Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: You're listening to the Weighing In podcast, the show that brings you inside the Daily Gazette's featured news column.
And now, here's your host, writer of the weigh in in column, andrew, wait.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Thanks for listening. I'm andrew, waite. This week we're going to talk about politics in the town of Niskiuna. And over the course of the last several years, just some of the disputes we've seen have been fairly petty, with anonymous mudslinging on social media and in emails and then several lawsuits against the town emerging as a result. And last week, another controversy emerged and its cartoonishness just really seems to me to exemplify all of the pettiness. And I wrote a piece that was detailing as much. But before we get to that, I wanted to bring in Ted REM Snyder, who is our reporter who covers Niski una, and he was the reporter who broke the news about this latest kerfuffle. So thanks for being here, Ted.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: So just take me into that October 24 meeting during public comment set the scene. What's happening?
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Well, it was a public budget hearing for the proposed NISC unit budget that the Supervisor Puccioni, Jamie Puccioni, has put forth. It's still a couple of weeks away. November 16 will probably be the final vote on that, but it was a chance for the public to give their comments on the budget. And I'd say about three quarters of people were supportive. But there were some people that were negative against it, including Linda Rizzo, former Democratic Committee member who gave extensive comments during the meeting opposing the budget. And as a few people before her had, she went past the three minute time limit, but she was not cut off. She continued to go on. Probably about five minutes passed and during her comments, she interrupted her comments to say to a Supervisor Puccioni, who was standing right in front sitting right in front of her, she said, why are you staring at Councilmember Boskowitz? Please look at me. When and she then kind of cartoonishly said, do you like his suit? Do you like his tie? Is that why you're staring? And then Council member John Delarada interjected jokingly and said, oh, he is wearing a very nice tie. And people laughed and it kind of moved on from that.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: What did you think when you heard.
[00:02:40] Speaker C: Mean I thought it was OD.
Mean I was sitting there. I didn't see her staring. It didn't seem anything out of the ordinary to mean. Supervisor Puccioni Leia said she was looking over at Council Member Mosquitz to see if he would interject to kind of correct the record from some of the things that Linda Rizzo was saying. But it was nothing out of the ordinary for the hundreds of town board meetings I go to. There was no didn't seem any dirty looks or anything. It was just kind of.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Then in the next couple of days, you learned there was an email exchange about it. So how did you find out about this?
[00:03:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
So I received an anonymous email two days after the meeting. I received an email that Councilmember Mosquitoes had sent to Supervisor Puccioni the day after the meeting last Wednesday. Where he asked, and I'll read some of it here, he said, as was evidenced by last night's public comment and the multiple phone calls I've received since the meeting, your glaring at me not only last night, but for the last 20 months has been noticed. I've ignored it up until now, but can no longer do that. And he continues on like that and says, I wanted you to be aware that it appears to be intimidating, harassing, and hostile. And he concludes it by saying, I'm considering all of my options.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Right. And didn't specify what he meant by all of his options.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: When I asked him later that day what he meant, he declined to comment what his options were, whether he would file human resources complaint or even as far as a lawsuit or something. I have no idea what he means by all his options. Exactly.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: And you wrote a story essentially saying that he had written this email.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I received the email anonymously and then confirmed that it was accurate, that it was a real email. And Supervisor Puccioni provided her response to Mr. Mosque with her email response that day, which was saying, I did not intend to be intimidating. I didn't mean to take it that way. I don't want you to take it that way. And, yeah, it caused a little baruhaha.
And all this comes a week before she's up for reelection. He's not up for reelection this year, but Supervisor Puccioni to run against Republican challenger Brian Bacchus. So there's a question of what the motivations were behind sending this email and.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Who even leaked it. Right.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: People speculating it could be leaked by either side by the mosquito side for political gain or by Puccioni side to make it look like she was the victim of some kind of odd complaints about her looks and glaring. Which, as I mentioned, that in the story, too, that I go to these meetings, 95% of them, at least over the last year, and I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary as far as her looking at him or anything like that. If something like that has happened, it hasn't been obvious, at least from the audience.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: What have you seen in terms of the dynamic between Moskowitz and Puccioni? Has there been it's been civil.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: I've seen much worse things at other meetings. In other like, I haven't even noticed any really sarcastic comments or anything.
