Board Suspension a Misfire

Well the blogoshere has been a buzz over the apparent suspension of a Department Head, the Youth Director. Emails to this publication paint a picture of inappropriate disciplinary action without regard for a hearing under Civil Service Law Article 75, not to mention the UPSEU contract which was apparently not consulted.

One of the biggest questions is when the board met and acted on the unpaid 30 day suspension which is likely to to be reversed for a variety of procedural mis-steps, (nothing unusual when it comes to Mark Evers)

Did the board act in one of its two Executive Sessions held last week? If so they utterly failed to disclose the action and vote taken to the public for inclusion in the minutes.

If they did not act at those executive sessions, when did they meet, did they notice a meeting or did they just pull a Comprehensive Plan Committee type blunder and not bother to adhere to the open meetings law?

Word is that the Youth Director is being targeted by Lou Desso who has been using the hirings at the summer camp as an IOU factory for his campaign for the county legislature. Apparently Desso is hoping to manuver his son into the position who apparently had a rough year in the coaching world which we won't go into here.

Nonetheless there will likely be a rescinding of the mysterious vote of the town board, if there was one, to suspend the Youth Director without pay for 30 days. Funny they act so rashly and in so doing, create another mess to clean up like their Comp Plan Committee and their now lost water contract with Poestenkill.

We also hear attorneys have been retained including one Jack Casey, the Rensselaer County Republican Chairman who got Evers, Desso and Kern to line up and vote for his party's judicial candidate so he would feel like signing those Wilson Pakula waivers Conservatives need to run as Republicans in the general election. I'm sure they'll agree with whatever Mr. Casey says are the facts beginning with an end to the suspension.

While we heard accounts of the reason for the suspension, we will not post them here. We will however, repeat the claim that the wrong person is being punished for the alleged offense which is supervisory in nature involving the discipline of children at the summer camp who get out of line. The question is who is the supervisor of the counselors on a day to day basis? The Youth Director apparently believes another employee has that responsibility and was also apparently not at the camp when the alleged incident occurred.

Oh yes, did we forget to mention Lou Desso is the Chairman of the Youth Committee and with an election looming, someone other than he must be responsible for anything that goes wrong. Hmm, who should it be?