By RON LINEMAN
Early in the evening of June 15, the Forestville Village Board held a special meeting. Its sole purpose of the meeting was to decide if the village should sever ties with the engineering firm that is working on the water project for the village.
I don't have a problem with the results of the vote, but I do find fault with the way the mayor handled the situation.
To be more precise, there was no deliberation of any kind about any problems the village may have had in the past or the present with the engineering firm in question. This lack of discussion raises the question of just when, where and how did the mayor communicate with the rest of board so they could vote intelligently? Was this done by a series of phone calls or individual meeting? It's a shame we can't have an open and honest government like the laws of New York state intend for us to have.
The village had previously scheduled a budget hearing for April 2. At the beginning of this hearing, my wife asked the question: "When did the board set the time and date for this hearing ?"
That's when Mayor Charles Brewster began to give his very misleading explanation of how the board set the hearing at the last board meeting. When my wife disagreed with the mayor, he insisted that the hearing was set at the last board meeting.
When Joyce explained the board meeting was two days after the notice was in the paper, making his account of the situation completely wrong, he changed his story by saying the hearing was set at the February meeting. Mr. Brewster himself apparently didn't even believe the story he was telling because five minutes later he canceled the hearing.
I should add that I reviewed the tape from the February meeting and the board did not schedule the public hearing for April 2 like Brewster tried to say they did.
I think the people of Forestville deserve better leadership than they are getting. To start with, at election time, voters don't have a choice of who they can cast their vote for. They must accept whoever the Republicans endorse and the party's last endorsement for mayor was a very poor choice. I think most people realized this because of the 54 people who voted in the last village election, 24 voters refused to vote for Brewster. That's almost 45 percent who said no! That's a significant number .
Maybe the figures from the last village election are an indication that it's time to dissolve the local government of Forestville! If the Village Board were truly interested in what is best for the taxpayers of this municipality they would have a study done to see if the village would profit from such an action. The 45 percent number that was previously mentioned is more than enough to get the ball rolling.
Ron Lineman is a Forestville resident.