The Niscuna meetings are pretty orderly, and they're very polite. Sometimes there'll be a public comment that will kind of be kind of spicy or kind of get things riled up a little. But as far as the council members and the supervisor like, their interactions, I don't sense a lot of tension from the audience, like watching the stage. There's no sarcastic remarks or anything like that, usually during these meetings.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: And yet we kind of have this repeated cycle of anonymous complaints, generating lawsuits, et cetera.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Yeah. The Nisky failsuit. That kind of predates my time covering the town. But, yeah, that was also another, similar, more mudslinging, anonymously and on social media. Yeah, maybe there's stuff that's kind of, like, simmering beneath tensions simmering beneath? That don't really get out in public until people start sending these anonymous messages to each other. It's kind of OD like that.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: What are you expecting to come from this, if anything? You think the town's going to move past this?
[00:06:47] Speaker C: I would think so.
I would expect that the next board meeting next Thursday. You might have, like, a joke to diffuse it or something. I would expect Pucci and your boscoist to make a joke. I don't mean to glare at you or something. Don't take it the wrong way or I would think that would mean unless it goes the other way and gets worse, you never know. But I don't know if Mr. Mosquitoes is going to. He says he's considering his option.
We'll see if he makes a move on that. But I wouldn't expect that.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we'll see. And we'll be reading your coverage. Thanks, Ted.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: You're listening to the Weighing In podcast with columnist Andrew Waite.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: So now that we've got that background from Ted, here's the piece I wrote.
Niski una has a glaring problem. The latest political pettiness literally has to do with allegations about town supervisor Jamie Puccioni's supposed menacing glances.
Sadly, the cartoonish controversy is just the most recent in a string of sophomoric disputes that have been a glaring problem plaguing town politics over the past several years.
Last week's events only reinforce worries that the drama will continue. Puccioni told me it's to manufacture a crisis when there is no crisis. It's reminiscent of issues that were happening almost two years ago.
As detailed by reporter Ted REM Snyder, the current kerfuffle stems from the NISCA Unitown board's only Republican member Jason Moskowitz accusing Democratic Town Supervisor Puccioni of casting intimidating glares in his direction during town board meetings.
The issue came to a head during the October 24 meeting when Niskyuna resident Linda Rizzo offered a sharp comment to Puccioni. I don't know why you're looking at Jason Moskowitz. I'm talking to you, Supervisor Puccioni, Rizzo said. You keep staring at him. Maybe you like the color of his suit.
It's a very nice tie he's wearing tonight, another town council person said. In an effort to lighten the mood, insert laugh track here.
Rizzo's comments could have been shrugged off, but then Moskowitz thickened the plot with an email to Puccioni the next day.
Your glaring at me not only last night, but for the last 20 months has been noticed. I have ignored it up until now, but can no longer do that, wrote moskowitz. In a conversation with me this week, Moskowitz stood by his concern, saying he felt obligated to raise the issue privately with the supervisor after a member of the public noted the staring. Moskowitz ended his October 25 email to Puccioni, which REM Snyder obtained from anonymous source with a vague threat, saying, quote, I am considering all my options. He declined to elaborate on what he meant by all his options. What a cliffhanger. I don't blame you if you want to switch the channel. I mean, how silly can things get? Even if Puccioni has been grilling a fellow town board member, is Moskowitz, who's not up for re election this fall, really that distressed by a look the real estate agent truly feels. The glaring quote appears to be intimidating, harassing and hostile. As he noted in an email to Puccioni, he told me this week, it's uncomfortable, and that's the only word I'm going to use. As Puccioni sardonically quipped to REM Snyder If someone wants to know what it looks like when I glare, they should ask my husband. The dialogue sizzles. In reality, Moskowitz's allegations are callow at best and sexist at worst.
Would somebody be making this accusation if I were a man? I don't know the answer to that, but it's certainly worth pondering, said Puccioni, who is a professor at the University of Albany in the School of Education.
In response, Moskowitz suggested that the alleged staring would be taken more seriously if he were the one accused. Let's reverse the roles, he told me. I think the perception would be a lot different.
