Copyright 2013 The Chronicle, Glens Falls, New
York • Published October 24, 2013
Lone
Oak Publishing Co., Inc., P.O. Box 153, Glens Falls, NY 12801 • 518.792.1126 •
chronicle@loneoak.com
Thurman:
Wood
vs.
Haskell for
Supervisor
in a
legal
tangle
By
Gordon Woodworth
Chronicle News Editor
There
are only 799 active registered voters
in
the Warren County Town of Thurman,
but
its race for Supervisor is drawing
intense
interest because of its unique
circumstance.
Former
Supervisor John Haskell is
trying
to win his job back despite having
been
forced from office in 2008 after being
convicted
of felony fraud and serving two
months
in Warren County jail.
In
the Republican primary he swamped
the
one-term incumbent Evelyn Wood, 159-
78.
But Ms. Wood is continuing her bid for
re-election,
on the Democrat, Conservative
and
Independence Party lines.
Mr.
Haskell has the Republican and selfdesignated
Voice
of the People lines.
Thurman
is overwhelmingly Republican.
As
of April 1, it had 449 registered
Republicans,
154 Democrats, 46 Independence
Party
and 16 Conservative registrants.
There
are also 130 independents
—
“blanks” with no listed party affiliation.
Ms.
Wood said “in past years, you needed
right
around 220 votes to win. That’s
been
the number in previous years, but I’m
not
sure what will happen this year. I do
think
it will be a very high voter turnout.”
Beyond
Mr. Haskell’s criminal conviction,
two
hot local issues — trash removal
and
emergency medical services — figure
in
the contest.
Ms.
Wood, 36, was appointed supervisor
in
2010 after Red Pitkin resigned. She was
elected
to a full two-year term in 2011.
Mr.
Haskell, 59, was supervisor from
1997
to 2008. His criminal case involved
some
landlocked property that Mr. Haskell
purchased
behind the Thurman Town
Hall.
The
criminal case
New
York State’s Appellate Division has
upheld
Mr. Haskell’s criminal conviction.
It
said that Mr. Haskell first met privately
with
Town Board members asking “that he
be
granted a right-of-way” on the property,
but
then at the subsequent public meeting,
“instead
requested only a utility easement
[related]
to a right-of-way which he repeatedly
indicated
he already owned.”
The
Appellate Division continued, “Following
the
Town Board’s approval of the
conveyance
of a utility easement, [Mr.
Haskell]
successfully sought to have the
December
Town Board meeting minutes
amended
to reflect that he had been granted
a
right-of-way.
“[He]
then obtained and filed a deed conveying
the
right-of-way and subsequently
used
the right-of-way to log the property.”
Mr.
Haskell insists he did not commit a
crime.
“No, definitely not,” he says. “If you
want
to read the transcript, I bet you $100
that
you would not find me guilty.”
Mr.
Haskell says he could have accepted
a
plea bargain with no jail time, but “I am
a
man of principle. I flatly refused to do
that.”
So
why was he found guilty?
“Somebody
perjured themselves during
this,”
Mr. Haskell contends.
He
says, “I guess they said I abused my
power
because I got a right-of-way through
town
property, and as a supervisor, you
couldn’t
do that.
“But
when we got into court, we found
out
that three people applied before me,
two
that year, and we found out that all
three
were actually illegal because it had to
go
up as a permissive referendum.
“And
that’s what nailed me — because
it
wasn’t a permissive referendum, but
neither
was theirs, and they still got their
rights-of-ways,
and I went to jail. So how
do
you figure it?”
Ms.
Wood, Mr. Haskell’s opponent, was
asked
by The Chronicle if she believes Mr.
Haskell
committed a crime.
“I
do believe he did, yes,” she said. “We
have
documents on file here that show that
the
Town Attorney had advised him multiple
times
about the correct procedure. He
had
to know what the correct procedure
was
and that he wasn’t following it.”
If
elected, can he serve?
An
unresolved issue is whether Mr.
Haskell
can actually serve in office if he
wins.
He said state officials have told him
that
he can serve, but he said he didn’t
have
the names of those officials.
Ms.
Wood said, “I have been told that
it’s
unlikely that he would be able to serve.
That’s
something that I imagine would
have
to be tested, if he should win.”
