So, good evening, and welcome to the January 29 meeting of the Rights City Council. We're going to start with the pledge of allegiance.
All right, two, three.
We just blew up the United States and America.
And two of the republics should last formation under the rug.
We will do it in the meeting.
We just have trouble.
Go on, can I have a roll?
Someone's right there.
Counselor Women Goochie here.
Counselor Women Killian, Chair, Councilwoman McCartney.
Councilman Mecha, Councilman Slec, Chair.
So, City Manager Scott Pickup, just emailed me, he is running late, he is at a meeting of the
RIG Off Club and wanted to take care of a few things there so he's going to join us momentarily.
So, the next item on the agenda is General Announcements and I'm going to get right started
with Announcement with regard to some events that have taken place in the city of RIG,
including on Monday at a school board meeting.
So on Monday morning, the school board member
Ed Fox made certain allegations directly
about me and my wife, Kerry N. Wong,
as well as about Richard Slack and his wife, Laura Slack.
And indirectly, about all the members of the city council
and the school board.
Including that, certain reassigned teachers
have a different lawyer that is a lawyer different than Kerry N. Law, who represents another reassign
teacher in Mrs. Topel, who cannot deliver a city council seat or some other benefit to
a board member or the board members, family members.
Essentially, this is an allegation that
Kerry and I delivered a city council seat to Richard, an exchange for a settlement in the
case which was purportedly delivered by Laura. This is an outrageous allegation. This allegation
has absolutely no basis in fact. This allegation is untrue. I categorically deny this allegation.
My wife and I are the parents of children who attend Rye Public Schools. Two of them were taught
by Mrs. Tobel. Early on my wife and I showed support for Mrs. Tobel and along with other
class parents signed a letter to the school board questioning the school board's communication
regarding and investigation of the matter and asking that Mrs. Tobel be returned to teaching.
Subsequently, Kerry, who's an attorney, became co-council representing Mrs. Tobel.
I'd never had any communications with Carrie about the substance of her representation of her client,
and I certainly never had any communications with Carrie. Express, implied, or otherwise,
about exchanging a settlement in the topo matter for a council seat for Richard Slack.
Following the elections last fall, I spoke with a number of right residents to gauge their interest
in serving on the RICE City Council, including Richard Slack.
I had been impressed with Richard for some time
as a result of his public comments at City Council meetings.
However, Richard indicated that his family and professional
responsibilities were too much.
Councilmen elect, Terry McCartney, then independently,
decided to reach out to Richard and solicited him
to consider serving on the City Council.
As a result of Terry's conversations with Richard,
Richard indicated that he would make the time to serve on the city council.
The other members of the city council also then had the opportunity to meet and speak with Richard among other candidates and a consensus developed to appoint Richard as a city council member.
I never had any communications with Richard Slack or Laura Slack about Mrs. Tobles case, and I certainly never had any communications with Laura or Richard express implied or otherwise about exchanging a settlement in the topo manner for a council seat for Richard Slack.
On January 8th, at the very first city council meeting of the year, all five members of
the city council, then at the time, unanimously voted to appoint Richard Slack, as well
as Richard Mecca, to fill the two open city council vacancies.
These were not appointments by me alone, as mayor.
These appointments were by all the remaining members of the city council, as well as the
city charter.
On Monday of this week, two days ago, at a public meeting of the school board,
Mr. Fox made his allegations. Following his allegations, the school board voted unanimously
with Mr. Fox abstaining to approve a settlement with Mrs. Topal. As per the school district's
statement, Mrs. Topal will consequently be returning to teaching. As parents, I am pleased
by this outcome, and I am very happy for Mrs. Topo. As an elected official, however, I am extremely
disappointed that Mr. Fox would make such false and unfounded allegations in connection
with the settlement. I am calling upon Mr. Fox to be tracked his allegations. Furthermore,
there was no conflict of interest or even an appearance of the conflict of interest between
my vote to appoint Richard Slack to the City Council and to the separate and unrelated confidential
representation of a client, not by me but by my spouse, in a matter involving separate
and unrelated circumstances to which I am not privy before a separate and unrelated board under
adverse circumstances with no votes or settlements pending on that matter before that board.
Once Richard was appointed to the city council, I will also do not believe that there was
a conflict of interest between Laura slacks vote to approve a subsequent settlement with
Mrs. Topel and Richard's prior appointment to the city council. And to the extent that
some may view this as a appearance of a conflict, it seems to me that the appearance was mitigated
through the public at disclosure of Richard's position on the city council and the public disclosure
of Mrs. Topo's representation by Kerry Law at the time of the school board's public vote
on the settlement.
None of us can help but observe that the reassigned teacher cases have
engendered much passion and even much anger and bitterness in the community. This is unfortunate.
And I hope that all the teacher matters can be appropriately resolved.
But it is also unfortunate that Mr. Fox and other eye residents would seemingly allow their
frustration with the teacher cases to result in the making of baseless and damaging allegations.