Of course, Moskowitz's allegations wouldn't garner this much attention if they weren't yet another example of childish political games in Niski Una, an affluent suburban community. The shenanigans are worthy of a TV show, with the conflict's rising action no doubt being the At Niskey Fails gate, a befitting handle. In that case, Caroline McGraw, daughter of former Democratic Niskey Unitown board member Denise Murphy McGraw, sued a dozen defendants for their alleged connections to the anonymous Twitter handle At Nisky Fails, although in August, a state Supreme Court judge dismissed the case against five of those twelve defendants, seeking 1 million in damages. McGraw, a 2018 Nisky Una high school graduate who in 2020 ran as a delegate for then Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, claimed the At Nisky Fails account leveled false and defamatory statements against her from October 2021 to April 2022.
The defendants claimed the lawsuit is simply targeting the McGraw family's political opponents. And what's the source of all this hurly burly? Would you have guessed that some of it has to do with Caroline McGraw working at the Town Pool?
In a June 2021 ethics complaint brought by none other than Moskowitz? Prior to his election to the Town Board in 2021, town Board member McGraw was alleged to have acted unethically when she voted on a resolution that allowed her daughter to be hired as a Town Pool employee.
Ten months after the ethics complaint was filed, the Town's Ethics Board found that the elder McGraw, a longtime board member and former deputy supervisor who lost her 2021 bid to remain on the Town Board, did indeed violate the Town's code of ethics. But perhaps in a demonstration of how inconsequential all of this bickering is, the ethics board ruled that no punishment was necessary.
Moskowitz told me, I definitely don't think that nepotism and violating the town's code of ethics are petty. Violating the town's code of ethics, I would say, is extremely serious. That's the code that, as elected officials, we're bound by.
But when Moskowitz and Puccioni were hit with ethics complaints of their own in May, after voting to hire Moskowitz's cousin to work at the town pool, Moskowitz called the complaint meritless. Has a sitcom yet been written about any of this? Maybe a soap opera? And none of this even details the Kennedy Project situation in which another anonymous social media account was accused of wrongdoing. Specifically, the handle was condemned last year by the Anti Defamation League's regional office for using Nazi imagery in digs against the state Senate campaign of Democratic candidate Michelle Osterlick, who is Jewish. Nor does this get into the ongoing legal battle between the town's former deputy police chief Michael Stevens and former Republican town supervisor Yasmin Syed.
Stevens is suing for damages after Syed publicly shared allegations that emerged via an anonymous email about Stevens'behavior, including allegations that he referred to a Muslim police officer as a terrorist and suggested a pregnant female officer should have an abortion, calling the claims false and defamatory. Stevens is also seeking to be reinstated and filed a separate lawsuit this week. He was terminated in July for causes that the town attorney said had nothing to do with the lawsuit. And so the political world of Niskiyuna turns. Come to think of it, all the backstabbing makes it more reality TV show than sitcom. And while some of this nonsense is to be expected in local politics, the level of personal and vindictive attacks has gone too far.
If we're looking for signs the real town board members of Niskiyuna may soon be replaced by C Span worthy content, perhaps it comes in Puccioni's email back to Moskowitz. No, Puccioni can't be seen entirely as the hero of the show, since she undoubtedly bears some responsibility as the current town leader. Still, her email demonstrates a mature and reasonable reaction that's focused on moving forward. She wrote, I know the election is coming up which seeks to polarize and separate candidates from each other. But know this I am proud of the work we are doing, and I hope once I'm reelected, that we can continue to work together.
Let's hope, once the dust settles on this latest episode, that politicians in Niskiuna can get back to regularly scheduled programming. What we've been watching recently has been a really bad luck.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: You're listening to the weighin in podcast with columnist Andrew wait.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: And now it's time for reader response.
So, last week, I talked to you about and I wrote a column about a police involved shooting in Johnstown. And I had been asking the chief chief David Gilbo, some tough questions just on trying to pin down the timeline of the delivery of body cams. And it was asking for details about that timeline and also documentation about that timeline. And Gilbo's response was pretty aggressive toward me not understanding why I was asking these questions. And I wrote a column about how his resistance to answer these questions was sort of a sign in and of itself that transparency is not something he necessarily prioritizes and also, therefore, kind of proves why having police body cams is a helpful thing. So, unsurprisingly, he was not pleased with the column. I mean, it didn't paint him in the most flattering light. And so he sent, on October 30 a rebuttal, and he sent it to several members of the local media, and it included documentation that, indeed, as he was saying, the body cams came a day after the September 17 shooting, which is great. I mean, that's what we wanted. I wasn't trying to insinuate that there was a conspiracy or something like that. I just was trying to find documentation that they did, in fact, come on the timeline that he was saying that they came on. So I'm glad that the column ended up producing that documentation. I think that's important.
