Republican Primary 9/10 -- The Republican Committee

Democratic Committee ( artist's rendering)

Republican Committee (artist's rendering)

So, Ralph Caruso controls most of the political parties in Woodbury.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Perhaps you are saying "Oh my, Uncle Betty, what can I, one lonesome individual, do about all these terrible things happening in our town?"

Well, first of all, you can leave my name out of it and, second, if you happen to be a registered Republican you can, in fact, do something.

Honest Republicans and honest Democrats are trying to take back their parties.

On the Democratic side a number of good people have applied to fill the vacancies on their committee.  Unsurprisingly, Ralph's puppets on that committee voted no.

But this year the Republicans have a different route to follow. Seats on their committee are up for election.

On Thursday, September 10th, you can do your bit to take your party's committee out of Caruso's control.

Depending on where you live, you just might have the chance to put honest people in place.

Here's a link to a handy dandy, hard to read, election district map.

If you live in District 1 vote for Carol Herb.

If you live in District 3 vote for Tracy Maggio.

If you live in District 5 vote for Tim Arone and Mike Queenan. This is Ralph Caruso's own District, so if both Tim and Mike win, Caruso loses his seat on the Committee.  Yay!

If you live in District 6 vote for Cliff Ader.

And if you live in District 7 vote for Tom Flood.

And, If you're in Districts 2,4,8,9 and 10 you're on your own.

An honest Committee is up to you.

To read other posts by Uncle Betty click here.

Woodbury Gazette; Local Paper or Caruso Mouthpiece?

We've heard from Swiller the Pieman that he asked Ben Meyers, editor, publisher and reporter for the Woodbury Gazette, why he printed an article by Caruso's Ankle Biter attacking Tim Arone in the final issue before the primary without giving Arone the opportunity to respond.

 Ben had two interesting, if utter bullshit, things to say.

One, he said it's not an article, it's a letter 

Two, he said it didn't attack Arone.

This is what Meyers normally calls a letter.

It's on a page labeled "Opinion" and, like all letters, it's signed at the bottom.

This is what he calls an article.

It's on the "Community" page and the writer has a byline at the top.

So what's this?

As to whether this so called "letter" did or didn't attack Arone.

It totally misrepresents Arone's vote to move the Highway Department to the village, ignoring that this was made necessary by the creation of the Village, which Caruso and Siebold scared us into doing with false claims that it would prevent annexation.

It also claims that Arone voted against putting "a policy and procedures in place that would have restricted town department heads from spending unlimited amounts of your taxpayer money."

Actually what he voted against was Caruso's attempt to take power from the full Town Board to oversee expenditures and to give that power to himself alone.

It was one of many votes by the majority of the board to prevent Caruso from giving himself total power over the town.

This is the real reason Caruso wants to replace Arone with a puppet who will do whatever Boss Ralph says (as Prestia does already).

Bear in mind, Ben Meyers was Caruso's running mate when they tried to take over the first Village Board.

The Gazette may be many things: useful, free, occasionally informative.  

Honest it ain't.

To read other posts by Uncle Betty click here.

Siebold Endorses

"To Know the facts as a well informed voter, it is the most important element in local elections town and village elections." Don Siebold

After interviews with the three applicants the Republican Committee endorsed Doc "Sneezy" Cooper and Marilyn "Yeah, What Ralph Said" Prestia.  We believe they have the best skills to remember what Ralph told them to do.
The committee did not endorse the current Councilman Tim Arone due to his inability to allow Ralph to grab as much power as possible.
Last year he voted to transfer the Highway Department from the town to the village using the flimsy excuse that now that we have a village (which Ralph and I fooled you into creating) state law says that the village owns all the roads.
This will probably raise your village taxes (by an amount equal to the decrease you should get from the town).
Tim Arone also voted to stop Ralph's attempt to take power from the Department heads so that he alone could decide who spends the budgets that they are allocated by the Town Board.  That's just mean.
The Republican Committee takes its responsibilities serious.
We are not just rubber stamps.  
         Ha, ha!  Just kidding.

To read other posts by Uncle Betty click here.

Proposed Cost Savings

If we gave two votes to Town Supervisor Caruso and then Marilyn Prestia stepped down, the results would be exactly the same and we'd avoid having to pay one unnecessary salary.

Just a thought.

Republican Primary 9/10 -- The Town Board

A brief pause in our nostalgic look at Woodbury’s recent political past to look two weeks into the future.

As we’ve been attempting to show, political parties in Woodbury are a rather vague concept.

Ralph Caruso runs the Republican Party.  And the Conservative Party.  And to a large degree the Democratic Party.

Also he has the Preserve Woodbury/Woodbury Preservation/Woodbury Committee to Preserve the Preservationists of Woodbury Party. 

And while Caruso controls the apparatuses of these parties, he doesn’t control all the members of those parties.  In the case of the Republican and Democratic parties he doesn’t even control all the members of their committees (just the majorities).

And he doesn’t control ALL the elected officials from those parties.

For example, three members of the Village Board are Republican, one is a Democrat and one has submitted paper-work to become a Democrat.  AND NONE OF THEM ANSWER TO RALPH!

On the Town Board, along with Caruso there are two Republicans, one Democrat and one Independent.  One of the Republicans, Marilyn Prestia, echoes every position Ralph puts forward.   She has even reversed her previous positions on various issues now that Ralph is leading her, something that she has never been willing to explain.

