[0:02] 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.

[0:10] All right, two, three.

[0:15] We just blew up the United States and America.

[0:18] And two of the republics should last formation under the rug.

[0:24] We will do it in the meeting.

[0:25] We just have trouble.

[0:28] Go on, can I have a roll?

[0:30] Someone's right there.

[0:32] Counselor Women Goochie here.

[0:34] Counselor Women Killian, Chair, Councilwoman McCartney.

[0:38] Councilman Mecha, Councilman Slec, Chair.

[0:43] So, City Manager Scott Pickup, just emailed me, he is running late, he is at a meeting of the

[0:49] RIG Off Club and wanted to take care of a few things there so he's going to join us momentarily.

[0:56] So, the next item on the agenda is General Announcements and I'm going to get right started

[1:01] with Announcement with regard to some events that have taken place in the city of RIG,

[1:07] including on Monday at a school board meeting.

[1:12] So on Monday morning, the school board member

[1:14] Ed Fox made certain allegations directly

[1:19] about me and my wife, Kerry N. Wong,

[1:22] as well as about Richard Slack and his wife, Laura Slack.

[1:27] And indirectly, about all the members of the city council

[1:31] and the school board.

[1:33] Including that, certain reassigned teachers

[1:36] have a different lawyer that is a lawyer different than Kerry N. Law, who represents another reassign

[1:44] teacher in Mrs. Topel, who cannot deliver a city council seat or some other benefit to

[1:52] a board member or the board members, family members.

[1:57] Essentially, this is an allegation that

[1:59] Kerry and I delivered a city council seat to Richard, an exchange for a settlement in the

[2:06] case which was purportedly delivered by Laura. This is an outrageous allegation. This allegation

[2:14] has absolutely no basis in fact. This allegation is untrue. I categorically deny this allegation.

[2:23] My wife and I are the parents of children who attend Rye Public Schools. Two of them were taught

[2:30] by Mrs. Tobel. Early on my wife and I showed support for Mrs. Tobel and along with other

[2:37] class parents signed a letter to the school board questioning the school board's communication

[2:42] regarding and investigation of the matter and asking that Mrs. Tobel be returned to teaching.

[2:50] Subsequently, Kerry, who's an attorney, became co-council representing Mrs. Tobel.

[2:57] I'd never had any communications with Carrie about the substance of her representation of her client,

[3:03] and I certainly never had any communications with Carrie. Express, implied, or otherwise,

[3:09] about exchanging a settlement in the topo matter for a council seat for Richard Slack.

[3:16] Following the elections last fall, I spoke with a number of right residents to gauge their interest

[3:23] in serving on the RICE City Council, including Richard Slack.

[3:28] I had been impressed with Richard for some time

[3:30] as a result of his public comments at City Council meetings.

[3:34] However, Richard indicated that his family and professional

[3:38] responsibilities were too much.

[3:40] Councilmen elect, Terry McCartney, then independently,

[3:45] decided to reach out to Richard and solicited him

[3:47] to consider serving on the City Council.

[3:50] As a result of Terry's conversations with Richard,

[3:52] Richard indicated that he would make the time to serve on the city council.

[3:57] 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.

[4:10] 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.

[4:30] On January 8th, at the very first city council meeting of the year, all five members of

[4:36] the city council, then at the time, unanimously voted to appoint Richard Slack, as well

[4:42] as Richard Mecca, to fill the two open city council vacancies.

[4:48] These were not appointments by me alone, as mayor.

[4:52] These appointments were by all the remaining members of the city council, as well as the

[4:59] city charter.

[5:02] On Monday of this week, two days ago, at a public meeting of the school board,

[5:09] Mr. Fox made his allegations. Following his allegations, the school board voted unanimously

[5:15] with Mr. Fox abstaining to approve a settlement with Mrs. Topal. As per the school district's

[5:22] statement, Mrs. Topal will consequently be returning to teaching. As parents, I am pleased

[5:30] by this outcome, and I am very happy for Mrs. Topo. As an elected official, however, I am extremely

[5:37] disappointed that Mr. Fox would make such false and unfounded allegations in connection

[5:43] with the settlement. I am calling upon Mr. Fox to be tracked his allegations. Furthermore,

[5:50] there was no conflict of interest or even an appearance of the conflict of interest between

[5:56] my vote to appoint Richard Slack to the City Council and to the separate and unrelated confidential

[6:02] representation of a client, not by me but by my spouse, in a matter involving separate

[6:08] and unrelated circumstances to which I am not privy before a separate and unrelated board under

[6:16] adverse circumstances with no votes or settlements pending on that matter before that board.

