02/24/2022 Weekly Editorial Roundup

Tom Walogorsky, editor of North Salem News and The Somers Record, Brian Marschhauser, editor of Yorktown News and The Katonah Lewisboro Times, and Bob Dumas, editor of Mahopac News, join host Brett Freeman for today’s weekly editorial roundup. 

The episode starts with some sad news about a fire in Heritage Hills which resulted in the death of a woman and her dog and a discussion about keeping safe and helping out in the wake of disasters. Marschhauser then reports on the long-running problems Lakeland School Board has been having, which culminated in a very rowdy and hostile meeting this week over, amongst other things, the possibility of introducing the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Curriculum. Dumas joins in with a rundown of Mahopac’s issues with its school board over vaccine mandates, and the guys discuss the possibility of virtue signaling in pandemic-related decisions.

Moving on, Dumas reports on the infighting caused by Kevin Byrne running for and subsequently receiving the Conservative nomination for the Putnam County Executive, a messy situation involving the GOP chairman and accusations of dishonesty and disloyalty. Then Walogorsky briefly discusses the debate in Somers over the Board of Education’s decision on mask mandates before Marschhauser brings up the rise in electric bills, leading to a discussion about the impact of inflation on all industries, including newspapers with the cost of paper going through the roof. And finally, the group discusses the redistricting in Yorktown and the potential opening it gives for more moderate Democrats to throw their hat in the ring.

Episode Highlights:

• Three editors from the Halston Media team join today’s roundup—Tom Walogorsky, editor of North Salem News and The Somers Record, Brian Marschhauser, editor of Yorktown News and The Katonah Lewisboro Times, and Bob Dumas, editor of Mahopac News.
• Walogorsky reports on the February 16 fire in Heritage Hills that resulted in the death of a woman and her dog and caused heavy fire and smoke damage.
• The guys discuss Brett’s big tree (which is actually outside Bob’s house).
• The Lakeland School Board held a very rowdy meeting this week, the latest in a line of similar meet-ups over the last year. The Board is exploring the controversial DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) curriculum and has met with hostility from some attendees, culminating in some alleged aggressive behavior at this meeting and accusations of harassment following it.
• Marschhauser discusses the difficulty of reporting on incidents when all the information is secondhand.
• Mahopac is also having some issues with its School Board—its meeting on February 17 was scheduled to include a presentation by the Ad Hoc Committee, made up of board and community members, on their advocacy plan for local control. They’re calling for transparency in the metrics that the Department of Health in Albany uses to make decisions about issues like vaccine mandates.
• Putnam County ended its vaccination and testing sites last week, and there’s some commentary about such moves being motivated by the proximity to an election year and the people who were for vaccine mandates realizing they were on a losing proposition.
• Kevin Byrne is not running for the State Assembly again, but he is running for the Putnam County Executive, which has caused a lot of infighting in the Republican committee. Byrne was allegedly not GOP chairman Tony Scannapieco’s first choice for the role, and Scannapieco has made allegations of disloyalty and dishonesty against Byrne. Despite this, Byrne received the Conservative nomination on February 16.
• Bob and Brett discuss the ethics of politicians investigating each other’s backgrounds.
• Mask mandates are still a topic of conversation for the Somers Board of Education, with some people wanting the Board to defy Albany and go against the mandates. Both districts will be re-evaluating after the winter break, but it looks like masks will still be required on transportation and during contact sports.
• Marschhauser reports on the rises in electric bills, with a lot of local town boards putting together a resolution against requests for another rate hike, which would be 11% for electricity and 18% for gas. The town also held a rally at Jefferson Village last week, where most of the residents are seniors who use electric heat.
• Inflation is hitting the news industry, too, with the cost of paper going through the roof last year and the price of newspapers rising as a result. Brett’s also been scrambling to find a paper vendor for the new coupon magazine after their original printer couldn’t get their hands on the right paper.
• Following the redistricting that’s likely to be approved by Albany, it looks like there’ll be an opening in District 17 for some more moderate Democrats. Already with his hat in the ring is Vedat Gashi, a county legislator who lives in Yorktown Heights, who’s likely going to primary Jamaal Bowen, who has lost some favor with Democrats after voting against the Build Back Better Plan.

Quotes:

“God forbid there’s ever, like, a tornado or something like that, or a big storm of trees going down in Heritage Hills. Definitely. I don’t know. I get nervous with some of that stuff.”

“You have a tree next to your house, I think is probably like, the biggest tree I’ve seen in Westchester or in the Hudson Valley. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger tree in Hudson Valley than next to your house.”

“I remember I sat in a Somers Town Board Meeting when they debated, like, these fire codes and what builders are required to use and stuff like that. And you know, this is why this stuff’s important.”

“I’ll tell you, the Lakeland School Board, it seems to be ground zero on a local level for the larger cultural debates taking place throughout the United States.”

“The School Board President, Adam Kaufman, says, like, ‘Listen, if you guys can’t behave yourself, we’re going to stop the comment.’ And then that prompts somebody in the back of the audience to say, ‘How very German of you’ to Adam Kaufman, who is a Jewish man.”

“It’s really challenging to report on this because, you know, I’m not saying this didn’t happen. This very well could have happened to them. But it’s kind of this difficult thing about what, what’s the threshold for publishing an allegation? And that’s really, that’s the challenge I’m facing.”

“I do think there’s good people on both sides of these debates that have good intentions. And it stinks when a couple people really spoil that for other people who are honest.”

“I have to ask you a question with this committee that’s been created. Is it a little bit of virtue signaling to constituents?”

“It might be something there, a pacifier that they’re using to placate their critics that they haven’t done anything. This sounds like a committee that would have been more useful two months ago.”

“The commentary, you know, kind of reading is that things are magically changing, not necessarily because the pandemic has necessarily gotten better, but because we’re getting closer to an election year. And the people who were for mandates realized they were kind of on a losing proposition with that.”

“Who knows what goes on, you know, in the smoke-filled back rooms?”

“I just think the back and forth is just kind of unseemly. But I think the average person doesn’t care and thinks it’s ridiculous.”

“As someone who paid just nine hundred bucks for an oil delivery, I’ll tell you, it’s not a picnic having heating oil either right now.”

“Purchasing paper right now, I mean, from what I’ve been told from printers, it’s almost like, you know, putting money in the stock market.”

“All of a sudden, Yorktown is going to be represented by a down-county guy who maybe his policies might be seen as a little too progressive for Northern Westchester. So that looks like it’s opening an opportunity for some more moderate Democrats.”

Links:

Halston Media Group website