Section: Editorial

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Not Enough Ado about Poo 'round Town

March 11, 2009

When an editor at Crotonblog nearly stepped in an enormous pile of dog excrement last Saturday, March 7, in front of the now-shuttered Italian restaurant on South Riverside Avenue, we realized that tutto wasn’t so bene. So we made a mental note of its presence. Imagine our surprise to discover this morning that the indelicate pile has been an impediment to pedestrian progress for five days now. Unlucky pedestrians have stepped in it and have our sympathies. Portions of this dung pile have gotten a foothold and have been carried all over Croton.

March 7, 2009, Day 1

Must have been a St. Bernard—or a horse.

March 11, 2009, Day 5

Not exactly footprints in the sands of time.

We know that it’s the responsibility of dog owners to clean up after their animals. We know that it’s the responsibility of property owners to keep their sidewalks safe, clean and free of debris. We also know that except for the fire and police departments, Village government shuts down over the weekend. And when a property owner fails to comply, come Monday, that’s when the village’s code enforcement officer is supposed to take action to deter a repeat offense. Under Mayor Schmidt’s management, that does not happen.

In Mayor Schmidt’s Croton, nothing is ever done to make the Village look clean and tidy even though there are vacant stores everywhere. A do-nothing mayor presides over a village that in highly trafficked places looks shabby, unkempt and neglected. Yes, we said neglected. The mayor, a notorious hot-head, neglects to protect residents from irresponsible landlords by failing to direct Croton’s highly-paid village manager to enforce its ordinances.

The dumpy appearance of Croton decreases our property values. Then, taxes go up as the value of our homes go down. Next, services are cut to give the appearance of keeping taxes low. And where ever he can, Shifty-Schmidty imposes increasing fees on every kind of Crotonite activity. Yet his lax government ignores the opportunity to gain revenue from fines resulting from code violations.

P.S. An editor of Crotonblog was stalked by two self-appointed guardians of the public weal (definition) in an automobile with NY license plate DVE-9771 who was reporting over a cell phone on our presence and interest in the excrement. Both are members of the Croton fire department.

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Schmidt's Croton, July 2008

March 1, 2009

Under Schmidt, village code violations are not enforced and routine maintenance is ignored.

Link to set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28307334@N07/sets/72157614536239811/
Link to slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28307334@N07/sets/72157614536239811/show/

For more of the same, please visit http://www.schmidtbrennankonig.com.

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Doris, You Bitch!

February 26, 2009

By now, many of heard of the dreaded NCN forum run by Mayor Schmidt loyalist and convicted local vandal Maria Cudequest.

Over there, and despite touts of civility ruling the day, the lynch mob rules. And if you’re Kieran Murrray, or somehow connected to the Harmon Econmic Development Committee, this is the kind shit, from Doris, that you need to prepare for:

A SUBJECT NO ONE HAS YET ADDRESSED IS WHO WILL REALLY BENEFIT FROM THIS GRANDIOSE PLAN OF MR. MURRAY? AS I UNDERSTAND IT, MR. MURRAY IS A DEVELOPER, ALSO ON THE COMMITTE IS JULIE WIEGAM, WIFE OF CANDIDATE LEO WIEGMAN WHO IS AN ARCHITECT. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO SMELLS SMETHING ROTEN IN DENMARK? ALSO HARMON RESIDENTS NEED TO KNOW THAT WHEN MR. MURRAY WAS THE OWNER OF THE APARTMENT BUILDING ON CROTON POINT AVENUE, THE GATEWAY TO CROTON, THE RESIDENTS OF WAYNE STREET HAD TO GO BEFORE OUR VILLAGE BOARD TO TRY TO BRING HIM INTO COMPLIANCE WITH OUR CODES. GARBAGE PAILS WERE ON THE ROAD 24/7 THE PLACE WAS A MESS AND THEY HAD TO CONTEND WITH CARS THAT CAME AND WENT AT ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT. SOME OF THE RESIDENTS THERE WERE HEARD TO CALL HIM A SLUM LANDLORD, OR SO THE GRAPEVINE SAYS.

