May 1, 2008
Briefing Book
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Paging Cincinnatus
Lewisboro Republicans are finally coming to grips with the fact that elections have consequences, particularly when you lose elections. Such was the case last November, when the Lewisboro Republican Party saw its four-to-one Town Board majority turn into a three-to-two deficit. Losing elections means losing the ability to control events and to make choices for the town. Two of those choices — the town attorney and the chairpersonship of the Committee for the Disabled — reflect recent events.
The ongoing dispute over the status of the town attorney resembles a slow-motion train wreck — dispassionate observers know it will not end well, yet remain transfixed. Town Attorney Jessica Bacal still needs 10 continuous years of service as a Town Board member (eight years) and a full-time town attorney to qualify for lifetime fully paid retiree medical benefits, courtesy of the overburdened Lewisboro taxpayer.
Attorney-client relations have deteriorated to the point where Democratic Town Supervisor Edward Brancati has hired an outside attorney to advise him on how to deal with the Republican town attorney. Mr. Brancati, believing that Ms. Bacal’s position is a full-time job, has ordered Ms. Bacal, no longer under the protection of a Republican administration, to show up at the Town House from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, and work only on town matters. Ms. Bacal has refused, since it might be difficult under those circumstances to perform her other full-time duties at her Katonah law practice.
While it’s common for a client to fire an attorney, it’s rare for an attorney to insist on representing a client who says the relationship is over. Ms. Bacal’s situation recalls that Seinfeld episode where Jerry is stunned that his girlfriend refuses to acknowledge that he’s breaking up with her. (“What time is it, Lisa? 9:30? We’ve been breaking up for 10 hours?”) Ms. Bacal clings to her job with a tenacity that resembles, in the words of Saint Barack of Obama, those bitter middle-class voters who cling to their guns and religion in economically tenuous times.
In the midst of all this politicking, it’s amusing to hear suggestions that government, which after all is the result of politics, should instead be free of politics, thus allowing those with a stake in the status quo to pursue their interests without the inconvenience of being subject to the whims of the electorate. Such is the case with the Committee for the Disabled and its outgoing chair, Melissa Cunniffe, a Republican, who last week admonished Mr. Brancati for not re-appointing her to that position and instead considering a Democrat for the post, which, she claimed, should be free of politics. Well.
The town government’s execrable record of non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act has been a political issue in every campaign since 1992. What has the committee done to further the cause of compliance? In Ms. Cunniffe’s words, the committee has “pointed out areas that needed improving” and “illustrated” and “pointed out a need” for compliance so that the town government could “begin to contemplate necessary changes.” In other words, they nag the town government, a task at which liberal Democrats would be most capable.
Simultaneously, Ms. Cunniffe objected to the Democratic town supervisor’s action against a Republican appointee by suggesting that she wasn’t really a Republican. “The only thing he seems to know about me is I’m a Republican,” she averred, which she maintains is misleading because Ms. Cunniffe is a vegetarian, an organic gardener and “a huge supporter of Barack Obama.”
For someone who says politics shouldn’t matter, Ms. Cunniffe went out of her way to assert she has the right kind of politics for the new administration. What if Ms. Cunniffe enjoyed a good prime rib on occasion? Or thought that Newt Gingrich should be President? What if she decided to cling to guns and religion out of bitterness, like we do here at Briefing Book? Would she have still been the odds-on favorite to chair the Committee for the Disabled?
A new administration has the right to appoint its own people, for any reason or none at all. To do otherwise would mean establishing a permanent, sclerotic town bureaucracy impervious to change. Those who serve should view their tenure as did Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who left his home to answer Rome’s call to public service. When he was done, Cincinnatus thanked Rome for the privilege of serving and returned to his farm. The republic continued.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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