Life22

Day 13,952(2) - Primary Day Drama!.mp3
Transcript
00:00:03 Kevin
So gang, a little tea spilling this morning, I guess.
00:00:08 Kevin
So I'm a committeeman on the local Republican city committee, which also makes me a member of the county committee.
00:00:16 Kevin
To be a member, like obviously there is an election process.
00:00:19 Kevin
People from a party have to elect you into those seats.
00:00:22 Kevin
If there's a vacancy, you can be appointed into those seats, things like that.
00:00:26 Kevin
And so there's been a lot of like random appointments.
00:00:30 Kevin
over the years and what I've noticed is that the and from what I've gathered and from being at these different meetings and talking to people there are the state there used to be like rules in the bylaws at our local level that said that like you cannot be an elected official and sit on excluding obviously the committee appointment but like this way you don't have aldermen, mayors, county legislators, things like that sitting on
00:00:56 Kevin
the Republican committee, which essentially is appointing elected officials or, you know, designating people and coordinating efforts.
00:01:03 Kevin
And this way, if you have somebody sitting on the committee, for example, and they have somebody that's not on the committee, but they're running against them, it skews it.
00:01:13 Kevin
It makes it on it makes it like, you know, you get this like this partisan nonsense going on.
00:01:19 Kevin
And to avoid that, they had this rule that said that you can't be an elected official and sit on it.
00:01:25 Kevin
And then
00:01:26 Kevin
Some it either got removed from the bylaws or some people have told me that New York State actually passed a rule that says it's permissible and then you can elect to put it back into your bylaws or whatever.
00:01:37 Kevin
And so there's all this nonsense.
00:01:39 Kevin
And so before...
00:01:40 Kevin
We went to any extreme, we just figured at a local level and we discussed it.
00:01:45 Kevin
I keep bringing it up and everybody keeps, they're not long, there's never any dissenting opinions amongst all the committeemen.
00:01:51 Kevin
And it's hard to get people to actually show up as a committeeman.
00:01:53 Kevin
They get kind of like appointed into people that like, oh, we know this person and they're good.
00:01:57 Kevin
And it's like, they've never ever shown up.
00:01:59 Kevin
People get appointed, they don't realize they've been appointed.
00:02:01 Kevin
And then
00:02:03 Kevin
they never show up and then it's like, it's come time for them to be reappointed or be put on a ballot.
00:02:08 Kevin
They're asked, they're like, I'm supposed to be there?
00:02:11 Kevin
Like, you probably should get somebody else.
00:02:13 Kevin
And that happens quite often.
00:02:15 Kevin
Or there's people that are just there and, oh, we can't remove this person or that person, but it's like, they never show up, they never vote, they never voice their opinion.
00:02:24 Kevin
They just happen to be, you know, be friends with a loved one or whoever.
00:02:29 Kevin
And
00:02:30 Kevin
you know, their loved one, their spouse is in it.
00:02:33 Kevin
And so they just show up as a matter of, you know, stance and and whatnot.
00:02:37 Kevin
And it's, you know, it is what it is.
00:02:39 Kevin
So.
00:02:43 Kevin
But with that said, this year we had an appointment.
00:02:48 Kevin
We had a vacancy.
00:02:50 Kevin
Like there was like a bunch of reshuffling because, you know, one ward had more than enough people.
00:02:55 Kevin
And a lot of times you're never going to get three people from one ward to be in it.
00:03:00 Kevin
Like sometimes there's people in the city and they're filling, they actually show up at our committee meetings because we're all members of the county committee as a whole.
00:03:12 Kevin
So a lot of times somebody will get just appointed as a filler in the town of Olean and then they come and sit on our city committee because they're a city resident.
00:03:20 Kevin
And so as soon as an available spot opens up during the next election or a vacancy, they kind of just
00:03:27 Kevin
you know, recuse their one seat and get appointed.
00:03:30 Kevin
It's a it's like it's such a low level that like these things happen all the time and it's just like arbitrary stuff.
00:03:37 Kevin
But so there's a vacancy in Ward five this year.
00:03:42 Kevin
And somebody at the county level, when we get petitions to pass, a lot of times there's like one person that'll generate these petitions.
00:03:51 Kevin
And they're going off of what the committee, the city committee says or the county committee.
00:03:55 Kevin
And then, obviously you don't have 20 people making up their own forms.
00:03:59 Kevin
You get one person that makes the form up, make sure it's legal and all that other stuff.
00:04:02 Kevin
And then you pass it around to the passers and the people that walk the beat, knock on the doors and get the signatures.
