Eldridge puts spiritual successors on Greenport town board to save son Albert's job
Town of Greenport, NY, November 10 — Tuesday's town board meeting was supposed to be mainly about the 2027 budget but then took a very unexpected turn when Supervisor Eldridge presented two resolutions, later passed, that put Anthony Pierro and Robert Nedwick on the town board to fill the two vacant seats formerly held by Jim Dolan, who passed away on October 29, and Frank Iaccino, who resigned in August.
After Iaccino's resignation earlier this year, absolutely nothing could compel Kathy Eldridge to appoint a replacement. By all accounts, Lisa Kenneally, the current chair of the Hudson Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), was supposed to replace Frank Iaccino and was the popular choice in Greenport enjoying wide support. Eldridge however remained fearful that with Kenneally appointed, the board would appoint Debbie Mausolf, whom Eldridge fired as her confidential secretary in May, to Town Clerk with Kenneally's, Jim Dolan's, and Clayton Clark's votes. Lisa was therefore out.
The death of Jim Dolan on October 29 changed everything and Eldridge was suddenly in a great hurry to appoint not one, but two new members to the town board. Who are they? The only thing that matters here is that they are close to Mark Taylor and therefore, by association, Kathy Eldridge.
Anthony Pierro, the husband of Eldridge's confidential secretary Lisa Pierro, tried his best to be chummy when giving his acceptance speech, but his efforts were met with silence from the audience. He thus fared slightly better than Robert Nedwick, who spoke briefly and hurriedly and was hard to understand. When he said something about the town moving in the right direction, former board member Janice Brodowski remarked in his direction: "I've never seen you at a meeting before." That remark would have been just as fitting for Anthony Pierro who has likewise never attended a board meeting that I can remember. It is remarkable then how these two people suddenly discovered their love for local politics.
Grisham challenges legality of appointments
Mike Grisham, chair of the Greenport Democrats, made Town Attorney Rob Fitzsimmons aware of a section from the New York Association of Towns Town Law Manual. § 2-13(D)(2)(i) states:
"Vacancies before September 20: If the vacancy occurs before September 20, the person appointed to that position will serve until the end of the calendar year, and there should be an election in November to fill out the remainder of the term. For example, if a town board member resigns on June 30, 2015 after serving a year-and-a-half of a four-year term, the individual appointed to fill that position would serve until the end of December 2015. "
Frank Iaccino's seat became vacant before September 20 and therefore its replacement should only serve till the end of 2026.
The problem: Grisham found this in an older edition of the Town Law Manual and the law changed in 2019. The cutoff date is now August 3, to align with the last day when changes to the ballot can be made. The two board appointments therefore stand till the end of 2027.
The real problem with these appointments is thus not legal. They are tactless and fail to acknowledge that the Republicans, at the hand of Kathy Eldridge, lost the Supervisor election by 373 votes. There is no mandate here, politically or otherwise, to fill the board with her people.
Janice Brodowski expressed her displeasure with her usual candor: "I protest! You should have a Democrat up there. I want my Democrat represented in this town. Why should you have all Republicans up there? And you waited all damn summer to appoint somebody for Frank Iaccino? You could have put anybody in there a long time ago."
When Eldridge interrupted her and stated she was out of order, Janice was undeterred: "I don't care if I am out of order! What the hell are you gonna do? Have the cop throw me out? Do it. Look like the ass you are!"
Speaking to audience members, Edythe Dinehart, herself a Republican, agreed with Janice. Earlier during the meeting she had handed me a paper note on which she indicated that the appointment of Anthony Pierro, the husband of the Supervisor's confidential secretary, might in itself constitute a conflict of interest. Mike Grisham raised this point to Rob Fitzsimmons, who promised he was going to look into this.
After the meeting Edythe posited that the correct way would have been to appoint one member now but leave the second seat empty till the new Supervisor John Porreca takes the helm in January and thus allow the Democrats to replace Jim Dolan with a person of their choice.
As far as the incoming Supervisor is concerned, John Porreca stated that what happened tonight was worse than when he took over from Ed Nabozny in 2012. He now faces the prospect of serving as Supervisor with a town board full of Eldridge loyalists whose only role is to ensure that Kathy's son, code enforcement officer Albert Eldridge, will not be fired by the town board, despite a criminal record and lack of a driver's license.
Budget process harshly criticized
As indicated earlier, this was supposed to be the meeting when the public was given a chance to provide feedback on the preliminary 2027 budget. Audience member Chip Ball didn't need to be asked twice and opened with a double negative, one too many: "You guys have never failed to not disappoint me." He drew attention to the town's failure to follow the Open Meetings Law during the entire budget process: "You are asking me to comment on a budget that I have all but twelve minutes to look at because you guys didn't put it on the website."
Chip therefore refused to comment on this specific budget and instead talked about the astounding lack of budgetary oversight throughout this year. He criticized how the Supervisor withheld departmental bills from the Highway Department, followed by yearly bills paid for two Flock cameras that the town didn't even know it had. Next was payroll where some town employees, including the Supervisor's son Albert, were being overpaid—a fact that had only become apparent after I had obtained payroll data via a Freedom of Information Law request.
After Chip was eventually done after more than four minutes, he followed it up with a mic drop as he stormed out of town hall under applause from the audience:
Real hostilities will begin in January
Given the bad hand that Porreca was dealt last night, one can make a few predictions what will happen in January. Mike Grisham earlier had conveyed to Holly Tanner that unless she convinces Clayton Clark to vote against the two town board appointments, John Porreca will caucus with the Democrats at the county Board of Supervisors.
No one can say if it was Kathy Eldridge or rather Mark Taylor who has been behind that latest boondoggle. The county Democrats won't care—Eldridge and/or Taylor just handed the fourth biggest voting bloc in the county, 15 votes, to the Democrats on the Board of Supervisors.
But Porreca won't stop there. Given that he will have to put up with a useless town board for at least one year, he will inflict maximum pain by naming a Deputy Supervisor who is not on the board. It won't be Clayton Clark anymore, nor any of the other three.
As far as Anthony Pierro and Robert Nedwick are concerned, they are already tainted thanks to the way they were appointed. Their shelf-life will extend to December 31, 2027 as they will be voted out, alongside Guy Apicella, in November of next year.
Kathy's calculus of stacking the board just so that her son remains protected from getting fired for cause is unlikely to succeed, either. Porreca already confirmed to me that he will run a background check of Albert Eldridge and that will reveal the nature of his criminal record. If the rest of the town board wants to still keep him around, that will be a choice they will have to justify to Greenport residents.
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