Evers & Kern Reject Comprehensive Plan

The voters of North Greenbush are getting yet another taste of reckless conduct of Mark Evers and his sidekick, Ernie Kern. The pair voted against the passage of two years of work, the gift of $51,000 from the taxpayers of Rensselaer County which funded the project and their campaign promise of 2005.

Evers and Kern rushed through a town board meeting that was missing Councilman Alan Michaels who was returning from a business trip by train and voted against the passage of the Comprehensive Plan. Not only was the act reckless, it was a disgrace. County taxpayers funded the plan through the RC IDA. Rensselaer County officials are sure to be disturbed by his actions and contrived reasoning based purely on unseen political motives.

For the past year Evers has engaged in all kinds of actions designed to impede the progress of this plan and the committee of board appointed volunteers which comprised it. From "appointing" political hacks to the committee without a required board vote, to attempts to stop meetings of the commitee with manufactured claims of motives and lack of notice, Mark Evers has nothing to be proud about as a public official.

Is this really what Democratic Chairman Jeff Spain and his narrow committee majority support? Will brother Al Spain sit back and let Evers throw all this hard work into the political black hole that drives Evers and Germano's ally on the planning board, Bill Madsen? Yes, Evers even tried to to the nonsense that the Planning Board had a valid legal claim to be lead agency in an effort to stop the town board from voting on the plan as lead agency. Legally, the planning board cannot hold lead agency status for SEQUR unless it either funded the project or participated int its completion. It did neither. That fact was apparently discussed at last evening meeting and made Ernie Kern look about as foolish as a screen door in a submarine. Kern has developed a reputation for saying things without understand or knowing what he's talking about. This topic was another downfall for him last evening.

Without the passage of this plan, residents are again at the mercy of developers and it has been clear for some time that Evers and Kern are tools of the development community. Honor is a concept that most people understand, strive for and respect. Honor is absent in these two men who should hang their heads in shame.

Evers and Kern also acted to sabotage a required vote on the town wide referendum to bailout Water District 14. This is sure to be acted on by a Court which is deciding a case brought against the Town Board for disregarding State Law and our right to vote. More on both topics tomorrow.