[6:23] Once Richard was appointed to the city council, I will also do not believe that there was

[6:29] a conflict of interest between Laura slacks vote to approve a subsequent settlement with

[6:35] Mrs. Topel and Richard's prior appointment to the city council. And to the extent that

[6:42] some may view this as a appearance of a conflict, it seems to me that the appearance was mitigated

[6:48] through the public at disclosure of Richard's position on the city council and the public disclosure

[6:54] of Mrs. Topo's representation by Kerry Law at the time of the school board's public vote

[7:01] on the settlement.

[7:05] None of us can help but observe that the reassigned teacher cases have

[7:09] engendered much passion and even much anger and bitterness in the community. This is unfortunate.

[7:17] And I hope that all the teacher matters can be appropriately resolved.

[7:23] But it is also unfortunate that Mr. Fox and other eye residents would seemingly allow their

[7:30] frustration with the teacher cases to result in the making of baseless and damaging allegations.

[7:38] However, I also hope and believe that we can move forward from this episode.

[7:43] I'm going to start that tonight.

[7:47] On a personal note, I must say that I am extremely proud of my wife, who is an excellent

[7:54] attorney for stepping up to the plate and representing this struggle.

[7:58] And I regret that she has been wrongly connected to these false allegations and

[8:04] insinuations simply for doing what I see to be a good deed.

[8:11] How's that for a general announcement? Mr. McCartney, I understand that you attended the

[8:17] school board meeting last night. I did Mr. Mayer, and I'd like to follow up and just touch

[8:24] on what I said last night at the school board meeting without repeating everything, because

[8:28] to me it brings up a larger point that I think comes up a lot in this chamber as well, so

[8:33] it's important.

[8:39] I hope tonight is the last time we talk about this. I hope we can move on

[8:42] from that I thought Mr. Nathan spoke up last night

[8:45] of former school board member at the school board meeting

[8:49] and expressed that sentiment.

[8:51] And I hope this is the end of it here tonight.

[8:55] What I said last night at the school board meeting

[8:57] was that I wanted it to be clear that I was the person who

[9:01] really recruited.

[9:02] There were a number of people that we talked about,

[9:04] but I went above and beyond what I think some of my fellow

[9:08] council members did at the time

[9:09] and actively recruited Richard Slack

[9:11] and urged my fellow council members to consider him for this one of the two open positions that we had.

[9:19] And not Joe, it was me.

[9:21] And I'm proud that I did that.

[9:23] I think it's for the best of all.

[9:24] I did that because I knew Richard to be an ideal candidate with a skill set that will be very helpful to us.

[9:31] When I said to the school board last night,

[9:33] I think Richard is a very intelligent, experienced and capable lawyer.

[9:37] He's a reasonable fair amount, minded and articulate person.

[9:40] 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

[9:50] 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

[10:01] 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

[10:07] There certainly was no quick pro quo as Mr. Fox strongly suggested there was no sweetheart

[10:14] deal.

[10:15] When I pursued Richard Sack to be on the city council, I wasn't even aware that Karyan

[10:20] Law was representing Ms. Tobel in that completely separate investigation that the school

[10:26] board was conducting.

[10:27] So there could not have been any kind of a deal because I was unaware of that fact.

[10:33] The coincidence of Richard's appointment on the City Council and Miss Law's involvement with the school board

[10:39] just results from the fact that we live in a small town and nothing more.

[10:43] There's going to be lots of that sort of stuff as we go along.

[10:47] The people who are active and dry tend to be the same kinds of people.

[10:51] So it's just how it's going to work in a small town like Riot always has.

[10:56] The four people whose names were disparaged by Mr. Fox, deserve our thanks

[11:00] And don't deserve their good names to be unfairly tarnished by these accusations which have no basis in fact.

[11:07] Which really brings me to a large point that I wanted to talk about tonight.

