By Patrick Brodrick

            CLINTON –“Fucking faggots,” yelled the men in the vehicle as they drove past a group of Jim Leblanc supporters, a gay man that has the nerve to run for a seat on the Board of Selectmen during this year’s election, last week.

            To any rational thinking person, the venom and hatred in the men’s verbal assault is stomach churning; just another sad commentary on the polluted river of ignorance that has tainted not just a vocal segment of the town’s population, but the upcoming election as well.

            At barbershops, supermarkets, convenience stores and coffee shops, I’ve heard a number of people talk about the importance of this election, but I wonder if they truly appreciate the significance of what it means to the town. This election will stand as a watershed moment in Clinton — a point in time that will not only rattle the pillars of the political foundations, but will also shape the town for years to come. This election is also a chance for voters to send a clear message to the blatant racists, bigots and homophobes that lurk in secret Internet chatrooms that have come out to support both Selectmen Robert Pasquale Jr. and Joseph Notaro Jr., the incumbents up for reelection come May.

            Supporters of both Notaro and Pasquale have taken a cue from their candidates and have begun to paint themselves as victims on local discussion forums. In fact they have gotten so used to playing the role of martyrs that if Notaro and Pasquale manage to get reelected their first order of business should be to erect a giant wooden cross in the middle of Central Park. That way when they or their supporters feel unappreciated they can climb up and nail themselves to it.

            It’s that same mentality that must be blinding them to their bullshit rhetoric, so allow me to shed some light on the glaring contradictions espoused by Notaro and Pasquale’s supporters to show a fraction of their hypocrisy, and what these people are capable of in their quest to hold onto the reins of power to further their agenda.

A Pound of Flesh

            Several months ago when I discovered, with the help of The Independent’s readers, a smear site targeting Selectman Kevin Haley that was launched by supporters of Pasquale and Notaro, I was floored by its sophomoric language and images —

 one photo showed someone evacuating their bowels – ladies and gentlemen I give you the base of Notaro and Pasquale’s campaign.

            The site’s founders, as well as Notaro’s supporters, are up in arms because Kevin Haley participated in discussions regarding a liquor license for Via Alto, the new Italian eatery on High Street, but recused himself when it came time to vote because of a potential conflict of interest due to his job as a banker.

            “BTW, why don’t you do an article on why Selectman Haley (a frequent patron of this site) abstained from the vote for the liquor license for the Italian restaurant, yet participated in all the discussions leading up to the vote,” Greg Stahl, a rabid Notaro supporter, said in a post on this very site.

            “Coming soon: The story of how I talked my fellow selectmen into giving the Italian restaurant a liquor license! And how I abstained from the vote,”read kevin-haley.com.

            It’s ironic that both Stahl and the smear site are looking for a pound of flesh from Haley, but are more than willing to overlook the fact that Notaro brokered a $2.8 million land deal that directly benefits his brother! It’s conceivable that Notaro’s brother will see a portion of the money generated by the sale of the land to the town since he is married to a relative of Fred Rauscher. Not to mention that his property value just shot through the roof because his house is surrounded by 62 acres of conservation land in his backyard. Pull up any map of the area and located right in the middle of all that conservation land is Notaro’s brother’s home. Talk about a sweet deal. 

            Both Stahl and the founder of the Haley site also turn a blind eye to the fact that Notaro participated in interviewing candidates for a position in the Department of Public Works in which his cousin, Pete Notaro, was interviewing for the job. When his cousin was up for nomintion, Notaro voted on the first three candidates, abstained when his cousin came up for a vote, and then continued to vote on the remaining candidates! One of the candidates that was eventually hired actually worked at Pasquale’s flower shop, but had to turn the position down because it would have jeopardized his state pension.

            But the hypocrisy doesn’t end there.

            When Pasquale and Notaro voted to remove George Kittredge from the Retirement Board, a board he single-handedly at times kept running for 12 years, and replaced him with Robert Champagne Jr., whose father served with Notaro on the Charter Commission and worked closely on his campaign in his first bid for a seat on the board, their supporters lauded their efforts. (Champagne managed to submit his letter of interest for the board three weeks before an advertisement ran in local papers, and wound up serving a whole year before he walked away.)

