At Monday night’s village board meeting it was kick Trustee Hartman night. Now it’s my turn to kick Trustee Hartman. The mayor questioned Trustee Hartman on a letter from an attorney to the village attorney on his opinion on the conflict of interest of Trustee Hartman’s vote on the fire district. Both attorneys and Hartman agreed not to bring it up at the meeting. The mayor seeing an opportunity to try and discredit Trustee Hartman brought it up anyway and insisted Trustee Hartman answer even though the village attorney and Hartman had agreed again not to bring it up.
At the previous meeting, Trustee Hartman brought up for discussion changing the qualifications for fire chief. The law states that the chief has to reside in the village; Trustee Hartman wanted to change it to be the same as the chief of police, a 5-mile radius of the village. He said he had not discussed it with the fire chief who was at Monday’s board meeting and stated that he did not know about it but he was okay with it.
During public comment a candidate for the Rebuild Owego Party again tried to discredit Hartman saying that Hartman brought it up without the chief’s knowledge as if it was wrong. The candidate should have known that any trustee could bring up village business without anybody’s permission. Why are they trying to discredit Hartman? Is it because Hartman is doing a good job, or because he shows he cares about the village? I have to say that Hartman was a real gentleman and did not lose his cool. He is doing a great job!
The Rebuild Owego Party is again running a scare campaign, saying the Taxpayers First Party is trying to get rid of the Fire Department and the Police Department. They are even saying the second ward candidate organized the “I want my OPD”. She should be thinking how we are going to pay for my “OPD”.
If it was the Taxpayers First Party agenda to get rid of the police department they could have passed a resolution to disband the police department. They have the votes to do it but they didn’t. They wanted public opinion on what they wanted.
What the village needs is a new leader who puts the village first and someone who doesn’t just get his picture and name in the news.
Sincerely,
Judy Legursky
Owego, N.Y.