00:04:09 Kevin
And somebody
00:04:10 Kevin
like after the last mayoral election, which during this whole time we discussed it and had Bill Elio won the election, for example, like he was going to step down off the committee because, and it was one of those things and we didn't weren't going to change the bylaws.
00:04:25 Kevin
We were actually going to just.
00:04:27 Kevin
start weaning out elected officials so we don't have to change the bylaws.
00:04:30 Kevin
Like, that's just a big process.
00:04:31 Kevin
It's a big to do.
00:04:32 Kevin
And it's like, we're just gonna live and die by this philosophy, which used to always be, it was one of our core values of being on these committees, which is where you're not gonna have elected officials sitting on your committee.
00:04:45 Kevin
And so like, we're gonna wean it out.
00:04:46 Kevin
We're gonna remove some of them and then all of a sudden the county legislators were gonna slowly wean off our committee because there's no reason to have elected officials on there.
00:04:56 Kevin
And then and it's like, you know, you can really support an elected official over another.
00:05:01 Kevin
That's fine and still sit on the committee.
00:05:04 Kevin
But to actually have that person, it looks it's very, you know, it's just it's it doesn't pass the smell test.
00:05:10 Kevin
And that's that's what it's really about.
00:05:13 Kevin
And so the game plan is to go through and get, you know, and these people were going to start weaning themselves off.
00:05:20 Kevin
Well,
00:05:21 Kevin
Bill lost, well, he doesn't have to remove himself to the committee anymore because he's now an elected official or he's not an elected official now.
00:05:28 Kevin
And so like his name stayed on there and there was a vacancy and somebody at the county level put the new mayor's name on there.
00:05:33 Kevin
And I, you know, I reached out to the people and they're like, oh no, we've talked to her.
00:05:36 Kevin
She's gonna, if her, because her petition is already out there and getting passed with the other three openings in that particular ward.
00:05:45 Kevin
And don't worry, she's gonna step down because she understands the deal that we're, you know, because
00:05:51 Kevin
If this keeps happening, we are going to change the bylaws, at which point she would automatically get removed and any of the county legislators.
00:05:57 Kevin
So instead of doing a slow wean process, we're just going to do a scorched earth process where everyone that's elected officials is going to be off the city committee and eventually hopefully the county committee.
00:06:06 Kevin
Because it's just, it's not right.
00:06:08 Kevin
It's unethical.
00:06:09 Kevin
It is unethical.
00:06:10 Kevin
I'm going to say that again and again, and it's unethical to do that.
00:06:13 Kevin
And so like, as much as people think I'm a ***** ** ****
00:06:16 Kevin
Just throwing it out there.
00:06:17 Kevin
I get that all the time.
00:06:18 Kevin
You're a ***** ** ****.
00:06:18 Kevin
Like, no, I'm not really a ***** ** ****.
00:06:20 Kevin
I actually am about following the rules.
00:06:22 Kevin
And even though my opinion might differ from yours, I am about being ethical and honest and true.
00:06:28 Kevin
And that is where I have a lot of gripes with a lot of different people, amongst even my own party, is that they don't like the fact that like, I'm going to hold myself, even if it's like, even if it's to my detriment, like, well, you know, I'm going to lose a ton of money if we change this rule, but I'm still going to change it because it's the right thing to do.
00:06:43 Kevin
It has nothing to do with like the financial gain on me.
00:06:46 Kevin
like or whatever, or like if it if it impacts me in some way, positive, negative, if it doesn't achieve my agenda, like because everybody has an agenda, like, you know what I mean?
00:06:54 Kevin
Like you have your own way of thinking and to to help other people see your way of thinking or to push something that you feel strongly about, that's called an agenda.
00:07:03 Kevin
So if even if it's against my own agenda, I will I will push and vote for something that is the right thing to do, regardless of what my
00:07:14 Kevin
my agenda is or it's trying to achieve.
00:07:16 Kevin
That's really what it is.
00:07:18 Kevin
I don't play dirty in politics.
00:07:21 Kevin
I mean, I have played dirty in the past and you know what I mean?
00:07:24 Kevin
Like, but I don't...
00:07:25 Kevin
not when it comes to the rules of the game.
00:07:28 Kevin
Like, you play the game the way the game is written and when people start changing the rules or manipulating the
00:07:35 Kevin
rules so that there's unfair and unethical rules in play, I'm going to make sure that those rules get removed and it goes back to the original, you know, ethical way of doing things.
00:07:45 Kevin
And so that's where I'm getting at with this.
00:07:47 Kevin
So back to our story, which is, you know, the mayor is supposedly going to step down once she's, you know, once she's appointed, you know, and or once those petitions got passed, she was just going to reject the position.
