WARNER CLAIMS RATH “SATANIST”
Web image signals fellow Devil Worshipers

Hamlin Supervisor Austin Warner escalated the war of words with Town Board member Paul Rath claiming he had evidence Rath was a worshiper of Satan.

“This is all the proof anyone needs!” bellowed the zaftig Supervisor at an ill-attended press conference called to make his bizarre announcement. “It’s been right hear under our noses all along and we have never noticed it!” echoing a familiar criticism leveled at Warner himself regarding his well documented failure to collect revenues from the Town Hall ATM.

“Paul Rath is obviously a worshiper of Satan, look at his fingers!” bawled the vast Warner as he pointed to a copy of Rath’s portrait on the Town of Hamlin website.

“I warned you all! I told you he was a Democrat and you wouldn’t listen! Now, how do you like this? We have a devil worshiper in town government!” blustered the substantial Supervisor.

“Evidence” of the fantastic accusation is that Rath’s fingers, which are poised on a calculator, have only the first and fifth fingers extended, in the familiar Italian “Molokia” or Texas Longhorn gesture.

In recent years fringe groups of paranoid Christian fundamentalists have identified the gesture as a symbol of devil-worshipers. They have provided no historical or practical proof claiming that their personal belief is evidence enough.

Warner’s grotesque claim seems to be the result of an ongoing dispute with Rath over the councilman’s refusal to support Warner’s hand picked replacement for Supervisor, Patricia MacIntosh.

“Pat MacIntosh is the kindest, sweetest, most loving, generous, friendliest, warmest, most giving person on the face of the earth!” Warner replied when questioned about his motive for attacking Rath.

“Anyone on my Republican committee who does not support my nominee should not only be kicked off the committee, but kicked out of the Republican Party! And shot too! That’s my opinion anyway.” sputtered the visibly rattled Supervisor as Ms. MacIntosh handed him two steel ball bearings which seemed to calm him.

Rath, reached by phone, denied the allegation.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about. I know Austin has great affection for MacIntosh but this seems a little extreme.”

Rath claims that the dispute derives from some private conversations he had with members of his extended family. Word of those discussions apparently made there way back to Warner.

A town employee in the Clerk’s office, speaking anonymously, said the attack came after Warner heard that Rath had allegedly said, “That guy is wreaking the Hamlin Republican Committee. MacIntosh isn’t qualified to be Supervisor, even if she can write a sentence- which is a step up!”

Rath and Warner have frequently bickered and it is dissension which the Supervisor hates above all things.

“Warner hates it when anyone disagrees with him. He takes it personally. He’s got a very fragile ego to begin with and perceives any dissent as a personal attack” said a local psychiatrist and political observer, who wanted to remain anonymous. “This thing with MacIntosh seems much more sensitive then that however. He’s just gone off the deep end.”

“That’s just the way I hold the calculator” said Rath, a Certified Public Accountant. “That’s how I was taught to do it. It’s efficient.”

Is rudeness catching?

What can the future hold for Hamlin if Pat MacIntosh becomes Supervisor?

At the July Town Board meeting Ms. MacIntosh sat in abject silence while the board undertook to ram a huge package of legislation down the taxpayer’s throats. Board members were almost completely unprepared. Several obviously hadn’t even read, much less understood, the legislation they were planning to enact into law that day!

Lame-duck Supervisor Warner made his feelings toward the public crystal clear: He didn’t like them, they were a nuisance and he wished they were gone! Warner used every impolite tactic to rush the hearing forward while rigidly refusing to participate in any description or justification of the proposals.

Hamlin residents will have to obey these laws, but Warner refused to participate in any explanation of them.

What did nominee MacIntosh do? She sat silently throughout the hearing. She never asked a question, never participated, never admonished the legislators for being unprepared or hostile.

In other words, she was in agreement with Warner! The public is a pest. Questions about proposed new laws are simply a pain. Elected officials are superior. The public is thorn in their side.

Many, many people who have had the unfortunate experience of interacting with Ms. MacIntosh in her capacity as Warner’s secretary will testify that hostility, contempt and superiority were the most obvious tones of that experience.

Those attitudes must be contagious in the town hall.

I told you, I DON'T CARE!