Would
she test it? Ms. Wood replied,
“I
would definitely consider testing it, although
I
have heard there are a number
of
other people in town who are also prepared
to
test it.”
The
Thurman supervisor position pays
$27,257
— $10,800 from the town and
$16,457
for serving on the Warren County
Board
of Supervisors.
Garbage
pickup eliminated
As
for the garbage pick-up issue, Ms.
Wood
said the Town Board eliminated free
garbage
pick-up so it could stay below the
2%
tax cap after state retirement expenses
rose
“astronomically.”
She
added that “because we had free
garbage
pickup, many other people were
bringing
garbage into town to get rid of it.
We
were seeing huge tipping fees, and that
was
going on even before I took office. It was
an
ongoing problem, and the board had to
cut
something in order to stay under the tax
cap,
and still be able to provide services like
elderly
transport and Meals on Wheels.”
Mr.
Haskell says, “I think it could have
been
resolved differently, personally.” He
said
Thurman had provided curbside garbage
pick-up
for 30 years.
“If
we had to stay within this 2% cap,
I
believe if we sell the bags... for a dollar
to
the individuals, it will cover the cost...
and
the people will have the convenience of
curbside
garbage pickup.”
But
Ms. Wood said that if projected revenues
fell
short, “then the taxpayers would
be
paying for the difference” and it “could
have
a significant impact on the budget
and/or
the fund balance.”
The
EMS switch
On
EMS Mr. Haskell and his supporters
fault
Ms. Wood for ending the town’s contract
with
Thurman EMS and contracting
instead
with Warrensburg EMS.
Mr.
Haskell says that Ms. Wood signed a
contract
in April 2011 with Thurman EMS
“for
$25,000 a quarter, and she broke that
contract
half the way through the year.”
“This
is a very needed thing in our community,”
Mr.
Haskell said. “They are volunteers.
They
spend a lot of time....It just upsets
me,
and it upsets a lot of townspeople.
“There
were 118 people at February’s
meeting
who were for Thurman EMS.
There
were four people that wanted Warrensburg
EMS.
And the board, three out of
five,
voted for Warrensburg EMS. They are
not
listening to the people.”
Ms.
Wood said the town’s contract with
Thurman
EMS was for 2012, and ended on
Dec.
31 of that year.
“The
Town was then without a contract
with
any squad until April of 2013 when the
Town
Board voted to contract with Warrensburg
EMS.
No contracts were broken.”
Ms.
Wood said in 2011, “Thurman EMS
had
entered a contract with the Town
which
required them to meet a percentage
of
calls...The Thurman EMS was unable to
meet
the percentage of calls in the contract
and
subsequently lost their contract with
the
Town.”
Another
part of the issue is that Thurman
EMS
offers BLS -- Basic Life Services
—
while Warrensburg’s offers ALS — Advanced
Life
Services.
Ms.
Wood says that “the Town Board
has
been monitoring not only the frequency
of
calls but also the types of calls...over
the
last few years.
“For
instance, from June of 2013 to August
of
2013, Warrensburg responded to
11
calls in the Town, and the only BLS call
was
on June 26, the other 10 were all ALS
calls.”
Mr.
Haskell says, “The thing is to get
people
started to the hospital, not to sit
around
and wait for somebody to arrive.”
Asked
why someone should vote for her,
Ms.
Wood said, “We’ve kept our taxes underneath
the
tax cap, despite having significant
challenges,
like the floods in 2011,
which
devastated the town like we’ve never
seen
before…
“I
have brought in more than a quartermillion
dollars
in grant funding to help replace
roads
and to expand services.
“I
certainly have a mind to the future.
I’m
looking at what our community is going
to
need going forward, such as broadband
access…
“I’m
a full-time supervisor, and the people
here
in town know they can call me
nights,
days, weekends, whenever.”
Ms.
Wood says, “We have worked very
hard
over the last few years to bring the
community
together and to unite us. We
were
really making progress, and had a
good
interaction as a community. This has
been
very divisive and I think it’s very unfortunate.”
Mr.
Haskell likewise cites recent divisiveness
in
the town.
“I
know I can mend that split,” he said.
“All
you have to do is listen to people and
be
friendly and available. I did it before, I’ll
do
it again.”
Evelyn
Wood John Haskell
No comments:
Post a Comment