Tomorrow: Edgemont petition hearing; Feiner's rules deny public right to defend petition
The public hearing on Edgemont’s second petition for incorporation will be held tomorrow at 7:30pm at Greenburgh Town Hall.
Location:
Greenburgh Town Hall
177 Hillside Avenue
White Plains, NY 10607
Rules:
Supervisor Feiner has now circulated an updated list of rules for the hearing and indicated that he re-hired Robert Spolzino, the lawyer who believed it was lawful tohire private investigators to enter Edgemont residents' homes under false pretenses (see here for the Town's failed attempt at redacting Spolzino's bills:http://bit.ly/Spolzino_Hires_PIs_For_Feiner).
The new list of rules stipulates that only objectors to the petition may give testimony. In response to those rules, we have submitted the following email to Paul Feiner:
Dear Mr. Feiner:
I write to seek clarity regarding your posted “Rules for the Public Hearing on the Petition for the Incorporation of the Village of Edgemont.”
As we understand your rules, objectors to the petition will be given a full and fair opportunity to be heard. However, the rules are silent as to the testimony of those who wish to respond to the objections.
As you know, Village Law Section 2-206 provides that “All objections must be in writing,” and that “Testimony as to objections” may be taken at the hearing, which shall also be reduced to writing. Therefore, in accordance with Section 2-206, please state whether, when and to what extent in the process responses to the objections will be permitted to be heard such that they may be made a part of a complete record and those responding will have the same full and fair opportunity to be heard as the objectors.
We want to avoid the chaos and controversy that occurred at the initial hearing on the previous petition, when you and your counsel took the position that only testimony by those objecting to the petition would be heard, rather than all “testimony as to objections” as the statute requires. You then decided, on the eve of the last day of the public hearing (20 days later), to allow both sides to present testimony. That decision was important because, among other things, it provided an opportunity for one resident whose signature was challenged (on the ground that he allegedly lived in California) to testify that he did not live in California and had never lived in California.
If only objecting parties had been allowed to testify, this false objection would have gone unrebutted — which is plainly not what the statute contemplates. Given the statutory language and prior history, we trust that you don’t want another debacle in which only objectors are permitted to speak, without any opportunity to respond or correct the record.
In addition, if only objectors are allowed to be heard in the first hearing, in order to give everyone a full and fair opportunity to be heard, last-minute objections should not be permitted (as they were the last time) because they create a biased forum.
This is an important decision and we assume you want it to be based on a complete and accurate record in compliance with the Village Law. If that is incorrect, and you intend to allow only objectors to testify without allowing the public to testify as to the accuracy of their statements, please let us know immediately.
Sincerely,
The Edgemont Incorporation Committee
Please come tomorrow night to observe the Supervisor's in his ministerial role as an unbiased judge of the legal sufficiency of the petition.
-The EIC
