For nearly a year I have listened to our supervisor and two Town Board cronies — the majority — boast about how they minimize government. I heard them reject the revised Comprehensive Plan without discussion in December 2010 because it imposed too much regulation on the citizens of Princetown (rather than on developers, as was intended). But in January 2011, with straight faces, “The Three” passed a resolution that effectively regulates what Princetown citizens can say at Town Board meetings. I call it the gag rule: Talk about agenda items only, and you have three minutes. What’s laughable about the gag rule, aside from its baldfaced hypocrisy, is that agenda items are not published until 30 minutes before each meeting, and someone with a stopwatch actually cuts off a speaker after three minutes. Councilman Lou Esposito alone saw the resolution as an infringement on our freedom of speech and voted against it. But The Three had their regulatory way. I fitfully conclude that the majority leadership in Princetown subscribes to the un-American propositions that the First Amendment does not apply and that the public does not need to know where its tax dollars are going. So much for democracy. So much for fiscal conservatism. So much for keeping government out of our faces.
JOSEPH G. JURCZYNSKI Pattersonville The writer is the former chairman of the committee that proposed the Comprehensive Plan.
Looks like trying to manipulate the political process has found it's way into the hilltowns now too, huh?
First ya got duanesburg trying to unseat an elected official...
And now ya have Princetown changing the rules mid-stream......
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
more like police states.....cut off to speak....where is democracy...lost in the personal agenda of politicians
no more true leaders say goodbye to government by the people and for the people
now it's all about the "I" and "ME" entitlement once they get elected
they need to be voted out by 'we the people'. they seem to forget that 'they' work for 'US'!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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