The Rules of Procedure of the Village of Monticello Board of Trustees have been in effect for many years. Section 6 says:
"An abstention, silence or absence shall be considered a negative vote for the purposes of determining the final vote on a matter. A vote upon any question shall be taken by ayes and noes..."
A photocopied newsletter published by John Barbarite called The People's Voice, circulated around the Village today, attempts to rationalize the anti-Semitic arguments of the Mayor and his right-hand-man and puppet, T.C. Hutchins at last month's meeting, claiming that I made an error when I stated (see below) that Trustee Gordon Jenkins was present and voted "Yes" on June 18, 2007 to benefit his relative, Mr. Hutchins.
The minutes are unclear about the time during the meeting when Trustee Jenkins walked into the room. But the explicit report that the vote which financially benefited Hutchins was "unanimous" means Jenkins was present (assuming, of course, the minutes are correct).
On June 18, 2007, either Trustee Jenkins arrived late for the meeting and the Village Clerk failed to note it in the minutes, or her record of the outcome on the resolution is wrong where it says the vote to give Mr. Hutchins a break on his water bill passed "unanimously".
Does he now wish he recuse himself because of his family relationship to Mr. Hutchins? It's too late.
Mr. Barbarite is the core of the Hutchins campaign, hoping to get his job back yet again after having been fired twice by the Board of Trustees in the last two years -- first for referring to his neighbors on Cottage Street as "Spics", then for a host of other reasons.
If Trustee Jenkins truly failed to attend the June 2007 meeting, the minutes are in error where they say Mr. Hutchins' was "unanimously approved". But is there a difference? Either way, the minutes are wrong, but the financial benefit to (and hypocrisy of) Mr. Hutchins is the same.
In the minutes of the next meeting, July 9, 2007, it was "unanimously approved on a roll call vote to adopt the minutes of the meeting of June 18, 2007 as presented."
Once again, "unanimously approved" means all were present and all voted "Yes" -- 5 to 0. There can be no other meaning of "unanimous" under the Village Board's own rules of procedure.
This example illustrates why it is important for members of the Board of Trustees to correct errors in the minutes before voting to approve them. If Mr. Jenkins truly didn't bother to attend the meeting that night, as he now claims, he obviously couldn't have voted to benefit his relative, Mr. Hutchins. However, the minutes themselves (which he voted "Yes" to approve at the following meeting) show otherwise.
It's time for Monticello to move on from the childish bickering and attack politics of the Jenkins/Hutchins/Barbarite era. It's time to stop the insanity and to politely show Mayor Jenkins' hand-picked relative, Mr. Hutchins, whom Jenkins appointed to the board last April, the door.