But I did want to just read Gilbo's letter rebuttal letter.
And I'll point out just one thing before I read well, a couple sorry. I did just want to read Gilbo's rebuttal letter to share his opinion.
So he wrote, since the Daily Gazette and editors allowed a biased article to be printed, challenging my integrity and whether or not I was transparent concerning the Johnstown Police Department's body camera purchases, I feel compelled to respond.
Mr. Waite decided that the delivery the day after the officer involved shooting in Johnstown on September 17, 2023, was the, quote, grassy knoll conspiracy moment.
So when he was adamant that the timing of the two events is remarkable, I inquired as to what difference would it make since we had no body cameras at the time of the incident.
Mr. Waite then wanted me to provide exact dates and times for all deliveries for the body cameras. I advised him to foil whatever he wanted, as I was not wasting my time with answering day to day questions on when we received what he insisted that it would matter. The facts are below. So then Gilbo says, I've not made any public comments on the incident of September 17 due to the fact that two agencies, the New York State Police Major Crimes and New York State Attorney General's Office are independently conducting their investigation into this incident. When their reports are published, I will then answer questions on the incident number two body cameras two boxes were delivered September 18 at 11:32 a.m..
The above document disproves the if a department had cameras but failed to deploy them has no merit. The article of course, has to get in the national references of police misconduct and another case where police cannot be trusted. Then it is linked by Mr. Waite to a 2004 officer shooting in Johnstown. That has nothing to do with the incident of September 17, stating the police accounting of events is all we have to go on.
So then he details just the 2004 shooting.
Then he says the one part of the article I have to agree with is that the public needs to be aware of what is presented to them. Mr. Waite and the Schenectady Gazette and Recorder and leader Harold are obviously biased to the point of if it does not meet their predisposed narrative, they will allow the use of opinions and non factual information to further their narratives and claim that that product to be reporting. A public official refusing to answer unintelligent or biased questions is not related to public trust. It means ask an intelligent question. As for the suggestion to learn how to interact with the public and media, I don't know if that is arrogance or ignorance, but I'm fine. Thank you. For the last 34 years in law enforcement, I have gotten along with a lot of people in the media and public. That's from david F. Gilbo, Chief of Police. And thanks for that rebuttal. I appreciate it. I do just want to point out that that frames me as a straight news reporter. But actually I am an opinion columnist and therefore allowed to inject opinion.
But when I met David Gilbo, I was a reporter based out in Johnstown and was a straight news reporter. So I can understand why he may still think of me as a straight news reporter.
Also on that piece, I'll share some other reader feedback. So I got a voicemail that said just read the piece. You know, the cop was right. It was a really ridiculous question to ask him. Absolutely moronic. Like he's responsible for shipping time. You're trying to make it look like they are guilty of something because the shipping came two days later. Really? And then he calls me a name and says your columns have been the most lib BS columns I've ever read. And then he signed off his voicemail with an expletive. So there's that.
But then I also received an email from a reader in response to this column that says I grew up here in Johnstown, left at the age of 20, wanting nothing more than to see it in my rear view mirror. 37 and a half years ago I moved back for family reasons. Nothing has changed. The local governments are still run by what my father used to call a quote, bunch of penny antipoliticians with no regard to the local cops. He used to say they're a bunch of drugstore cowboys wearing a badge and carrying a gun. I read your columns regularly. Keep up the good work so you can see different perspectives, and I welcome all of it and encourage you to share your perspectives with me. And we can read them on the podcast. You can email them to me or give me a call. Both my phone number and email are listed at the bottom of all of my columns.
That's it for this week's episode. Thanks for listening. I'm andrew, waite. Thanks to Aaron Palaya, who provides marketing for this podcast, and Jim Gilbert, who handles production. Take care.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: You're listening to the Weighing In podcast with columnist Andrew Wait.
Sam?