It is difficult to find words that adequately describe the contempt that Supervisor Warner displays toward Hamlin’s voting public.

His behavior at last week’s Town Board meeting was beyond excuse or explanation. Warner obviously wanted no part of hearing from the public. He was boldly rude and dismissive. At every opportunity he rushed the process in a naked effort to quash debate, dialogue and discussion.

Warner never defended a proposal. He never explained a proposal. His words, attitude and body language merged to convey his message: “I don’t care! I just want this over. Nothing you all say means anything.”

Warner is a lame duck, bailing out of the job to escape apologizing to former Building Inspector Larry Gursslin. Gursslin has sued Warner and the Town for firing him without cause or due process. Considering that two board members voted against the firing and made statements on the record confirming the allegations, it is almost a certainty that the town will lose.

Gursslin is demanding a public apology from Warner as part of any settlement. Warner is so prideful that he will walk away from the job rather than apologize.

Despite his lame-duck status the Supervisor is still obliged to show respect and regard toward the public.

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Nothing but the truth...

Sadly, most Americans fear and loath lawyers. The reasons are complex involving adversarial relationships, complex legal rhetoric and the fact that one almost never gets a straight, clear answer!

Often a concrete answer is not possible because of conflicting judicial decisions. Often legal answers are complicated by variables. Sometimes lawyers don’t want to be held to an opinion.

Then there are times when lawyers deliberately try to obscure or confuse the truth. When that happens people are genuinely justified in their disdain.

Hamlin Town Attorney Ken Licht surely has earned some public scorn by his behavior at last week’s public hearing.

Warner designated Licht as official spokesman to describe the meaning and impact of the proposed new laws to the public.

Ordinarily, a citizen might expect this assignment to include telling the truth. The public should expect a full and honest accounting of the regulation and its effects. Expectations of truth include the idea that the public will not be mislead by half truths, partial explanations and shaded meanings.

The public did not get the truth from attorney Licht. Instead it got a tainted, politically driven July snow job. Licht, in collusion with Supervisor Warner, deliberately shaped his explanations and descriptions to mislead the public about several of the proposed laws and their effects.

The change to the law on variances was conceived by the Zoning Board to make it easier for them to grant variances but Licht never acknowledged that. He deliberately misled the public about the regulation’s origins and its full impact on the community. He presented the new law as an innocuous “change of language” that brought Hamlin into better conformance with the state.

While that may be true, it is a half truth. This was the ONLY reason Licht gave for the change, masking the true motive. By saying that it was simply a “change of language” Licht purposefully, willfully attempted to deceive the public about the impact that this change will have on our community.

Licht was questioned about that impact and his answer was evasive and off-point. He kept returning to “change of language” while not answering the question about impact and consequence.

Lawyers tricks.

That’s why, eventually, average citizens come away with a bad taste in their mouths when they interact with attorneys. Slippery, shifty, contemptuous and focused on the paycheck, not the truth.

Unfortunately Ken Licht was not elected to any public office. Consequently, he must rely on pleasing Austin Warner to continue receiving his $40,000 plus income from Hamlin every year.

Too bad for Hamlin. Too bad for the truth.

No Licht at the end of the tunnel

The performance by Hamlin’s town board at last night’s public hearing on eight new laws can only be described as disgraceful. The meeting was well attended by about fifty prepared residents. They came armed with solid questions, opinions and insights.

The residents were prepared, the town board was not.

The worst performance by far was that of Supervisor Warner. With a glaring lame-duck contempt for the public he took every opportunity to rush the process along showing repeatedly that he didn’t care what the public had to say or think. Several residents pressed the town board for an estimate of the costs to enforce the proposed new codes. Warner had no answers and seemed to take pleasure in defying the request to answer.

Claiming that “This is a public hearing ,” he refused to respond to the questioning. At one point a resident stood up and bluntly asked the Supervisor to reply to another person’s question on cost and enforcement. “Will you answer that man’s question?” the citizen demanded. “No!” replied the Supervisor with hostility. Warner alleged that the Town Board was, “here to collect information” and consequently there would be no dialogue.

To his credit, Paul Rath made numerous efforts to explain the rationale behind some of the proposals. While each board member, save Warner, tried at least once to explain or defend a proposal, Rath took the lead and worked to offer the residents frequent explanations.