However, I also hope and believe that we can move forward from this episode.
I'm going to start that tonight.
On a personal note, I must say that I am extremely proud of my wife, who is an excellent
attorney for stepping up to the plate and representing this struggle.
And I regret that she has been wrongly connected to these false allegations and
insinuations simply for doing what I see to be a good deed.
How's that for a general announcement? Mr. McCartney, I understand that you attended the
school board meeting last night. I did Mr. Mayer, and I'd like to follow up and just touch
on what I said last night at the school board meeting without repeating everything, because
to me it brings up a larger point that I think comes up a lot in this chamber as well, so
it's important.
I hope tonight is the last time we talk about this. I hope we can move on
from that I thought Mr. Nathan spoke up last night
of former school board member at the school board meeting
and expressed that sentiment.
And I hope this is the end of it here tonight.
What I said last night at the school board meeting
was that I wanted it to be clear that I was the person who
really recruited.
There were a number of people that we talked about,
but I went above and beyond what I think some of my fellow
council members did at the time
and actively recruited Richard Slack
and urged my fellow council members to consider him for this one of the two open positions that we had.
And not Joe, it was me.
And I'm proud that I did that.
I think it's for the best of all.
I did that because I knew Richard to be an ideal candidate with a skill set that will be very helpful to us.
When I said to the school board last night,
I think Richard is a very intelligent, experienced and capable lawyer.
He's a reasonable fair amount, minded and articulate person.
And he's shown the guts to stand up for what's fair and what's right for Rye as a regular citizen as many of you have come to do tonight and constantly do here
But Richard did that long before any of us considered him. So those were some of the reasons that I thought Richard slack would be a good city councilman and why I sort of went after him like I did
I think you'll agree if you'll continue to come to these meetings that Richard will be a meaningful excellent member of the city council
There certainly was no quick pro quo as Mr. Fox strongly suggested there was no sweetheart
deal.
When I pursued Richard Sack to be on the city council, I wasn't even aware that Karyan
Law was representing Ms. Tobel in that completely separate investigation that the school
board was conducting.
So there could not have been any kind of a deal because I was unaware of that fact.
The coincidence of Richard's appointment on the City Council and Miss Law's involvement with the school board
just results from the fact that we live in a small town and nothing more.
There's going to be lots of that sort of stuff as we go along.
The people who are active and dry tend to be the same kinds of people.
So it's just how it's going to work in a small town like Riot always has.
The four people whose names were disparaged by Mr. Fox, deserve our thanks
And don't deserve their good names to be unfairly tarnished by these accusations which have no basis in fact.
Which really brings me to a large point that I wanted to talk about tonight.
It has unfortunately been common in Rye in the past few years for some people to attack their fellow citizens in a personal way.
Sometimes imputing their character and integrity and accusing them of impropriety and wrongdoing without any legitimate facts to back up their accusations.
It's wrong and it should stop.
If we don't all work together to stop at some point very soon, these unfounded personal attacks
are going to have a chilling effect on volunteerism and right.
It's hard to get people to serve on a city council.
It's hard to get people to serve on a school board and it shouldn't be.
If we don't have smart qualified reasonable people on our school board, our children will
offer. As poor decisions are made about teacher hiring and tenure testing, curriculum, and many
other issues facing the school district every month. If we don't have smart qualified people
here on the City Council and in our boards and commissions, all of us, individually in the
city as a whole, will suffer because poor decisions will be made about city services and
taxes and recreation, traffic and safety, zoning and planning. All the other things that we
do here in this chamber. Now, I'm not saying that people shouldn't exercise their first amendment
rights to speak freely and that you can't disagree with somebody. We will certainly disagree.
The seven of us will disagree. Everyone who comes here, we will constantly disagree, but
that's democracy. That's what's supposed to happen. All I'm saying is, let's do it respectfully.
When you make an argument here in this chamber, please stick to the facts, citing the source
of your facts as a great way to make a persuasive argument, avoid personal attacks, avoid
hyperbole, avoid arguments based upon facts that are inaccurate or can't be proven.
I think we should, we can all work together on this problem for the good of Rye.
I think your new City Council, we've all discussed this during the campaign and since, and we're all committed to being respectful to you and to one another.
And when we disagree, we will do it respectfully.
Thank you.
Thanks, Terry.
Richard, do you have anything to say?
This is my first full meeting on the City Council.
I'm meeting grateful for the confidence and support of my colleagues.
When Terry approached me to serve on the City Council, I thought very hard about whether
I should do it.
I considered the significant time commitment as well as the fact that most everyone who serves
as a public official at one time or another becomes a target of unfound.
on fair and mean-spirited personal attacks. I just didn't realize it would happen so soon.
I ended up agreeing to serve because I care about this city and in those small
part because of the quality and integrity of the people who I sit up here with tonight.
