that “this Town Board, me included, in the past eight months, have done things that did not follow the law. We passed resolutions that did not follow the law. And now we are going to sit here and pass our judgement on [Herrick] not following the law.” Roder added that the purpose of not following the law was not an intent to be dishonest. However, since he too had not followed the law, Roder offered to tender his resignation if anybody wanted it. Nobody did, or at least nobody jumped up and said they did, so he’s still a Councilman.
The deciding vote was not Roder’s, or Eckhardt’s, or Robinson’s, or Kueppers’. It was Councilman Jennings’. In a curious reversal of his previous decision to recuse himself from the Herrick matter, Jennings seemingly un-recused himself this time and voted Yes. Jennings admitted he recused himself last time because he is building a new house and “I’ve got to work with Dean.” Jennings is apparently still building that house and will still have to work with Herrick, but for whatever reason—he didn’t say why—he’s wasn’t going to let that stand in the way this time. What made that peculiarity even more peculiar was a vote take earlier in the night. On a resolution to fund $500 of liability insurance coverage for the Stephentown Food Pantry at the Federated Church, a program run by volunteers for the past 35 years that seemingly nobody would have any qualm at all about helping out with the insurance, Jennings recused himself from that vote because his wife runs that operation. Yet to un-recuse himself on a matter–parts of which will certainly end up in the courts sometime down the road–when the circumstances for the original recusal haven’t changed, could be seen as adding fuel to the fire if lawyers start to pick the whole thing apart, which seems pretty likely. Jennings, however, did make the point that he, like Robinson and Kueppers’, would still like to sit down with Herrick and have a discussion. “Let’s understand how we got to where this point is,” said Jennings, adding that Herrick was “the best Code Enforcement Officer of anywhere around. Ask any of the other Towns.”
Other Towns, if they have been following this, are probably thrilled though that they don’t have such problems, whoever or whomever is responsible for them. And while this problem might seem like enough, “we have a lot more glitches than this,” pointed out Aldi Goodermote. “We’re going to burn up a lot of lawyer money.”