However, it was clear to the public that the Town Board was unprepared for the hearing. In fact, George Todd admitted that he had not read the proposed seventeen page Property Maintenance Code. That was evident, but it was also clear that most if not all the others had not read it either.

Defense of this monster, which no doubt would have been passed in-tact had the public been absent, was left to the Building Inspector. The best Mr. Bauman could offer was that these laws were designed, “to make my life easier.” He asserted that the regulations were intended to cope with varied violations from junked cars to abandoned property.

The public, many of whom had read through the entire proposal, asked pointed questions about the codes that were not relevant to clean up. The public informed the TB that ninety per-cent of the proposed laws were building codes regulating everything from the size of door and windows INSIDE the home to keeping one’s eves painted. It was obvious that no one on the Board knew that. Mr Bauman claimed that the codes had been recommended by Brockport and had been successful there in combating property maintenance issues. Apparently he has not been following the political scene in Brockport. It was obvious too that Mr. Bauman either had not read the entire code or did not understand it.

The Town Board, Building Inspector, Fire Chief and town attorney all demonstrated a shocking, but familiar, lack of understanding of the law. The officials asserted that some proposed laws were not relevant because they didn’t plan on enforcing them! When pressed about the onerous building regulations, the B.I. insisted that they didn’t matter because they only planned on using those parts of the code which regulated maintenance! Several members of the public reacted with the obvious logic, “Why pass laws you don’t intend to enforce?” asked one; “Why don’t you just write the code you need instead of all this?” asked another. Don’t they know that laws still apply, even if nobody acts to enforce them? Laws like that tend to become weapons to be used against citizens.

The entire dias acted as if they had never thought of that. In fact, they hadn’t.

The most offensive performance of the night belonged to town attorney, Ken Licht. Licht apparently views his contract with Hamlin as an obligation to collude with Supervisor Warner’s political agenda. Time after time, Licht obfuscated, blurred and misdirected both the motives and effects of the proposed laws. At other moments, when he might have assisted the B.I. or Councilperson with a legal perspective, he was strangely silent.

His most obvious political performance came when he explained the plan to liberalize the process to obtain an area variance. Licht asserted that the town would be sued if it denied a variance using the language of the existing law. He claimed the wording was outdated. Under questioning from the public, he acknowledged that the criteria for granting or denying an application was essentially the same under both the old and new wording. He promoted the new law as being the “accepted language.”

Licht deviously and pointedly left out the real motive for changing the law: The Zoning Board of Appeals wants to make it EASIER to give out variances. Licht admitted that the criteria was relatively unchanged only the emphasis on the “benefit to the applicant” was affected. Licht claimed that Hamlin needed to conform to language which emphasized a “balancing test.” Then he explained that the town was already using this test because of training he had given to the ZBA.

This is a throughly disingenuous explanation. Why would a town need new language if the process is correct? Mr. Licht knows that courts rule on the process in these matters. If the ZBA follows the right process, if the correct questions and issues are discussed, if the decision is sound and rational then the court is not going to speak to the underlying language of the local code. Conformance to the PROCESS is what matters. Hamlin’s law has already been through the courts and was not found lacking.

In truth, the real reason for changing the language was to make it easier to grant variances. The law was specifically changed to give a variance to the Vito property on West Watuoma Beach Road, where the contractor violated nearly a dozen local laws and NONE were enforced. Very shortly, every Hamlin citizen will witness a heinous act of revenge and rebuke toward the family who had to resort to a lawsuit to compel Hamlin to enforce its laws. Within a few months the ZBA will produce the very outcome the lawsuit sought to block. Instead of punishing a law-breaker, the new owner will be given the right to sub-divide the parcel, convert the “garage” into the house (it was all along,) and sell two parcels where one had been! The innocent, the residents who are in the right, will be punished and the guilty will be rewarded. Even if there is a new owner (from probate) the property is STILL in violation and the town continues to ignore the judge’s orders.

Another example of Licht’s deception and obfuscation during last night’s meeting concerned the proposal to adopt the seventeen page Property Maintenance Law. As mentioned, ninety per-cent of the code is regulation governing buildings and it is unlikely that Licht read the document.