            “It’s plain old ridiculous and stupid if you ask me. If he loves Clinton that much let him move back and reapply to the Retirement Board next year,”one of Notaro and Pasquale’s supporters posted on a local discussion forum.

            Months later, the same people — apparently using Orwellian logic — that were against allowing someone from Sterling to serve on the Retirement Board were bullshit that Sterling resident “Doctor” Anthony Carboni – a festering pustule of a human being, who I find so inconsequential that if found in my toilet bowl I wouldn’t bother to flush – was passed over in his quest to become Clinton’s newest health agent. I find it amazing that the same people crying loudest about nepotism and cronyism have managed to ignore the blatant political-payback appointments of Notaro and Pasquale – apparently as long as it benefits the people you like, it’s OK.

Bring Me Their Heads

            Maryann Castillo, Brendan Bailey, George Kittredge…

            The list of metaphorical scalps and hides that adorn the walls of Pasquale and Notaro’s political trophy room is a long and sordid one, and offers a glimpse into the twisted landscape that exists inside the skulls of two power-drunk fiends.

            When Notaro and Pasquale were elected two years ago from a field of candidates where a monkey dry humping a doorknob would have garnered at least 500 votes they promised to stomp on the throat of the nepotism they saw riddled throughout town. However, the Notaro/Pasquale regime ushered in a new era of unprecedented cronyism that would make the Bush Administration blush, and have since used every opportunity to appoint friends and political allies to various posts throughout town.

Despite the urgings of Planning Board Chairman Jack Hastings, both Notaro and Pasquale voted to move forward with appointing Anthony Marini, another supporter of both men who could be seen holding signs for Notaro last weekend, to the vacant Planning Board seat. Hastings asked the board to postpone a vote until a majority of his board could be present at the meeting.

Hastings attended the meeting with fellow board member Rebecca Stahl, Gregg’s wife, who openly admitted to having an ulterior motive for wishing to get a member appointed to her board. The ulterior motive? The Stahls’ neighbor was proposing converting his home into a duplex, which managed to meet the town’s zoning bylaws, but was opposed by the Stahl family. During the meeting Mrs. Stahl openly admitted she had an ulterior motive for anting to move forward with the appointments despite not having had a chance to peruse the letters of interest. (This has been contested by Stahl himself, as well as his supporters, but I urge anyone to go listen to the tape of the meeting to see whether or not it was said.)

Ignoring a previous instance in which the board voted to delay appointing a member to the Parks and Recreation Commission, despite the urgings of the members of the commission, Notaro and Pasquale voted to postpone making the appointment until a majority of the commission could attend the meeting.

Coincidentally, when a position on the Personnel Board was vacated, Notaro and Pasquale both voted to appoint Gregg Stahl, and during last year’s election, Notaro openly campaigned for Stahl in his failed bid for a seat on the board.

Notaro and Pasquale also didn’t miss an opportunity to collect the head of Castillo to be mounted on a pike outside Town Hall when she reapplied for a post on the Personnel Board. The two candidates, still smarting from Castillo’s questioning of their decisions to hire former Building Inspector Bentley Herget outside of the town’s pay grid, ousted the business owner and replaced her with a criminal – literally, the guy was convicted of crimes.

Dirty Politics

For the past three years Clinton has been held hostage by Notaro and Pasquale’s political ineptitude — their inability to broker some type of arrangement between Fire Chief Richard Hart, Herget and representatives from the Clinton Polish American Veteran Clubs and Turner Hall, and their blind devotion to the practice of isolationism.  If any of the surrounding towns ever want to work with us again it will be a miracle.

But even more important than the obvious failings of both Notaro and Pasquale, is that for the last three years a large group of their supporters have done nothing but smear the names, or outright attacked a person’s sexual orientation, and tried to tarnish the reputations of people whose only sin is to disagree with their chosen representatives. People that have donated their time and effort to try and better their community; have had their reputations, names and personal lives attacked in free speech chatrooms run by supporters of Notaro and Pasquale.

