The people who know Austin Warner well, know that he has a very bad temper. If he is angry he will jump up, march around the room and wave his finger in your face. And, he will SHOUT. Austin Warner will raise his voice to you if you disagree with him. According to his Santa Claus advertising, Austin is 6' 3" and, clearly, weighs over 240lbs. He is a big man with a big voice. When he gets charging around his office, shouting, hands waving, stepping up close to you, it can be a very intimidating experience. He has played this routine out for me several times. Personally, I wasn't impressed. My Dad was a captain in WWII where he learned superior shouting skills. Consequently, when the Supervisor has raised his voice to me, it was a rather ho-hum performance. However, anyone who has not had the benefit of drill sargent parenting would certainly find Warner's behavior intimidating, even frightening. It is well known that Warner has shouted at and brow beaten virtually everyone who works in the Town Hall, elected, appointed or employed. It's been said that Warner's angry outbursts were one of the key reasons why Ed Evans resigned as Deputy Supervisor. Evans was very uncomfortable being accosted by Warner anytime he disagreed with the man. While it is one thing to shout at your intimates, it is entirely different to scream at your co-workers, staff, and other elected officials. It is worse yet when the Supervisor of a community raises his voice to a resident. Election to office is not a license to abuse the population. If shouting and physical intimidation is Warner's first response to disagreement then it is not a performance but an anger management problem. It's a problem our supervisor need to address.

There have always been questions about how money is handled in Austin Warner’s administration. There have been, and continue to be, inquiries about a large, an apparently missing, recreation fund contingency. Numerous FOIL documents have been filed in regard to this and many believe these funds were raided to pay for the construction of the courthouse above the grant funding. Questions remain.

Recently the town has received a windfall of sorts that, as usual, was not reported to the public. It turns out that for all the time that Hamlin has had an ATM attached to the side of the town hall, it has never received any revenues from it! It is ordinary business for the bank which manages the machine to share some per-cent of the transaction fees with the landlord of an ATM. If they didn’t, then the landlord might be tempted to acquire and manage its own machine, keeping all the transaction money, which can be considerable. Hamlin never received any money for one simple reason: They never asked for any! That is just hilarious. If anybody wanted proof of the rube-factor in local government, that is it.

During the meetings of the Tower Committee Jim Martin learned of this “oversight” and harangued the Supervisor about it. He wanted to know how our local government be so naive. “Nobody thought of it!” was the response. After prodding them some more, Martin managed to get Austin Warner to call ESL and ask for a share of the money. They were happy to do it. It was that simple.

According to Ed Evans the town will now earn, $10,000 annually from the ATM. Not bad. Thanks Jim!

The Supervisor, as usual, never bothered to tell the community about this sudden windfall. Despite all his pledges to “communicate” with the public, Warner has grown increasingly secretive. People have begun to refer to the town hall as, “The Nixon Whitehouse” because of its tone of paranoia and control.

So, what about the new found wealth? My guess is it has already been spent or earmarked 10 times over, but we do know that Warner has allotted some funds to finance the new Zoning/Comprehensive Plan Committee. They certainly will need some money for support services and production. The question is, shouldn’t the funds have been combined into the Hamlin budget and the town board consulted on how to spend it?

This is a serious issue. If funds are raised from any new source, for example, rental fees from a cell tower, will that money go directly to the Supervisor”s desk for him to spend any way he wishes? Will the community ever learn about the new revenues? Will the town board be consulted on how to spend them? Only Santa knows for sure.

It seems that the town supervisor and some members of the board have been exploring the idea of buying the lovely Jacobs property adjacent to the town hall. The parcel includes a home, an industrial building and the ice cream store. Why this is being kept a secret from the public no one knows. Except perhaps, because the rumor is that the town has already invested money in accessing the property. Maybe this isn't the right way to do things. Perhaps it would be better- more honest and forthcoming- if the supervisor were to announce this kind of thing in the paper or in a board meeting. I'm sure he doesn't feel the need for that because he's consulted with his little "posse" of insiders and therefore considers that consultation and communication with the public is complete. It seems that the home would go to the seniors for a senior center (good luck with the stairs.) This would not be a community center, but exclusive to the seniors who, as a group, are a tiny fraction of the population. But you know Santa, any opportunity to give something away makes him smile. "Keep smiling'" he always says. This was his attitude when a sharp businessman sidled into town and tried to buy the rights to a huge radio tower. Santa jumped on it. If it hadn't been for the fierce and immediate action of a grass roots citizens committee, Rudolph's bright red nose might be flashing high over Lake Breeze today. There are other problems. It seems that the thinking is that the library might move into the industrial building. Has the library Board been consulted? No, of course not. To the supervisor, any building is a good building. He needs to be reminded that the Library does NOT report to the Town of Hamlin, they are independent. The asking price for the parcel is supposed to be $250,000, though the town believes (why?) that they can get it for much less. Perhaps they can, but I hope, as a taxpayer, that they do careful research into the pollution which must exist on a site which has been a tractor graveyard for decades. This could cost another $250,000 to mitigate. At this point, I believe the plan should come out of the closet. Hamlin has a history of doing certain things, like contracts and environmental reviews, in such a poor manner that they have to go back afterwards and fix them at great cost to the taxpayer. I know it's hard for some people to accept, but there is no Santa Claus. If you behave like there is, you're going to get fooled, or look like a fool, or both. Not with our money Austin.