00:07:59 Kevin
And then they would have a vacancy and they were going to fill in from some of the other people who actually do show up.
00:08:05 Kevin
And I have a friend who is really like trying to get more active in the community and more, he volunteers at different places.
00:08:14 Kevin
His wife volunteers at different places.
00:08:16 Kevin
He's raising four, five, five kids.
00:08:18 Kevin
Like, you know what I mean?
00:08:18 Kevin
He's like, there's, you know, it's just, they're a wholesome family.
00:08:23 Kevin
And I'm like, dude, I'm like, you're a strong Republican.
00:08:25 Kevin
Why don't you come and get into this and blah, blah, blah.
00:08:27 Kevin
And so now there's a vacancy.
00:08:29 Kevin
And so I reach out to people, we'll fill this vacancy.
00:08:33 Kevin
I'm like, you know what?
00:08:34 Kevin
I'll pass his petitions.
00:08:35 Kevin
I'm going to pass his petitions because when she steps down, at least then he'll be on the ballot and he'll have his first taste of getting, you know, and not that it would be, there wouldn't be a primary because Amy was going to reject the, you know, the mayor was going to reject the seat because we are going to eliminate this position if people keep trying to do this where there are elected officials and be on the committee.
00:08:55 Kevin
So
00:08:56 Kevin
Then comes time, we pass the ballots, we pass the petitions, whatever.
00:08:59 Kevin
Then all of a sudden they say, hey, this is going to force a primary.
00:09:01 Kevin
I'm like, why would it force a primary if the mayor is not running?
00:09:04 Kevin
Oh, no, she's going to run.
00:09:06 Kevin
And then what sparked this podcast really was not that just that today is primary day.
00:09:10 Kevin
And I need you to go out there and vote, especially if you're in Ward 5, because this is just like this is becoming one of those just like little just kernels of dumbness.
00:09:21 Kevin
It's fine if elected officials come and sit in on our meetings.
00:09:24 Kevin
We've never, ever had an issue with that.
00:09:26 Kevin
If you want to give us your take on what's going on at city level, county level, government level, mayoral level, what have you, come and sit in on our meeting.
00:09:34 Kevin
Let us know what you're doing.
00:09:35 Kevin
Talk with us.
00:09:35 Kevin
Like, that's fine.
00:09:36 Kevin
You're not going to be a voting member on our board.
00:09:39 Kevin
And that's really what it comes down to.
00:09:43 Kevin
And...
00:09:45 Kevin
So no one's not inviting these people to the meeting.
00:09:47 Kevin
It's just, this is the way that things are going.
00:09:49 Kevin
We're going back to an ethical standard.
00:09:52 Kevin
But then she decided, from all available metrics, she is not stepping down.
00:09:57 Kevin
She's not going to recuse herself from this appointment that her name mistakenly got put on.
00:10:03 Kevin
And I finally asked around to more people that were passing and they were like, yeah, no, you know.
00:10:10 Kevin
a relative of hers had mentioned like, oh, no, there's no reason that she's the mayor.
00:10:14 Kevin
So there's no reason she shouldn't be on this committee, that she should not be on this committee just automatically as being the mayor.
00:10:20 Kevin
It's like, well, the mayor doesn't come with that much power.
00:10:21 Kevin
Really, it's not that powerful of a position.
00:10:24 Kevin
So you can't just, I'm the mayor.
00:10:27 Kevin
This is my way or the highway.
00:10:28 Kevin
It's no, this is the way things are supposed to be done.
00:10:30 Kevin
And, you know, this clearly was in error and, you know, this is how it should be done.
00:10:36 Kevin
And so but now there's going to be
00:10:39 Kevin
an election today and, you know, there's there's two people on the ballot, the mayor being one of them, and another one is a, you know, a very staunch Republican.
00:10:50 Kevin
And they're they live in Ward five and the other two, there's no vacancies in Ward four or Ward one.
00:10:57 Kevin
So one of them is from obviously the new guy I was talking about.
00:11:01 Kevin
And then
00:11:02 Kevin
which you've probably seen him on the show before.
00:11:04 Kevin
It's Paul the good husband.
00:11:05 Kevin
He's, you know, he's got that name for a reason because he's a really, you know, just conservative guy and he's he's he's perfect for, you know, the Republicans.
00:11:12 Kevin
So and then there is the person from Ward one who's a very staunch Republican and she has been she's been on the committee for years.
00:11:21 Kevin
She always makes every meeting and yada yada.
