Fear and loathing in Geneseo

As if it hadn’t already been obvious, last night’s meeting of the Geneseo Planning Board brought further confirmation that something’s gone horribly wrong with the process in the board’s review of the Newman PDD proposal. The meeting started with a lecture from Newman attorney Tom Greiner about how the DEIS should not be a public document and the planning board should not listen to any “outside” opinions about the completeness of the document.

Thankfully, I was a few minutes late and missed this sermon. It’s probably just as well because my blood pressure immediately soared to dangerous levels once Chairman Folts turned the podium over to Tom Jerum, of Jerum-Ferrara, the wonderful folks who have quarterbacked this catastrophe.

Unfortunately there is only one play in the Newman-Jerum-Ferrara-Kamlet- Kennison-Coniglio-Folts-Greiner playbook: Do as little as possible about addressing the real concerns of the community, while huffing and puffing about what a great job they’re doing and threatening the board with a lawsuit if they continue to do their job correctly.

Man this is getting old! After the first two minutes of Mr. Jerum’s presentation, by which time I had already lost count of the number of lies, I was overcome with a wave of nausea and had to seek fresh air. After 20 minutes on a bench enjoying the beautiful early evening and our historic Downtown ambiance, I ventured back inside to hear the town’s consultants state the obvious: that the DEIS is woefully incomplete and does not come close to satisfying the scope that the Planning Board passed in February.

And then, big surprise, Mr. Ferum, had a 25-point rebuttal of the town’s consultant’s claims which boiled down to something like,”The answers you seek are hidden in the 900-page DEIS document, you just need to use our special decoder to uncover the disappearing ink.” At least that’s all I understood before I had to bolt out of the room with another wave of nausea.

By this time, I found I was not alone, as the group of citizens who could not stomach the proceedings had grown to at least 10. As we fulminated about the absurdity of allowing Newman to spring last minute technical arguments on the board without advance notice or the presence of the town’s chief engineer, word began to leak out from other refugees fleeing the debacle that the Newman railroad was running off the tracks.

Taking hope, I dared to return to the chamber of horrors one last time, just in time to hear Newman’s reps agree to a one-week extension of the deadline to decide completeness. They did this, no doubt, because it became clear that once again their strategy of overwhelming the board with lies and threats had failed.

As a parting shot they maintained that the 25 point argument that they had just presented to the Planning Board was not a public record. You’ve got to give these people credit for one thing: they lead the league in chutzpah!

Catching up

For the next two weeks, I will not be actively campaigning. It’s been a busy summer with over 1,000 doors knocked on, and only a few days off, and I need a break. Labor Day is the traditional start of the fall campaign season and most people don’t really start paying much attention until October anyway.

This will allow me some time to catch up on some of the little things that have been neglected in the whirl of the campaign. Little things like filing my tax returns and filling out the NYS Campaign Finance forms. I’m not sure which is more painful!

The Financial Disclosure Law kicks in if you raise or expend more than $1,000 on a political campaign in a calendar year. While a caucus campaign can be run for just under a grand, there is no way to run a decent General Election Campaign on less than $3,000. Contributions are welcome!

Other mundane chores that need to be accomplished are getting another haircut, vacuuming the pool before it turns back into the Green Lagoon, and buying some new shirts to replace the ones that were destroyed by my petition pens leaking all over the pockets!

Among the more pleasurable chores will be taking my daughter Corinna back to start her junior year at Boston University. My son, E.T. started his college career last week at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

Due to the pressure of the petitioning, I did not make the trip, but he was ably escorted by his sister and mother. (It would have been my third trip to Wittenberg this year if I had gone!) E.T. is not one for sentimental goodbyes, anyway. Once he was all moved in to his dorm room, he told his mother, “You can leave now!”

When Corinna goes back to school, I will truly have an empty nest for the first time in 27 years. That might take a little getting used to, but with a busy fall ahead, I may not notice it until November!