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Mayor Schmidt and the Case of the Missing YouTube Channel

January 22, 2009

Readers, please note that the video box on our homepage is no longer displaying clips from Kwilly’s YouTube channel.

Unfortunately, Crotonblog learned that Kevin W. Davis, aka Kwilly, decided to remove certain videos from his channel after being threatened with a lawsuit by the Croton Republican Committee on behalf of Mayor Gregory Schmidt.

For readers who never saw Mr. Davis’s clever political videos (screenshots below), he presented video clips of village board meetings interspersed with explanatory captions, and accompanied by appropriate music. A Star Wars parody was among the themes documenting the mayor’s hot-tempered mistreatiment of residents and humiliation of fellow board members during televised board meetings. It seems the Republicans are so thin-skinned they couldn’t take Stewart-Colbert parodying common on TV.

Mayor Schmidt’s unprofessional conduct is nothing new. For nearly six years as a trustee and mayor, he has exhibited explosively intimidating behavior toward anyone who disagrees with his unusual approach to mayoring.

Mr. Davis was not alone in noting Mayor Schmidt’s belligerent style. Over the past three years, Crotonblog has published its own verbatim clips on Google Video and included them in our editorial blog posts about Croton’s Republican mayor, trustees, and supporters.

Hence, here are some clips from our Google Video archive. For having posted these, we anticipate receipt of a lawyer letter from the Republican Committee. We welcome a test of our free speech rights.

Screenshots of the missing YouTube channel

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Crotonblog, Refreshed

January 12, 2009

After an admittedly long time, the Crotonblog site redesign is well, pretty much up-to-date. Of course, a website is never done. Rather, they are in perpetual state of “works in progress.” That said, we’d appreciate your feedback on the newly-refreshed site.

Some other enhancements:

• To simplify the commenting process, readers are no longer required to be logged into TypeKey to leave a comment.
• Also new are threaded comments, which creates the ability to directly feedback with another commenter.
• Our search engine now provides results from lots of different local sources that includes; Crotonspace, HudsonRiver.com, HudsonValley.org, LoHud.com, The New York Times, News 12 Westchester, North County News, The River Journal, Westchester.com, Westchester.gov, The Wall Street Journal, and the Westchester County Business Journal. Click here to try it out.
• On every blog post is a small, green ShareThis button that makes it a snap to forward to a friend.
• Classified ads, powered by a Craigslist feed, have been added to the homepage. To insure that your ad shows up here, be sure to indicate that your item is for sale in Croton on Hudson when posting.
• Local news headlines, powered by Yahoo! Pipes, returns search results for Croton on Hudson from Google News.

To expand our editorial offerings for ‘09, we are looking for three new bloggers to contribute to Crotonblog. If you’re interested, please tell us in three paragraphs about your column idea by using this form. Nom de Plumes welcome.

Please send us your Letters to the Editor by clicking here.

Oh, happy New Year too.

— The editors

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Crotonblog Endorses the Obama-Biden Ticket

November 3, 2008

In the past, we have not made a practice of endorsing any candidates for national public office. However, because of the significance of the issues at stake in the upcoming election on Tuesday, November 4th, and because of the despicable way the McCain-Palin campaign has been conducted, Crotonblog breaks with its tradition and urges the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

We must admit that we were impressed when John McCain was hoping to be nominated by the Republican Party and took a firm stand against torture. But that was then and this is now. No longer is John McCain the affable old maverick who would banter easily with reporters on his bus called the “Straight Talk Express.” It is expected that every politician will fib a little about generalities, and hope that they go unnoticed. But no one anticipated a McCain campaign that scrupulously avoided the issues worrying voters today: the faltering economy, falling real estate values, a looming recession and rising unemployment—all the product of the inept Bush administration from which Mr. McCain has tried vainly to distance himself.

