Letters

Recently, Trustee Ed Simioni has embarked on a public display of self-promotion, announcing in this paper, and again during his board meeting comments, the charities that were gifted, based on his commitment to donate his salary after taxes. This will ultimately end up as a tax write off for the well-off “business” man. His public proclamation of charitable giving was confusing and cringy, at best. While I am familiar with the terms “green-washing” and “window dressing,” Simioni has done one thing of significance in his uneventful term as trustee: He has brought back into our vernacular the concept of a paid “indulgence.”

Putting aside his attempts to charm, looking at his platform and focus, Simioni presents himself as an outsider, a change agent, a disrupter. If he hadn’t served on the Planning Commission for 18 years and trustee for the last year, this could be a plausible approach. However, in his time on the board, he has only offered personal accusations and attempts to shine light on matters that have been before him, the board and in the public sphere for many years. His disdain for energy conservation initiatives, his uninformed plea to reverse course on a sewer system that will modernize and make our village and aquifer cleaner, and even his sudden position on Pond Lane is highly suspect. We all know that finding a site for one sewer treatment plant is difficult; imagine, Simioni’s ill-thought-out plan of multiple septic sites?

Where was this rogue disrupter and thought leader during the years of open conversation at board meetings, presentations by professionals and meetings of various task forces — where was his voice then?

While I may not agree with the contradictory nature of Rob Coburn’s campaign promises, I can absolutely respect that he has used his position on the sustainability committee and as resident (a regular board meeting attendee) to commit time and thought in the open and public engagement with the board — as is afforded every resident.

The most egregious “action” of Trustee Simioni’s term as trustee is that he has not only encouraged but provided an unlicensed and unqualified resident to give counsel and advise those seeking to file grievances on their village taxes. A public official providing an unlicensed resource to something so serious is reckless at best. Neither Trustee Simioni, nor the unlicensed resident, have credentials sufficient to advise on something so complex as property valuation calculations. This is all done at his “open house” albeit clandestine meetings that he holds away from Village Hall — the village he has sworn to uphold and protect.

I am dubbing Mr. Simioni the “no-show pony candidate.” He certainly is prancing around but with nothing to show for it.

Robert Carpenter

Hampton Bays