Letters

At the August 8 Southampton Village Board meeting, Mayor Bill Manger altered the village agenda to remove public comment for residents and employees at the beginning of the meeting. This was part of his ongoing intimidation against village employees.

Thanks to Trustee Ed Simioni, who campaigned on transparency, the agenda is now posted 72 hours in advance, versus Manger’s standard of 24 hours. This exposed Manger’s manipulation of the agenda. It’s clear that Manger feared hearing from village employees and needed time to intimidate them into silence. In fact, employees were explicitly told that they were not allowed to speak. This follows Manger’s previous gag order on village employees.

Silencing dissent is the behavior of an authoritarian government.

The present mayor’s combative approach with the Civil Service Employees Association is jeopardizing the fair and agreed-upon provisions of a contract negotiated by the previous mayor.

Not only has Trustee Simioni tried to improve transparency by making the agenda more available, he has demonstrated that he actually listens to the concerns of residents and acts on them. Mr. Simioni has reviewed my village real estate tax grievance filing and has interviewed the village assessor to try to determine why my wife’s and my filing was the only one of the six filed that was completely rejected. Mr. Simioni is also trying to determine why the village lied in a Freedom of Information Law response by saying that 250 grievances were filed. This will all be explained by Trustee Simioni in an open, public trustees meeting in the future.

Trustee Simioni is showing us what good government looks like — something we have been sorely missing under the incumbent administration.

David Rung

Southampton Village