Instead we are exposed to a campaign built solely on lies and misrepresentations about Mr. McCain’s opponent. But the lies go even further. Mr. McCain even lies about himself in the face of incontrovertible evidence. The economy is the chief concern of voters today. John McCain was captured on tape saying, “The issue of economics is not something that I’ve understood as well as I should.” This tape is played frequently on opposition commercials, yet Mr. McCain flatly insists that he never made this statement.

In addition to having been a consistent supporter of the policies of George W. Bush, John McCain made a ludicrously unsuitable selection for the vice presidency. His choice of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska for less that two years, and former mayor of a “city” of some 8,000 residents, who was plucked from political obscurity, demonstrates that he lacks the good judgment that is the prime qualification for the job of president. In this, Mr. McCain has also shown himself to be impulsive and irresponsible, willing to risk everything on one throw of the dice.

McCain’s choice of a running mate on the eve of the Republican National Convention set off an initial wave of excitement later belied by the reality of her shallowness. At the outset, Mrs. Palin revealed her abysmal ignorance early in the campaign by being unable to name any newspaper or magazine that she read regularly or identifying a single Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed. She was immediately shielded from contact with reporters who might ask embarrassing questions at press conferences. Revelations about her costly campaign wardrobe and bloopers about her interpretation of the vice president’s job description are now raising fresh fears that Sarah Palin is dragging down the Republican ticket.

Continue reading "Crotonblog Endorses the Obama-Biden Ticket."

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The Beginning of the End? Or Is It the End of the Beginning?

September 14, 2008

We at Crotonblog apologize for the extended hiatus from publishing that occurred during the past month. As it turned out, we never made it to Paris or even la plage at Deauville. In fact, we never got closer to any plage other than one on Cape Cod. Sun and sand and the cleansing vistas of a serene Plymouth Bay from the windswept dunes of the Cape invited reflection.

We had a lot to reflect on. Crotonblog first saw the light of day on January 14, 2005. That’s 1,358 days or three years and 245 long days ago. We made a few mistakes (we like to call them missteps) since then. But we also learned something about the perils of publishing. Our intention when we started Crotonblog was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Some of the stories we reported had unforeseen results and seem to have “stirred up the animals,” as an unhappy zookeeper might say.

We’ll spare readers a detailed inventory of some of the incidents we have experienced that might make the milk of human kindness turn sour in anybody.

• Our children being intimidated in Croton schools for their parents’ supposed sins.
• Receiving anonymous hate mail addressed to our associates and us.
• Receiving an odoriferous package of “gorilla feces,” also sent anonymously.
• Being subjected to harassment—a nighttime alcoholic visitation and harangue by a drunken citizen of this village of brotherly love.
• Being stalked and followed by another citizen for printing—from the public record—the truth about his past tax evasions.

We could continue with this doleful recital, but we think you get the idea. Can we be blamed for thinking that the bloom has gone off the rose?

Perhaps readers will understand why we have spent the past month trying to decide whether the game is worth the candle. We are simply not bold enough to allow our decision to be based on the turn of a card or the toss of a coin. Two readers have already given us a glimmer of encouragement in their comments to our piece about Crotonblog’s vacation. Another longtime reader and contributor sent us an e-mail describing how much he misses Crotonblog.

So, we leave the future of Crotonblog to Croton’s citizens of good will. We’re not asking you to tell us that you love us. The big question is: Despite cowardly attempts at intimidation that are bound to continue, should we resume publication of Crotonblog? Please tell us: What would you do?

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Bruce Apar's Ethical Double Standard (and Goof)

July 23, 2008

In the 99th Assembly district bitter words are being exchanged between challenger John Degnan and incumbent Greg Ball. The latter is accused of mailing out campaign literature containing lies about his opponent.

The North County News, which advertised for a copy editor recently, still needs the services of a good copy editor or proofreader. The current edition features an editorial written by Editor in Chief + Publisher Bruce Apar from which we extracted the following gem:

“A Degnan supporter has been sending anonymous letters to Ball supporters that claim to tell the truth about Ball. Whoever it is didn’t even have the strength of his or own convictions [sic]. Sending anonymous letters is an act of cowardice. Enough already.” (Mr. Apar obviously tripped over “his or her.”)