Members of the public questioned if their existing properties would have to conform to the new laws. They were told by the B.I. that they would not have to since their homes are “pre-existing non-conforming” structures.

Of course this is not true. Under our zoning code anytime a property is “enlarged, altered or changed in area,” that property must come into conformance with all new, existing codes.

When questioned about this attorney Licht gave another wrong and misleading answer. He claimed that the language of the law (125-55) governing pre-existing non-conforming uses refers only to the Zoning Code laws and not the new Property Maintenance Code since that will be a “local law” not part of zoning law.

But unfortunately for the community Licht did not read 125-55 far enough. He only read the first page. On the next page the zoning code says, “no enlargement, change or alteration of a non-conforming structure housing a non-conforming use shall be permitted except by a finding by the ZBA that such enlargement, change or alteration will permit greater compliance with the provisions of this or other appropriate regulations...” This clearly, obviously, includes the new Property Code. (And God help the resident who offends- the full force of compliance will come down heavily on their heads!)

How could he have left that out? Too hot in the hearing room? Unprepared? Maybe it was simply cynical one-upmanship with the public. (One citizen publicly chastised Licht for smirking during questioning of the Supervisor!)

Maybe he just doesn’t care. Why should he? The public doesn’t sign his checks, the Supervisor does. That is where his allegiance is. The Supervisor’s politics guide Licht’s legal interpretations in Hamlin. Don’t bite the hand that feeds- regardless of the virtue, regardless of the ethics, regardless of the impact to the community.

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To summarize the public hearing: The public came out in large numbers. They were well prepared, thoughtful and direct. The TB was not prepared. Paul Rath tried to communicate, the others were largely silent. Apparently no local official read the seventeen page Property Maintenance Code in detail. The town attorney obfuscated, misdirected and erred.

The town passed the following new regulations: LL# 4- Keeping of Animals and Poultry; LL# 5- amending the Zoning Code to make variances easier to get; LL# 6- Amending the Fire Code to eliminate the annual inspection of one and two family homes; LL# 7- Amending the Zoning Code definitions for Refuse Disposal and Fill; LL# 8- Amending the Zoning Code to transfer the jurisdiction of Ponds from the ZBA to the Planning Board (Effectively eliminating the public hearing process so neighbors will not know about a new pond until it is dug.;) LL# 9- Lead by Paul Rath, and to their credit, the TB defeated the B.I.’s request to enlarge the size of temporary signs. In addition, they reduced the time these signs may be displayed. An unusual act of support for the idea of community aesthetics!

[As an aside- why DIDN’T the town act to make the proposed Property Maintenance Code PART of the Zoning Code? Why is it a separate “local law?” Would it be too difficult to include it in our code book? Is it more convenient that the public would have to discover, then request, additional documents to learn what laws govern their property? Making this a separate law instead of a revision to the Zoning Code doesn’t make any sense.]

The town tabled, for further review, these: LL# 3- Junked and Abandoned Vehicles (There was much dispute as to regulating “lot cars” unregistered cars used to teach kids to drive with, especially in rural districts.;) LL# 10 the infamous seventeen page Property Maintenance Code.

The performance by our elected officials, and the town attorney, was a disgrace. The tunnel is dark.

TOWN TO RAM CODE CHANGES ON PUBLIC


The most important, and perhaps the only VALID, information to emerge from Hamlin’s flawed town survey was that residents, almost unanimously, want to protect the rural character of our community. Nearly 90% of respondents said that protecting agriculture and rural living should be the most important goals for the Town.

In a remarkably perverse reaction to this directive, the Warner/MacIntosh administration has proposed a new law which will almost certainly accelerate the rapid destruction of our cherished rural character!

Our Town Board has proposed, Local Law # 5 which eases the conditions for granting an “Area Variance.”

A variance is an exemption from zoning restrictions. A variance is granted to a specific property by the Zoning Board of Appeals. Once given it goes with the property in perpetuity. A typical area variance is one which exempts a homeowner from the ordinary set-back distances for building in their neighborhood.