I was convinced then and I'm convinced now that each is doing the service with the
goal of doing what's best for I and that we will be able to disagree without being
agreeable. I especially want to thank Terry and a personal note for going to the Board of Education
meeting last night, looking Mr. Fox and the I, and telling him that he got it wrong.
Councilman Carter's words last night should for any fair-minded person put to bed the unfounded
wrong and mean-spirited insinuations made by Mr. Fox.
I believe that a member of the School Board
of the City Council has an obligation not to abuse the platform we're given to voice our views.
When a public official sits on this side, he or she needs to be better than the anonymous blogger.
We should not even be suggesting that a person is violated laws of the public.
We'd suggest that numerous public officials, even might have violated laws without any proof whatsoever, is a violation of the public trust and compromises,
his ethics and his credibility.
Thank you, Richard Boy.
Sure.
Richard and Joe, I want to apologize to both of you that you both had to go through the same soon in our service
on the City Council and to both of your wives.
Our service, the City of Rye both on the City Council and on the school board, is public service.
We do it because we are interested in bettering our community.
And when we enter, when we engage in our public service, we know that we will be forced to come to decisions that may be difficult to reach and may be criticized.
it's just challenging when it's not an action that we take or a decision that we make, it gets
criticized, but something that is unfounded and questions are integrity. So it's really
unfortunate that we all had to endure this criticism so early as a council together. But I hope
that we all move on, I think this council really is committed to serving the city of
Rye.
And I hope that some of the statements that have made today clear up whatever uncertainty
there was about our integrity, and I said I think we can move on from here.
Thank you, Laura Julie.
And when I heard that Richard was in the mix for City Council, but not interested, I too
was going to call him and the only reason I didn't, because I found out Richard was a way,
this was in December, Richard was a way visiting his father, who was ill.
And then went away on vacation and when I got back I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he
was definitely interested in the mix.
The rise to the review asked me today for a statement and I'm just going to read what I said to them.
I'm happy to be part of a community where we have many respected citizens who get involved in public service.
I have the utmost respect for all the serve on school board City Council and other entities in the city of Rye.
However, a recent school board meeting, Mr. Fox suggested that Mrs. Slack was required to provide a conflict of interest notification to the board
possibly recuse yourself from a vote because of Richard Slax's recent appointment to the city council.
That is an issue. The school board to take up. I was disappointed however by Mr.
Fox's suggested that any members of the council or school board were trading, I quote,
particular benefits. I reject any notion of a special deal or quit pro quo between the
Slack and Slack families. I'm equally outraged by Mr. Fox's suggestion that members of both the
school board and the city council can somehow be bought. I fully support Richard Slax's
appointment to the city council and I stand behind my vote for him.
Thank you, Julie. Is there anyone else on the council that would like to say anything?
I think you said it all. I think you've touched on all the bases.
I agree. Richard, that's how it happened to you.
Okay. So, we're going to take comments from the public a little bit later, but is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on this matter?
So, we'll move on to the next item then, which is, I think we have a general announcement
though.
Oh sure, sure.
How can you beat that?
Good things.
I have a much more positive topic to talk about this past week and was the Michael Ice Memorial
basketball clinic and a game, and I attended an issue to proclamation on behalf of
the council, and I just wanted to give a quick report on this for those of you who are
aware of it. This year 55 young people in grades 3 through 8 were involved in the clinic
and 28 alumni, Rihai alumni came back to play in the alumni game, and then for the first
time this year the Rihai Harrison basketball game followed the alumni game. They were over
to raise more than $10,000 and the reason they raised money at this event is because they
scholarship for the love of the game scholarship, which goes to a one of the senior players
on the basketball team every year who meet some fairly strict criteria, grade point
average and things has to be a national honor society member and things like that last
year's recipient came and was given you know his award and acknowledged publicly a young
felony micro meal and all in all it was a great event but the reason I really wanted
a report on it is because of a very unique thing that happened this year, as I said, that
Harris, the right Harrison game was part of it for the first time this year, and that happened
because the Harrison coach, a guy named Gary Chirolla, who coaches the Harrison team,
found out about this, and that they moved the game around.
The Harrison team rescheduled the game so they could be part of this, and only did they
do that when they showed up, they had donation checks.
the Harrison people brought checks for $1,000, the Harrison booster club gave 500 and then a nice family
of one of the basketball families on the Harrison team gave another $500.
So you know, all we typically hear about the Ry Harrison rivalry is the negative things.
But I thought it was just a great example of class and sportsmanship on the Harrison side to do something like that.
So I wanted to publicly acknowledge the Harrison folks,
particularly Coach Tierraela, who really did this.
When I was a way to reschedule the game,
and then saw it to it that the booster club
would make these donations.
For one of their competitors, so he can go off to college
with a $5,000 scholarship next year.
So I think this entire event is a credit to Rye,
and it's a credit to the ICE family,
and the memory of Mike Jr., who they obviously lost,
is the reason for this thing. So anyway, there's some good news to report.
Thank you to any other general announcements from the castle.