Residents to Board: Verbal Abuse of Employees is 'Disgusting'

A handful of residents scolded Port Chester's trustees Monday night, saying they've treated professional staff like children -- and warning staffers might quit if trustees keep hurling invective at them.

After Port Chester resident Doris Reavis admonished the board for "wasting our time by going back and forth with each other," gadfly Bea Conetta took the podium. Conetta rattled off a list of professional staff who have been on the receiving end of public verbal abuse the past few weeks -- Village Manager Christopher Russo, Recreation Superintendent Thomas Hroncich, Treasurer Leonie Douglas -- then turned to Joan Mancuso, the village clerk.

"The only one who hasn't gotten it so far has been Joan," Conetta said, "and Joan, you're gonna be next."

Conetta said she was "so angry" while watching a tense exchange last week between Trustee Sam Terenzi and Russo, scolding Terenzi for questioning Russo "like a child." Raising his voice during that meeting, Terenzi questioned Russo on the details of missing parking meter money, and angrily asked the manager why he hadn't fired employees suspected of stealing.

"Sam, really, it was disgusting," she said. "Grow up, please."

Terenzi wasn't willing to give ground, saying he had breakfast with Russo the next morning.

"At $190,000 a year, he's not going anywhere, trust me," Terenzi said. "He can take any abuse I send his way."

Reavis reminded the board what the nearly-empty chamber looked like six weeks ago -- overflowing with well-wishers who cheered wildly as the new trustees took their seats amid promises of fiscal responsibility and cooperation. After years of litigation, uncertainty, stalled elections and a new voting system, Port Chester finally had a full board of elected trustees.

Since then, trustees have grown visibly frustrated with a series of emergencies, embarrassments and big, unavoidable bills -- repairs to the village's sewers and crumbling sea wall could cost more than a combined $5 million, and tempers have flared over the revelation that employees were skimming from parking meter revenues.

"When your board first convened, I wanted to tell you stop being niggardly in your talk to each other, because people were not nice to each other," Reavis said. "And you're supposed to be up there in a professional capacity, and therefore whether or not you like each other has no place in the board there."

Later in the meeting, trustees sounded self-congratulatory notes and disputed the notion that they were hostile.

"I gotta say that I take some exception to some of the public comments about our demeanor and our progress in six weeks," Trustee Bart Didden said. "I think we've done quite a bit in six weeks."

In contrast to Terenzi, his fellow Republican on the board, Trustee Joseph Kenner rarely wades into contentious debates. More often, Kenner has seemed content to wait until the tense moments are over before asking pointed questions about details and procedures. But Kenner said he enjoys the lively debates: "It's more fun with this board now."

"We're gonna bring different personalities, different approaches to the debate," Kenner said. "That's part of democracy."

Mayor Dennis Pilla seemed to agree with some of the residents on the tone of the debates, but acknowledged he thinks the exchanges are ultimately helpful.

"There's aggressive and abrasive, and it's a fine line...and when you go over the line, there's too many body bags, so to speak," Pilla said.  "We have a board of independent thinkers, which I think is a good thing."

Bishop Nowotnik was the last person at the podium to weigh in on the board's demeanor. While he said he thought trustees could tone it down ("You guys should act more professional"), he said he appreciates it when the board airs its dirty laundry in public.

In a town that has a reputation for under-the-table deals and bartered favors, Nowotnik said the public deserves to know why officials make the decisions they do.

"Way too much has gone on in back rooms and been pre-arranged," he said, "and that's not the way government should be run."