Swiller Does Go On

So, the Last Minute Unsigned Lying Flyer turns out to be a Last Minute Unattributed Lying Rumor.  Well, variety is the spice of life.  For some reason it's not about anyone running for office, but about the Pieman.  And he's responded with an ungodly long post at Families of Woodbury.

Here it be in all its windy glory.

I've just gotten an email saying, in part : “They think he (that’s me) and OCEAN have KJ ties because Swiller is from Brooklyn.”

I have suspicions about who “they” are.  And as to being from Brooklyn – yes, I admit it, I’m from Brooklyn.  I’m even Jewish.

            But, as to being allied with KJ that’s a Caruso fantasy.

            So here’s what I, OCEAN and SOCA have been doing these past 9 years.

We formed SOCA when KJ bought Ace Farms specifically to rally people to fight annexation.  Everything I list below can be found in the Times Herald Record and the Photo News.  Search those papers web-sites on “Swiller” and “SOCA” (“OCEAN” might bring a lot of extraneous hits relating to the sea).

Our first campaign started when Roxanne Donnery and Frank Fornario introduced a resolution in the county legislature calling on NYC to drop the idea of KJ hooking into the NYC water system.  Rox and Frank knew they wouldn’t get a majority.  Nobody who stood up to the KJ politicians ever won.  But they hoped to get 4 or 5 legislators to join them.

SOCA printed 40,000 postcards addressed to all the members of the legislature and calling on them to vote yes.  We distributed them all over the county.  The legislators got more mail on this vote than all the other mail they had received on all other issues.

When the vote came the resolution won TWENTY to ONE.  Everyone fell off their chairs.  The Times Herald Record put SOCA on their list of “Forty most powerful people in the Hudson Valley” for 2005.

After that we put on our forum about  forming a village (a much less slanted forum than the one Caruso held).  We worked with Roxanne, Frank and Spencer McLaughlin to force Eddie Diana to sue KJ over the pipeline, Joe Ferguson and I debated the leadership of KJ at the Times Herald Record’s office and we responded to KJ’s announcement that they were willing to discuss with us which parts of Woodbury they would annex with our “Not One Inch” campaign.

When SOCA became paralyzed by foolish, internal politics, Mindy Prosperi, Nanci Binder, Bob Fromaget, Shelby Young and I formed SOCA at Work, which soon changed its name to OCEAN.

Our first major job came almost immediately when KJ dissidents submitted a petition to annex Woodbury land into KJ.  Their goal was to break the monopoly that the Vaad haKirya (the land owning arm of the KJ leadership) held on land in their village.  We understood their goal, but we felt that any successful annexation of our land into KJ would be a terrible precedent.

We contacted the dissidents and started what would become months of discussions to try and change their minds.  Sheila Conroy, Lorraine McNeil and Gerri Gianzero were brought in to represent the town government.

And we succeeded.  The dissidents withdrew their petition.  The first attempt to annex Woodbury land ended.

After that OCEAN put on forums, pulled together political debates and led the mail in campaign to stop KJ from putting water towers in Gonzaga Park.

Then KJ asked the county to give them a quarter mile section right in the middle of Route 44 so that the village could put in a sidewalk.  By the time we in Woodbury heard about it, two different legislative committees had already unanimous approved the idea and it was headed to a vote on the floor.

Before the vote there was a public hearing which was our last chance to stop this from happening.

Eight or ten speakers, including Ralph Caruso, spoke against the measure.  All of them basically said that KJ was a bad neighbor and that they couldn’t be trusted with control of the road.  Many said KJ might close it on Jewish Holidays.  It didn’t seem likely that legislators who had already voted “yes” in committee would change their votes simply because they were told “KJ aren’t nice people.

I spoke last and presented OCEAN’s compromise that Sheila Conroy, Robin Crouse and I had put together.  We said “yes, KJ needs a sidewalk.  Mothers push baby carriages along the road and somebody was going to get hurt.  But, breaking up a county road into different jurisdictions was a terrible way to accomplish this.  Grant KJ an easement so that they can build a sidewalk alongside the road, but keep the road itself under county control.’

The legislators liked the compromise.  They voted to send the proposal back to committee, they granted the easement and they kept the road.

This is one of the accomplishments that Ralph Caruso claims as his.  It wasn’t and it isn’t.

Sorry that this has been so long winded, but when Caruso runs an election, distracting disinformation always seems to pop up at the last minute.  And it has to be responded to.

It’s now 12:30 AM on election morning.  I’m tired and this may be filled with typos.  Sorry.  If you have any questions my email address is jswiller@optonline.net.

           

Go vote, and good luck to us all.

Jonathan Swiller