Bullying Must Not Be Tolerated

Bullying must not be tolerated from our Great Neck mayors with respect to Board of Trustee (BOT) meetings.

As 2017 comes to a close, it is time to openly declare that the Great Neck residents who actively attend and speak up at village meetings are being subjected to aggressive bullying. There are several Great Neck mayors involved that the community and I are aware of—perhaps there are even more.

This past year alone, speakers on a particularly sensitive and volatile subject were threatened with being locked up if they exercised their right to speak at a BOT meeting. Residents who would dare to join in support of this discussion were advised they would suffer similar consequences. The mayor’s objective was to silence those in his Village Hall, who would dare raise their voice to express an opinion that differed with his/her own.

Who gave the mayor the right to silence others? What happened to the Open Meeting law?

All of you who are reading this letter are very familiar with the sensitive subject matter. It has been written about extensively in this fine newspaper for many months.

Meanwhile, in a neighboring Village Hall, in a horrific scenario that regretfully only a few residents witnessed, nonresidents traveled to Village Hall to offer expert testimony. Their crime was expressing expert opinion, typically welcomed in more open, democratic environments, but rejected because it contradicted the views of this particular mayor.

Almost immediately, attendees to this horror witnessed aggressive, abusive remarks intended to intimidate and silence the speakers. When one of the two speakers exited the room, they remarked that they had never been treated so abominably and abusively. In fact, the exact words were something like, “The experience felt as if one were on trial in a foreign country. What is Great Neck coming to?”

This has been a burden for the handful of residents who are well aware of these facts. Now you know, too.

Staying silent empowers the bullies. Let’s put an end to bullying in village government.