A recent action by the Silver Creek Village Board has left me shaking my head. This was the enactment of a law titled “Light Nuisance” in what seems a precipitous manner.

This law could be necessary to protect residents from their neighbors’ bright spotlights, strobes, lasers and other such lighting. However, because the law was written and passed without input from the village attorney, there is the possibility that because of flawed language, those who put up Christmas lights could have their holiday season spoiled by the issuance of an appearance ticket to appear in village court to pay a steep fine for a “lighted Christmas tree violation” or whatever.

Trustee Vince Tampio questioned the action and stated that he thought the board was going speak to village attorney Peter Clark regarding possible changes to the law before its enactment. Mayor Jeffrey Hornburg replied that the board could pass the law as written and then meet with Clark to amend it. Sounds a little like Nancy Pelosi’s words on Obamacare that Congress would have to pass the law to see what was in it.

Why was there need for such haste in this matter? Why was the passage of this law so important? Is someone on the board offended by a neighbor’s spotlight or security lights, or like Scrooge, are they offended by someone else’s holiday cheer?

Speaking of dumb actions by government, how about the Public Service Commissions order that Charter Spectrum Communications find a replacement for itself and leave New York state. This was because the PSC claimed that Spectrum had not lived up to its agreement to provide highspeed internet services to areas in the state that were previously passed over. This was part of Spectrum’s agreement whereby the state approved the merger of Charter and Spectrum in 2017.

For its part Spectrum claimed to have fulfilled the agreement by providing highspeed internet to parts of New York City that had been passed over previously, but that difficulty in gaining access to utility poles in rural areas has slowed work there. Still the PSC told Spectrum that they had failed to live up to the terms of the agreement and that therefore it was withdrawing its support for the merger and essentially throwing Spectrum out of New York State.

According to Albany insiders what really happened was that Gov. Andrew Cuomo became upset by several actions on Spectrum’s part. First there was a prolonged16-month strike against Spectrum by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 3 that represents 1,600 Spectrum employees. That union has been a loyal and generous supporter of the Governor throughout his administration. Back in September 2017 Cuomo told an IBEW rally that if Spectrum didn’t settle the strike with the IBEW and extend internet coverage that he would throw the company out of New York State.

More recently during the primaries Cuomo showed his annoyance with Spectrum’s cable news channel that in his mind provided too much coverage of his primary opponent Cynthia Nixon’s campaign.

Further the governor saw Spectrum’s failure to increase high-speed internet coverage as leaving him with egg on his face because his self-proclaimed pledge that that highspeed internet would be available throughout the state by the end of 2018 would not be achieved.

But always the resourceful politician Cuomo saw an opportunity for an attack on a foe to stir up his base for November and to build his resume for his quixotic presidential run. Like all bullies Cuomo looked for an easy target. Spectrum, after years of abysmal customer service, is one of the most despised cable providers in the nation and had a large bullseye on its corporate back and presented that easy target.

So, the word went out to the Public Service Commission, made up of Cuomo loyalists, to get tough with Spectrum. In response to the governor’s edict a meeting of the PSC was quickly announced while even one of the four commissioners was on vacation.

As a result of that meeting, the PSC gave Spectrum an ultimatum giving the company 60 days to come up with a plan to find a successor company and get out of the state. That deadline has been extended several times but, in the end, when the governor has attained whatever goal he has in mind, a new agreement between the State and Spectrum will be reached for extending high-speed internet. Then the governor can declare victory and claim it was his efforts that made Spectrum a responsible corporate citizen.

In the meantime, we citizens are left shaking our heads at the shenanigans of government that are supposedly carried out in our name.