As the target of many snide remarks from a small band of vicious posters on the NCN chatroom, Crotonblog feels that turnabout is fair play. The phrase “act of cowardice” has been heard before at NCN. When that newspaper began a competing blog unimaginatively called “Croton Blog,” readers who posted comments were required to reveal their identities. Mr. Apar piously explained that anonymous comment on a blog was “an act of cowardice.” The real Crotonblog was regularly reviled for allowing anonymous comments.

NCN’s blog with the copycat name, however, was really a chatroom. It was soon closed down because of low participation. Mr. Apar next started a series of community chatrooms pompously described as “forums.” To encourage participation, the naïve former requirement that posters reveal what Mr. Apar had described as “their own legal names” was abandoned.

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Sick. Sick. Sick.

July 20, 2008

The bucolic village of Croton-on-Hudson is a little corner of Paradise where Happiness with a capital H reigns supreme. Or so one would have to believe to judge by the many protestations of sweetness and light by a small band of residents intent on proclaiming Croton to be a heaven on earth.

But suddenly there is trouble in Paradise. Someone out there doesn’t like Crotonblog. In fact, someone doesn’t like us so much that they took the trouble to mail a package of odoriferous material to us. It arrived yesterday.

Crotonblog is not so much bothered by the contents of this package as we are by the thought that among our neighbors there are people sick enough to go to the trouble and expense to do something like this. It is, we suppose, the ultimate poison pen letter.

Our initial impulse was to turn the matter over to the Croton Police Department. A wise friend advised us not to bother. It does not come within their jurisdiction, he pointed out. He advised us to turn the package and its contents over to the Postal Inspectors. According to our friend, the little-known Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the US Postal Service, have a high rate of success in solving crimes involving use of the mails. Those who have used the mails to defraud or threaten others have found to their sorrow that the Postal Inspectors are relentless and have ways of tracing mailed material or discovering the identities of such mailers.

To the list of those in Croton who have had their tires slashed, their cars keyed, or their houses egged, add the name of Crotonblog. We have been the recipients of a package whose disgusting contents were labeled “Gorilla Crap.” What is so disquieting to us is the thought that out there is a person who did this may be someone among our neighbors, perhaps even among our friends, Chaucer’s “smiler with the knife beneath the cloak.” Someone in Croton sick enough to consider this some kind of a joke.

But there was a telltale giveaway in the package, revealing that the sender was not so clever after all. Crotonblog thinks the residents of Croton should know about the presence of a mentally ill person in our midst. The person who perpetrated this has done more harm to Croton’s image than any public airing of a difference of opinion could have caused.

Sick. Sick. Sick describes the perpetrator to a T, a letter in his name. We’ll withhold the rest of the clues to his identity for the Postal Inspectors. Crotonblog reproduces below a photograph of the contents of the package:

Click image to enlarge.

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A Modest Proposal

July 1, 2008

If our recent inventory of commercial properties reveals anything, it is that when renters decamp they often do not remove the signage and other accoutrements of their occupancy. Instead these discouraging evidences of past occupancy remain, grim reminders in many cases of a failed business venture.

Instead of wringing its collective hands, crying crocodile tears and expressing concern over the sad state of Croton’s commercial properties, there is something that the Schmidt administration can do to remedy this situation. Crotonblog proposes that the village quickly pass an ordinance that would require renters to remove all signage and other evidence of their business presence from the exterior of a rental property. If the renter leaves without abiding by the ordinance, the responsibility then will devolve upon the landlord to remove signage and similar materials within 30 (or 60) days of the renter’s departure, or face a stiff penalty.

A simple step like this would remove an unsightly impediment to rental and facilitate early occupancy of Croton’s numerous unsightly empty properties. It’s a wonder that no one has thought of this solution to a continuing problem a long time ago.

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