Hamlin’s law which governs these variances has traditionally been very conservative. A property owner who sought a variance was required to prove that he or she would suffer substantial financial hardship without it. They also had to show that they had not created that hardship themselves! In addition, the law stated that no variance could be granted if it gave special privileges to one parcel which were not enjoyed by all similar properties.

This last rule was an essential component of the regulation since it protected the concept of precedent. If one person, in a neighborhood, is granted a variance then the next person, in a similar circumstance, MUST also be given a waiver if they ask. Eventually, if an entire neighborhood is granted enough variances it, de facto, becomes a different zoning district altogether! That is the slippery slope which the rule protected the community from!

The new proposed Law #5 completely liberalizes the variance process. It turns it utterly on its head. The rigid test has been stripped away. The old variance rule was presumptively unfavorable to the request, it discouraged change. This new proposal is presumptively favorable to the request, encouraging change. Herein is the threat to our community: Every variance, every liberalization of restriction, will negatively impact Hamlin’s “rural character.”

Who is behind this astonishing change in preservation regulation? Norm Baas and the Zoning Board of course.

It is difficult for the average citizen to understand the culture of the Hamlin Zoning Board. Mr. Baas has installed a philosophy of hostility toward the law. He believes that the mission of the ZBA is to discard the legislative process. The town board writes our laws, Baas believes it is his royal duty to give waivers to them.

Normal Zoning Boards understand that they function foremost as protectors of the law. They understand it is their duty to make property owners adhere to the law. While a ZBA has the authority to grant a waiver, it must consider very carefully the reasons for giving one person an exemption from a regulation everyone else must follow. A normal ZBA has a very narrow and conservative approach to giving out variances. An intelligent, sophisticated ZBA understands that it is a judicial body which may grant variances only if the request passes a rigid set of tests. The guiding principle of most ZBA’s is to deny a variance request unless there are extraordinary circumstances which cause harm to the applicant. Normal ZBA’s are opposed to granting variances as a matter of policy. Normal ZBA’s support their legislators. Further, a strict policy of opposing variance requests serves the community by upholding the legislative process. Laws are not meant to be discarded- even if you have the authority to do so.

Not in Hamlin. Under Norm Baas the ZBA sees itself as separate from, and superior to, the legislative process. There are certain zoning laws which Norm Baas hates! As a member of the ZBA he should be neutral on his personal views regarding the laws, but he is not. He regularly comments on the value of certain regulations and asserts his negative opinions about them.

Worse, is that this attitude has nurtured a culture on the Hamlin ZBA of righteous superiority. The Baas Zoning Board believes it is on a “divine mission’ to right the wrongs of our legislative process. They believe their job is to grant every variance if at all possible. (IE: Tops gas station or the new car wash that is right in the neighbor’s yard!.) Norm doesn’t like most laws. The ZBA follows suit.

Baas’s dislike of laws seems to be part of a larger half-wit political philosophy shared by some core members of the Hamlin Republican committee. There are local officials who advocate a near total rollback of regulation! Judith Hazen, a member of the Planning Board, recently called for eliminating even more protections, advocating abandoning zoning law altogether! “This is still America, people should be allowed to use their property as they want!” she declared in a fit of wild Libertarianism.

Of course you can use your property, Mrs. Hazen! But you don’t live in a vacuum. You can’t burn your property to the ground and endanger firefighters; You can’t process raw sewage on your property; You can’t erect a 350 foot radio tower on it- even if you might profit from doing so. Mr’s Hazen you are part of a community and in every community, throughout civilized society, there are rules. Rules that protect each citizen from the self interest of all the others. Nobody would seriously advocate repealing laws against murder and theft, but stupidly think that limitations on land use is bad. No doubt Ms. Hazen would change her tune instantly if her adjacent neighbor decided to “use their property” to bury toxic waste.

Baas believes that he is being a Conservative when he proclaims that certain zoning laws are infringements to property owners. He cannot recognize that granting virtually every variance request is the very definition of “liberal.”

As to the rest of the zoning board they seem to follow right along, quietly bleating, “ baas, baas, baas.” The other members of the ZBA are complacent, uninterested in learning and profoundly backward in understanding community planning. When Norm baas, they follow.