Simply put, a vote for Notaro or Pasquale on May 5 is a vote to condone the failed policies of both candidates, but it also supports the racism, ignorance and intolerance espoused by their supporters. It’s a vote to sit idly by as friends, neighbors and relatives are targeted by an organized smear machine. In short, a vote for Pasquale or Notaro places all of us in the shotgun seat of that vehicle with those men that found it perfectly acceptable behavior to scream “fucking faggots” out the window of a car.

Frankly, it’s not a ride that I want to take.

(Editor’s Note: Were the two men mentioned in that vehicle actually supporters of  Notaro and Pasquale? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put those actions past some of the people that support them. The truth is a number of them have said far worse about people that are trying to serve the town in their secret chatroom. If those same people that claim they are working to make the town a better place, the first plae they should start is by cleaning up the swill in the free speech sty. Otherwise, all their bullshit pronouncements are just another example of their glaring hypocrisy.)

By Patrick Brodrick

            Nestle, the Swiss-based, world-renown chocolate manufacturer may be able to boast that it “makes the very best” when it comes to sweets; its proposals for harvesting water from the Wekepeke Reservoir in Sterling, however, leaves something to be desired, according to the Clinton Board of Selectmen.

            On Wednesday, selectmen voted unanimously to reject Nestlé’s proposal to use water from the Sterling reservoir, which is actually owned by Clinton despite its geographic location.

            “I’ve given it a lot of thought and I don’t think the risk versus reward is a fair tradeoff, especially with the amount of money to be had from the deal,” Selectmen Joseph Notaro Jr. said.

            Nestlé’s proposal called for harvesting about 230,000 gallons of water a day from the Wekepeke aquifer to be used in its bottled-water line. Nestle had planned to pay Clinton between $200,000 and $300,000 a year, or $2.55 per 100 cubic feet, under the proposed agreement. The proposal also stipulated that Nestle would pay an up-front fee of $100,000 during the first year of the contract, and an additional $20,000 a year for the next five years, that Clinton would use to repair the earthen dams on the 564 acre Sterling property. Clinton is required to repair the dams to make sure they meet state standards, which could cost upwards of $1.5 million.

            “We are under a mandate from the state to repair the dams,” Selectman Anthony Fiorentino said during the meeting. “I think this situation has been over-engineered and I’d like to see it addressed in a more simple solution; this is the only plan we have in place unfortunately.”

            The deal with Nestle drew the ire of a number of residents in both Sterling and Clinton opposed to entering into an agreement with a multi-national corporation regarding water rights on the land. A group of Sterling residents, led by Attorney Jim Gettens, stated they were prepared to move forward with a lawsuit against Clinton if it accepted a deal with Nestle. Supporters of the suit alleged Clinton would be violating the terms of its agreement with Sterling, which the group believes clearly states the town is only allowed to use the water for its residents.

            Selectman Kevin Haley agreed with both Notaro and Fiorentino and said he had a number of concerns with Nestlé’s proposal.

            “I’d rather look at a different option for the Wekepeke and see if we can’t come up with another way to repair the dams,” Haley said. “I would make a motion that we don’t accept Nestlé’s proposal, and look at other options that are available to the town.”

            Notaro seconded the motion.

            “The risk versus reward doesn’t justify this arrangement now,” Notaro said. “I do believe that Clinton, even though that land is surrounded by other communities, has autonomy over that property, and we have control of the natural resources on that land.”

            Notaro went on to state that he would like to see a legal review conducted to determine just what rights Clinton has to that property and the water supply, both above and below ground.

            “We need to be able to come to some terms as to what we can do with that property,” Notaro said.

            Haley agreed and said he’d like to see the review to encompass what rights the town has in possibly selling the land.

            Selectmen voted unanimously to reject Nestlé’s proposal.

            (Editor’s Note: Well, it took seven months but Selectmen Robert Pasquale Jr., Joseph Notaro Jr. and Anthony Fiorentino, along with Kevin Haley and Mary Rose Dickhaut, finally did something that I think they should be commended on – their rejection of the Nestle proposal to harvest water from the Wekepeke. It would have been easy to get seduced by the lure of the money being waved like a carrot on a stick in front of the town, but the board collectively realized what The Independent has been saying all along – the money being offered by Nestle is a pittance compared to what that land and water is really worth. Included in the board’s request is to have town counsel review Clinton’s legal standing in regard to selling the land; however, any efforts to relinquish the town from controlling that land should be met with fierce resistance. That land, and more importantly the water on the property, is going to be worth far more than the land will fetch on the real estate market.