But the other three councilmen have stood up to Ralph and prevented his repeated attempts to take powers from department heads and the Town Board itself and give those powers to himself.

Those three are Robert Hunter (Democrat), Frank Palermo (Independent) and Tim Arone  (Republican) .

That fellow Republican Tim Arone has stood in the way of Caruso’s power grab is especially galling to Ralph.

And Ralph doesn’t accept being told “no.” 

Ralph tried to keep Arone from being reelected by denying him a place on the Republican ballot, but Arone carried petitions and won the right to primary for the nomination,

So on Thursday, September 10^th, Woodbury Republicans will have to choose among Tim Arone, Lyn Prestia and Raymond Cooper.

If you want Caruso to have three votes on the board you will vote for Prestia and Cooper.

If you want an independent Town Board that doesn’t act in lock step with Ralph you'll vote for Arone.

I hope you will vote for Arone, and neither of Ralph’s choices.

To read other posts by Uncle Betty click here

You Can't Tell The Players Without A Scorecard (2005)

Bob Donnelly was the Democratic Committee chair.  He was an overt follower of Ralph Caruso.  It didn’t really matter much in 2005 because Woodbury was in the habit of only electing Republicans.

Back then the Woodbury Town Board was made up entirely of Republicans, but Caruso's control was tenuous.  Two board members Supervisor Sheila Conroy and Councilwoman Lorraine McNeill, were completely independent.

Two more, Colleen Campbell and Gerri Gianzaro, who had up ‘til then voted Ralph’s way, were breaking away from him.  This left Ralph with only one puppet on the board: Michael Aronowitz.

So Ralph, Donnelly and John Burke agreed that John should run for Supervisor as a Democrat.

John's running mates were Darlene Reveille and Amidee (Bo) Haviland.  They knew they could tell Darlene what to do, but Bo was a loose cannon, all over the place in his positions. So Ralph hedged his bets by having Henry (Hank) Sullivan run as an independent. 

Despite the fact that Bo shared the Democratic ticket with John, John put Sullivan's sign on his lawn.  

When Democrats complained John took down Sullivan’s sign leaving only his own and Darlene's.  If he put up a sign for Bo it wasn't visible.

The day before the election Ralph and John put out a flyer lying about Sheila Conroy's record (see link).

John won, but independent minded Republicans Gianzaro and Mike Queenan beat Ralph’s candidates, leaving Ralph with only Burke and Aronowitz on the board.

Next: 2006.

Ralph Caruso, Party Guy (part 2)

Woodbury Democratic Committee

This is the real joker in the deck.  

Under Democratic Chairmen Bob Donnelly and then Manny Mangual, Caruso has had tremendous influence over the Democratic Committee.

With new Chairwoman Willa Freiband things may change.  That will depend in large part on how she is able to deal with Ralph's puppets on the committee and the large number of shadow members who never show up, but give their proxies to Ralph's people.

In the next few posts we'll present some highlights from the past ten years.

The Uncle Plans To Enter The 21st Century

At the suggestion of a favorite nephew the Uncle is hoping to figure out how to move this blog to Facebook.

Samantha Koyak Armstrong, expect a phone call.

Where's Part 2?

Sorry for the delay, but as I review the past ten years of Woodbury politics I am reminded (stunned) by how convoluted and corrupt it's been. In pretty much all cases that's due to Ralph Caruso.

I've been spending time double checking the facts and coming up with proof. 

Also, it should be worth hearing from the Woodbury Democratic Committee which meets tonight (Monday) at 7:45 in the Senior Center.  Try to come.  It will be interesting to listen to Tommy Burke and Bill Mullooly try to explain double crossing their own party.

Ralph Caruso, Party Guy (part 1)

In the previous post (see below) I said that Caruso controlled three and a half of Woodbury's political parties.

What does that mean?


# 1. Woodbury Republican Committee
When he became Town Supervisor Ralph gave up the chairmanship and installed his first lieutenant Don Siebold.  Ralph still controls the majority of the members and makes all the decisions.

# 2. Preserve Woodbury
aka
Citizens to Preserve Woodbury
aka
Committee for the Preservation of Woodbury
aka
The Perversion Party
Chairman: Ralph Caruso

# 3. Woodbury Conservative Party
Years ago, under Hank Sosa, the Woodbury Conservative Party was an independent group that refused to do Caruso's bidding.  But Hank is gone and Warren Martin is now the chair and the party exists merely to give Ralph's Republicans another line on the ballot.


But what's that "half" party all about?

Ah, tune in tomorrow

The Reign Of Confusion

This might get a little confusing.  

That's not an accident.  

The harder this is to follow the happier Ralph will be, so we're going to have to go slow.

In September there will be a Republican primary to choose two candidates to run for the town council and members of the Woodbury Republican committee.

In November we'll all go to the polls to elect a town supervisor, two town council members, a village  mayor and two village trustees.

There will be seven different parties running candidates.

Ralph Caruso controls three and a half of them.

Pay attention, there'll be a quiz.

Lovely Nap, But Time To Wake Up

The political beasts of Woodbury are starting to act up again, so it's time the Uncle got out of bed and got back to work.

Now, where are those coffee filters?