Letter to the Editor: Yorktown Town Board’s Treatment of Public Was Disgraceful

January 26, 2021 Examiner Media Yorktown

The courtesy of the floor portion of the Jan. 19 Yorktown Town Board meeting disturbed and disgusted me. Not because of any of the community members who spoke out against the Design District Overlay Zone legislation and the Underhill property development, but because of the childish and demeaning way in which members of the Town Board responded to them.

Members of this, or any community have every right to criticize the positions of our elected officials. That’s something taught in a grade school civics class, an essential cornerstone of our American democracy.

You don’t get elected to public office and become immediately infallible and immune to questioning. The Town Board and supervisor are elected officials with a duty to serve the community. That means actively listening to the concerns of every community member, especially when they bring those concerns to a public forum such as a Town Board meeting.

That is the essence of a democratic government. To watch board members immediately turn around and demean and disrespect those community members, while many of them were still on the Zoom call, sickens me to my core. This kind of bullying has no place in our government. Board members should hold themselves to at least a standard of decency and respect.
I can understand their outrage at insinuations of wrongdoing; anyone would share that sentiment. However, outrage doesn’t dispel the feeling that something untoward is happening. When such allegations like this are leveled against elected officials, the burden of proof is on them. There’s a reason Presidents put their business interests in blind trusts, and judges recuse themselves from cases on occasion: not because they would do anything wrong, but to reassure the public that their actions are unbiased by personal interest.

A Town Board meeting is intended to be an open and honest discourse between elected representatives and the people they represent. It is the responsibility of those representatives to prove to their constituents that they are acting in the best interests of the community.

Instead, on Jan. 19, the Town Board spent almost 20 minutes complaining about the lack of respect they were shown. That time might have been better used asking themselves why members of the community would assume they’re involved in unsavory deals. Could it possibly be that their plans and actions surrounding the Underhill development and Design District Overlay Zone legislation have not been anywhere near as transparent as they could have been? Did they ever stop to think that allegations of backroom deals might crop up because residents feel they have been deliberately kept in the dark while decisions that could irreparably alter their communities are being made without their input?

Yorktown, we deserve better and we must demand better. We as a community should not be content with elected officials who demand our respect while failing to communicate with us. We are not sheep to be herded along while politicians decide our fates. We must remind our elected officials that their jobs are to serve the public trust and not belittle their constituents, live on camera.

Michael Hickins
Yorktown