[11:11] It has unfortunately been common in Rye in the past few years for some people to attack their fellow citizens in a personal way.

[11:19] Sometimes imputing their character and integrity and accusing them of impropriety and wrongdoing without any legitimate facts to back up their accusations.

[11:28] It's wrong and it should stop.

[11:31] If we don't all work together to stop at some point very soon, these unfounded personal attacks

[11:38] are going to have a chilling effect on volunteerism and right.

[11:43] It's hard to get people to serve on a city council.

[11:45] It's hard to get people to serve on a school board and it shouldn't be.

[11:50] If we don't have smart qualified reasonable people on our school board, our children will

[11:54] offer. As poor decisions are made about teacher hiring and tenure testing, curriculum, and many

[12:01] other issues facing the school district every month. If we don't have smart qualified people

[12:05] here on the City Council and in our boards and commissions, all of us, individually in the

[12:11] city as a whole, will suffer because poor decisions will be made about city services and

[12:15] taxes and recreation, traffic and safety, zoning and planning. All the other things that we

[12:20] do here in this chamber. Now, I'm not saying that people shouldn't exercise their first amendment

[12:25] rights to speak freely and that you can't disagree with somebody. We will certainly disagree.

[12:32] The seven of us will disagree. Everyone who comes here, we will constantly disagree, but

[12:36] that's democracy. That's what's supposed to happen. All I'm saying is, let's do it respectfully.

[12:45] When you make an argument here in this chamber, please stick to the facts, citing the source

[12:52] of your facts as a great way to make a persuasive argument, avoid personal attacks, avoid

[12:57] hyperbole, avoid arguments based upon facts that are inaccurate or can't be proven.

[13:03] I think we should, we can all work together on this problem for the good of Rye.

[13:07] 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.

[13:16] And when we disagree, we will do it respectfully.

[13:20] Thank you.

[13:20] Thanks, Terry.

[13:21] Richard, do you have anything to say?

[13:25] This is my first full meeting on the City Council.

[13:29] I'm meeting grateful for the confidence and support of my colleagues.

[13:33] When Terry approached me to serve on the City Council, I thought very hard about whether

[13:38] I should do it.

[13:40] I considered the significant time commitment as well as the fact that most everyone who serves

[13:46] as a public official at one time or another becomes a target of unfound.

[13:50] on fair and mean-spirited personal attacks. I just didn't realize it would happen so soon.

[13:58] I ended up agreeing to serve because I care about this city and in those small

[14:03] part because of the quality and integrity of the people who I sit up here with tonight.

[14:09] I was convinced then and I'm convinced now that each is doing the service with the

[14:13] goal of doing what's best for I and that we will be able to disagree without being

[14:18] agreeable. I especially want to thank Terry and a personal note for going to the Board of Education

[14:24] meeting last night, looking Mr. Fox and the I, and telling him that he got it wrong.

[14:30] Councilman Carter's words last night should for any fair-minded person put to bed the unfounded

[14:36] wrong and mean-spirited insinuations made by Mr. Fox.

[14:41] I believe that a member of the School Board

[14:44] of the City Council has an obligation not to abuse the platform we're given to voice our views.

[14:49] When a public official sits on this side, he or she needs to be better than the anonymous blogger.

[14:56] We should not even be suggesting that a person is violated laws of the public.

[15:00] 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,

[15:10] his ethics and his credibility.

[15:13] Thank you, Richard Boy.

[15:15] Sure.

[15:18] Richard and Joe, I want to apologize to both of you that you both had to go through the same soon in our service

[15:25] on the City Council and to both of your wives.

[15:28] Our service, the City of Rye both on the City Council and on the school board, is public service.

[15:36] We do it because we are interested in bettering our community.

[15:42] 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.

[15:52] it's just challenging when it's not an action that we take or a decision that we make, it gets

[16:00] criticized, but something that is unfounded and questions are integrity. So it's really

[16:08] unfortunate that we all had to endure this criticism so early as a council together. But I hope

[16:16] that we all move on, I think this council really is committed to serving the city of

[16:22] Rye.

[16:23] And I hope that some of the statements that have made today clear up whatever uncertainty

[16:30] there was about our integrity, and I said I think we can move on from here.