00:11:24 Kevin
And so it's one of those like if you're in Ward five, you should go out there and vote and
00:11:30 Kevin
Obviously, it's weird that we have to go through this, and it's nothing against the mayor.
00:11:36 Kevin
It's just this is not your position.
00:11:39 Kevin
This is not your place.
00:11:40 Kevin
I don't know why your name got thrown on here, and if it was by your own doing, well, you're incorrect.
00:11:47 Kevin
And if it was not by your own doing, then you should just say, Hey, listen, this is not the place for an elected official.
00:11:53 Kevin
That's it.
00:11:55 Kevin
I sat on the board when I was an alderman.
00:11:57 Kevin
I don't want to clear the water on this.
00:11:59 Kevin
Like, and then I realized that these rules were in place and a lot of them hadn't been enforced and the state gave buys on them and all that other stuff.
00:12:05 Kevin
And it's like, and that's when I was like, oh, well, this doesn't seem right.
00:12:10 Kevin
And I, being an ethical person, I would always try my best to try to finagle these.
00:12:15 Kevin
And when I discovered these rules, that's why I've been making this push.
00:12:17 Kevin
And then I wasn't an alderman anymore.
00:12:19 Kevin
And so it's like, okay, that's one less person that's in an elected position.
00:12:22 Kevin
If I were to ever run for an elected position again, I would be stepping down off this board.
00:12:26 Kevin
once taking office.
00:12:28 Kevin
And there's other people that were running for judge this year.
00:12:31 Kevin
A good friend of mine, he stepped down as soon as he announced, like the day before he announced that he was running for judge because he did not want any.
00:12:38 Kevin
That shows you the ethicalness of this.
00:12:41 Kevin
And the guy that's running for judge is one of the most ethical people that I know.
00:12:44 Kevin
He is one of the, like, does not want the smell test to smell at all, like for any reason at all, like if it even has the slightest hint of a smell, he doesn't want anything to do with it.
00:12:54 Kevin
Any impropriety, anything.
00:12:55 Kevin
That's how ethical of a person he is.
00:12:57 Kevin
And he would not be.
00:12:58 Kevin
He stepped down before he even decided to run.
00:13:00 Kevin
I'm just saying the rule is that you just can't be an elected official on the board.
00:13:05 Kevin
And obviously, depending on how today's election goes, is going to determine if our bylaws change because it's one of those things.
00:13:12 Kevin
If all of a sudden the mayor gets on there, then it's going to be like, okay, well, I'm just going to put forth a proposition and then it's.
00:13:19 Kevin
going to get slammed dunk in the hole because it's already like 95% of the people there agree with this rule.
00:13:26 Kevin
There's a bunch of the elected officials that don't agree with it.
00:13:29 Kevin
And it's one of those like, well, don't infiltrate the party.
00:13:34 Kevin
I saw an ad last night.
00:13:35 Kevin
Somebody sent me an ad that said, vote for the two true residences of Ward 5.
00:13:41 Kevin
And it's like, that has nothing to do with it.
00:13:43 Kevin
It has nothing to do with it.
00:13:44 Kevin
We have three positions, and we have three candidates.
00:13:47 Kevin
that are qualified to do it and there's not the other the other person is not qualified to do it because they're an elected official that's the rule like Jesus I don't know how how much more I can beat it into people's heads um and I don't know it is what it is so I encourage every one of you to go out there and vote if you're in Ward 5 I encourage you to to vote uh George Filgrove, Michiko McElfresh and uh Paul LeBlanc uh and uh and
00:14:17 Kevin
It's no like, like I said, it's no referendum on the mayor.
00:14:20 Kevin
It literally is just like there's a syntax error that happened and then it caused this to happen.
00:14:27 Kevin
And like, you know, nobody wants to get struck by lightning.
00:14:34 Kevin
Nobody wants to make an error, you know, not crossing a T or dotting an I, and then your tax return gets rejected.
00:14:39 Kevin
And it's like, nobody wants that to happen, but that's what happened here.
00:14:42 Kevin
So
00:14:43 Kevin
just need to make the amendment and then go forward.
00:14:46 Kevin
And that's going to how we determine how we go forward is by having you go out there and vote to figure this out.
00:14:52 Kevin
Otherwise, like, it just makes more paperwork for me.
00:14:54 Kevin
I don't like paperwork.
00:14:56 Kevin
I like paperwork sometimes, but I don't just...
00:14:58 Kevin
I don't need all the paperwork.
00:14:59 Kevin
So...
00:15:00 Kevin
All right, guys.
00:15:01 Kevin
See you next time.
00:15:02 Kevin
Life22.