            “To more than two billion people fresh drinking water is more valuable than gold.” – National Geographic)

By Patrick Brodrick

            (Spoiler Alert: If you honestly think that you don’t know who the Times & Courier will be endorsing for selectmen in the next several weeks you should probably stop reading now.)

            With only five weeks until the culmination of this year’s vicious and vile campaign season the traditional traces of a pending election have started sprouting up all over town – candidate’s signs adorn lawns, the back-alley bartering of favors in exchange for votes has begun, and political junkies can be found huddled in doorways and behind dumpsters, track marks running up and down both arms, tweaking as they try to open a collapsed vein to mainline the latest public opinions.

            And as this hell-bent, runaway train continues to barrel down the tracks, I’ve been asked by a number of people if I have any plans on endorsing any of the candidates in this year’s election. The answer, simply, is no.

            Anyone that reads this blog should be able to make a fairly educated guess as to who I won’t be endorsing and/or voting for.

Fortunately for me, and I never miss an opportunity to point it out to my duped friends or anyone that’ll listen, I was one of the few people that didn’t vote for Selectmen Robert Pasquale Jr. or Joseph Notaro Jr., the two incumbents up for reelection this year, in their first bids for a seat on the board, so I’m sure as shit not going to vote for them this time around. I wouldn’t vote for either candidate to be a bath mat, never mind selectmen. For some reason I was able to see through both candidates’ bullshit veneer, and recognize the two politicos for what they truly are – a power-drunk duo with a complete lack of a moral compass, and an ill-tempered child’s inability to admit to their mistakes or see an issue from any side that doesn’t directly benefit them or their supporters.

Personally, I’ve always found the act of endorsing a candidate to be incredibly pretentious, but for voters that are looking to be led like lambs into the slaughterhouse when it comes time to head to the polls I’m sure the Times & Courier will offer its endorsements – an epic charade masquerading behind the guise of a bona-fide political process. And anyone that hasn’t been walking around wearing their ass as a hat for the last seven months should have the wherewithal to see the Times & Courier’s endorsements for what they truly are – political pandering.

            If you’re surprised when the T&C announces its endorsements of Pasquale and Notaro, make no mistake about it that’s who the paper will endorse, you need to get your head out of the sand.

            I’m sure in the endorsement you’ll see terms and phrases like “proven leadership,” “integrity,” “both candidates possess a deep understanding of issues facing the town,” or “experience as a community leader and someone who isn’t afraid to think outside the box,” but in my time covering the Board of Selectmen during the Notaro/Pasquale Regime, I’ve never seen any of those characteristics exhibited by either candidate.

Jesus, I’ve stepped in puddles with a deeper understanding of the issues facing this town, and the only leadership either candidate has exhibited is a willingness to be the first one to vote to raise taxes on residents. Notaro and Pasquale’s idea of thinking “outside the box” is to tax residents; apparently their problem-solving skills are limited to simply throwing enough taxpayer dollars at any problem to simply bury it without actually trying to solve it.

I’ll have more on what I believe to be the failings of the two incumbents as the election draws near, but this is really a commentary on the sad state the Times is in. I know there are some, many of them the same people that will be supporting Notaro and Pasquale come May, that will claim the paper is under better stewardship now than at any point in its history, which is absurd and illustrates how the paper has become a puppet for Pasquale and Notaro’s propaganda. Pick up the paper on any given week and you’ll see both politicians’ agenda regurgitated, verbatim; a contradictory viewpoint hardly ever expressed.

So in the next several weeks, when the Times & Courier announces its endorsements you’ll see Notaro and Pasquale’s names scrawled in blank ink across the page. Editor Michael Ballway has no choice now, like a good puppet he’ll follow the orders of the puppeteers; the only problem is when a local news organization decides to hop into bed with local politicians, it’s the voters that wind up getting screwed.