[16:36] Thank you, Laura Julie.

[16:41] And when I heard that Richard was in the mix for City Council, but not interested, I too

[16:46] was going to call him and the only reason I didn't, because I found out Richard was a way,

[16:50] this was in December, Richard was a way visiting his father, who was ill.

[16:55] And then went away on vacation and when I got back I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he

[17:00] was definitely interested in the mix.

[17:04] The rise to the review asked me today for a statement and I'm just going to read what I said to them.

[17:10] I'm happy to be part of a community where we have many respected citizens who get involved in public service.

[17:15] I have the utmost respect for all the serve on school board City Council and other entities in the city of Rye.

[17:21] However, a recent school board meeting, Mr. Fox suggested that Mrs. Slack was required to provide a conflict of interest notification to the board

[17:28] possibly recuse yourself from a vote because of Richard Slax's recent appointment to the city council.

[17:34] That is an issue. The school board to take up. I was disappointed however by Mr.

[17:38] Fox's suggested that any members of the council or school board were trading, I quote,

[17:43] particular benefits. I reject any notion of a special deal or quit pro quo between the

[17:48] Slack and Slack families. I'm equally outraged by Mr. Fox's suggestion that members of both the

[17:53] school board and the city council can somehow be bought. I fully support Richard Slax's

[17:57] appointment to the city council and I stand behind my vote for him.

[18:01] Thank you, Julie. Is there anyone else on the council that would like to say anything?

[18:05] I think you said it all. I think you've touched on all the bases.

[18:10] I agree. Richard, that's how it happened to you.

[18:14] 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?

[18:22] So, we'll move on to the next item then, which is, I think we have a general announcement

[18:27] though.

[18:28] Oh sure, sure.

[18:29] How can you beat that?

[18:30] Good things.

[18:32] I have a much more positive topic to talk about this past week and was the Michael Ice Memorial

[18:39] basketball clinic and a game, and I attended an issue to proclamation on behalf of

[18:47] the council, and I just wanted to give a quick report on this for those of you who are

[18:50] aware of it. This year 55 young people in grades 3 through 8 were involved in the clinic

[18:57] and 28 alumni, Rihai alumni came back to play in the alumni game, and then for the first

[19:03] time this year the Rihai Harrison basketball game followed the alumni game. They were over

[19:10] to raise more than $10,000 and the reason they raised money at this event is because they

[19:15] scholarship for the love of the game scholarship, which goes to a one of the senior players

[19:20] on the basketball team every year who meet some fairly strict criteria, grade point

[19:25] average and things has to be a national honor society member and things like that last

[19:29] year's recipient came and was given you know his award and acknowledged publicly a young

[19:34] felony micro meal and all in all it was a great event but the reason I really wanted

[19:40] a report on it is because of a very unique thing that happened this year, as I said, that

[19:46] Harris, the right Harrison game was part of it for the first time this year, and that happened

[19:51] because the Harrison coach, a guy named Gary Chirolla, who coaches the Harrison team,

[19:58] found out about this, and that they moved the game around.

[20:02] The Harrison team rescheduled the game so they could be part of this, and only did they

[20:07] do that when they showed up, they had donation checks.

[20:09] the Harrison people brought checks for $1,000, the Harrison booster club gave 500 and then a nice family

[20:18] of one of the basketball families on the Harrison team gave another $500.

[20:22] So you know, all we typically hear about the Ry Harrison rivalry is the negative things.

[20:28] But I thought it was just a great example of class and sportsmanship on the Harrison side to do something like that.

[20:35] So I wanted to publicly acknowledge the Harrison folks,

[20:39] particularly Coach Tierraela, who really did this.

[20:42] When I was a way to reschedule the game,

[20:44] and then saw it to it that the booster club

[20:46] would make these donations.

[20:48] For one of their competitors, so he can go off to college

[20:51] with a $5,000 scholarship next year.

[20:55] So I think this entire event is a credit to Rye,

[20:58] and it's a credit to the ICE family,

[21:01] and the memory of Mike Jr., who they obviously lost,

[21:04] is the reason for this thing. So anyway, there's some good news to report.

[21:08] Thank you to any other general announcements from the castle.

Jan 29, 2014 City Council

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