Mayor Brudie: 5 Trustees Impeding Village Progress

This year’s mayoral trustee committee appointments have sparked unprecedented dissent of five of the eight trustees that is impeding village progress. Sadly, this conduct emphasizes friction and appears to fracture the community.

The purpose of my tenure in service to this village has always been to give a voice to each resident who works hard to live in a village that offers exceptional quality of life. This includes giving a voice to those in the silent majority, who may not be present at Board of Trustees meetings, but who have contacted me on numerous occasions to express their concerns for the direction of this village.

Annually, the mayor appoints trustees to various committee assignments that he believes will be in the best interest of the village. Not unlike my mayoral predecessors, these assignments were made based on consideration of various capabilities — not popularity, not wants, not desires, not demands. In previous years, trustees accepted their assignments respectfully, without regard to ego or resumé enhancement, working to the best of their abilities to fulfill the obligations for which they were elected. But this year, mayoral policy is being undermined.

Traditionally, these assignments are distributed prior to the annual organizational meeting, read by the mayor at the meeting, and routinely ratified by the Board of Trustees. I cannot recall a trustee ever dissenting, complaining, or objecting to an assignment. I am not naïve to think that trustees have not campaigned for certain positions, since as mayor-elect, I was solicited by Trustee Donnelly to appoint him Police Commissioner and Liaison to the Business Community and by Trustee Episcopia, who requested: (1) Police or Fire Commissioner; (2) Chair of the Traffic Commission; (3) Liaison to the Cultural and Recreational Committee; (4) Chair or member of Audit or Finance; and (5) Compensation Committee. 

It is the mayor’s duty to do what is right and best for the village as a whole, and these appointments reflect that belief. At the April 2, 2012 Organizational Meeting, Trustee Episcopia complained that one trustee received a number of chairman assignments. It was also made to appear that not one trustee was rotating in different committee assignments, which is inaccurate, as demonstrated by the April 2 Organizational Board assignments. Additionally, it should be noted that throughout the period 2003 to present, there have been several chair positions that some trustees have held and others will never hold. There also have been trustees who have held multiple chairperson positions at the same time and served in the same positions for three or four consecutive years, without dissent, complaint or objection by any other trustee.  

On several occasions, up to and including the April 2 meeting, I was advised by village counsel who approached me with a resolution to this issue that these five trustees would only ratify this year’s appointments if I appointed Trustee Donnelly as Trustee Police Commissioner (who already held this title of Police Commissioner in 2010), Trustee Episcopia as Second Deputy Mayor (who held this position in 2011), and made the appointment of Village Administrator Schoelle “termless” — meaning instead of having a traditional two-year appointment, he would be a day-to-day appointment  — able to be terminated by the majority of trustees the day after the appointment was made. If these demands were met, the outrage about one trustee chairing four committees would no longer be an issue. I rejected this unilateral approach to making mayoral appointments. To my knowledge, prior trustees have never sought the intervention of village counsel as a means to achieve their personal ambitions.

The trustees who complained have not provided substantive reasons to revisit these assignments. If four chair assignments is the sticking point that these five trustees are fixated on, which is impeding village business, I propose removing one chair position from Trustee Cavanaugh. In the interest of moving forward and in order to concentrate on attending to the village’s more pressing business, I would appoint Trustee DeMaro to serve as Chair of the Executive Staff Compensation Committee in place of Trustee Cavanaugh, thereby reducing his chairperson assignments to three.

As I begin my second year as mayor, I once again extend the offer to work with all the trustees to ensure what is best for this village. I hope these five trustees will consider the wishes and best interests of all residents.  

On April 18, 2012, I read the e-mail from Trustee Donnelly, sent on behalf of the five dissenting trustees which seeks to usurp the Mayor’s appointment authority.

The most disturbing difference between these slates of assignments is that Trustee Donnelly appoints himself  Police liaison. This position does not exist but rather has been obviously fabricated to satisfy his own ego. This confirms the statement, which was made earlier, that all the appointments would have been approved by the five trustees if I were willing to appoint Trustee Donnelly as Police Commissioner.

Despite this fictitious and fatuous title with which Trustee Donnelly adorns himself, Deputy

Mayor Watras will retain the position of Police Commissioner under the law of the State of New York.

-Donald Brudie, Garden City Village Mayor