Despite these policies Baas has occasionally had to struggle with granting a variance because, in reality, the law is written to limit them. Reacting to that, Norm has lobbied the Town Board seeking to liberalize the code. Norm wants legislation to make it even EASIER to give out the candy.

The Hamlin TB, sheep of a different stripe, are poised to give Baas just what he wants- an extreme liberalizing of the language of the law. Once again in Hamlin we see the tail wagging the ram: the ZBA wants a legislative change, the TB follows.

Liberalizing variance law will rapidly erode our community’s rural character. Strict rules which limit growth and discourage "change” are the community’s only defenses! The Warner/MacIntosh administration is totally incapable of grasping this fundamental concept of Town planning.

As children we learned that if, “You keep the rules, the rules keep you.” This applies in Hamlin too. Strict regulation and limitations on variances are good things. They are essential tools to protect the rural character of the community. Take some time to tell your Town Board that you do not support liberalizing the regulations which protect our community. Go to the public hearing at July 11 Town Board meeting- speak up!
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This is outrageous!

The worst and most devious reason for Norm Baas’s plot to liberalize the zoning code is so he and Warner can get revenge on some citizens who have caused “trouble” for the town.

Most readers of The Blog will remember the outrageous story of the house that pretended to be a garage on West Watuoma Beach Road. (See archives: 5/7/03; 5/22/03; 2/9/04; 5/11/04; etc.) This famous embarrassment to the community resulted in a lawsuit by the Delapa family against the Zoning Board. The Delapas won the suit easily with Judge Frazee admonishing Hamlin to “obey it’s own laws.”

Almost immediately after the court decision the property owner, Rick Vito, died. Hamlin used the interval, while the property was in probate, to ignore the judge and scheme to find a way to reward the villain while punishing the innocent.

They have succeeded. The planned revision to the variance law will allow some sleazy new developer to snap up the Vito property and get a variance to subdivide the parcel!

THAT is the plan ladies and gentlemen! Instead of complying with the existing law which forbids two principle buildings (houses) on a single parcel, instead of enforcing the law and punishing the violator by having him tear down the old cottage, instead of doing the right thing Hamlin officials have conspired with the town attorney to rewrite the law to make it easier for the next owner of the Vito property to get a variance!

Norm Baas and the Warner/MacIntosh administration have conspired to disobey a court order just so they can punish the Delapa’s for seeking justice. The court determined that the Delapa’s wre in the right and told the town to act. They have refused to act and schemed to alter the law to punish the innocent.

The Zoning Board has already met in secret and illegal “executive sessions” to plan the strategy.

This action will send a clear message to all the sleazy, creepy disreputable developers in the five county area: “Come to Hamlin! We do NOT enforce the law and we’ll find a way to reward you if you break it!”


What a town!

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

Citizens Pitch-In

It looks like the helpful residents of Hamlin are pitching in to help locate a buyer for the Burkes Hardware property.

The project began when realtor, Kyle Rath, placed the For-Sale sign. Knowing the direction Hamlin was developing, he naturally thought that the parcel would make an excellent location for a new gas station.

A good realtor knows that sometimes you have to stimulate potential buyers to "think outside the box." He sought to give people ideas on how to develop the property.

Other alert citizens soon joined in the effort! Many, many residents understand the unfettered liberalism of the Planning and Zoning Boards. They have seen the kinds of dangerous, undermining and commercially disastrous decisions these Boards have made about Hamlin's future. They have witnessed the fear and uncertainty of the boards. They have seen how these men and women are incapable of saying “NO” to any project or proposal. Hamlin residents know that they cannot rely on local government to limit growth. The concept is over the heads of our officials.

So, what the hell!? Let’s go for it. Let’s get this property sold! Maybe a Dangerous Dog Kennel? Maybe a K-Mart or Rite-Aid. Maybe a CLUSTER of cell-towers! Maybe a nice strip mall with an insurance company/sub-shop/tanning & nails/pizza parlor/liquor store/bagel shop/diner? That sounds GOOD! Man, Hamlin will Really be a MODERN town then!

Keep the ideas coming folks! Send an email here if you like and we’ll publish the ideas. Let’s show local government that we have all given up! Let’s show the Warner/MacIntosh administration that Hamlin residents support the kind of development that trashes the future of the community! Let’s get out there and show our support!