The video from Monday night's meeting is queued to where resident Jim Grenafege asked Tony Perry directly whether or not the anonymous email sent out two weeks ago by a fictitious group calling themselves, " Residents Against Over Development" attacking Democratic candidate Sean Byrnes, came from his campaign and if he had any knowledge of it before being sent to residents. Perry's non answers are very telling.
Tony Perry did his best two-step to avoid answering the question as it was asked, " Were you, in any shape or form associated with that email?", What followed was a political non-answer by Perry that by the omission of a direct answer, confirms that he and his campaign was responsible for it. The exchange between Grenafege and Perry lasted several minutes and became a little heated due to frustrations over non-answers (you can watch the exchange yourself, it's queued up to 2:13:35 of the video).
Bottomline here is that Tony Perry and the Middletown GOP where caught redhanded attempting to smear a rival candidate and through their own stupidity, it came back to bite them in the ass. Now Tony Perry and his buddies are backpedaling under the scrutiny of local media and outraged residents and trying to cover-up their tracks.
As I said before, the attempt of this little dirty-tricks email was underhanded and unethical. It also is in violation of campaign election laws for not being properly identified as coming from and paid for by Tony Perry's campaign.
Bottomline here is that Tony Perry and the Middletown GOP where caught redhanded attempting to smear a rival candidate and through their own stupidity, it came back to bite them in the ass. Now Tony Perry and his buddies are backpedaling under the scrutiny of local media and outraged residents and trying to cover-up their tracks.
As I said before, the attempt of this little dirty-tricks email was underhanded and unethical. It also is in violation of campaign election laws for not being properly identified as coming from and paid for by Tony Perry's campaign.
You can watch the entire 3 hour video .... HERE. The Public Comments portion of the meeting starts about 22 minutes in. A vast majority of those there to ask questions of the Township Committee were they to ask about the proposed sports complex being considered for Stevenson Park.
10 comments:
You are correct Mike, he did not answer the question at all. He answered a question, but he did not answer the question as to whether he had any knowledge of the emails. That's the lie of omission that was referred to in the video.
Perry is a lying, unethical individual of poor character.
In other words, he is a perfect fit for our current township committee.
He is right though, he obtained the emails legally. The question is whether or not it was legal for our township to release the personal email addresses of its residents. I don’t think so. We have an expectation of privacy that our town did not protect because they will do anything, ethics and laws be dammed, to stay in power.
I wonder if the ACLU would get involved to investigate whether or not our right to privacy was violated? Anyone want to drop a dime?
This is such a deep scandal people. Tony Perry is a little DOU%#^HEBAG why does our town have to deal with this!! We need to make sure we turnout at the ballotbox to make his tenure short and for him to leave public office for good
Politicians use attack ads because they work. The problem isn’t that Tony endorsed an attack ad. The problem is that he tried, stupidly, to hide the fact that he did it. I say stupidly because he wasn’t bright enough to get away with it. The ad was easily traced by to his Twitter account. Duh. I would have more respect for him if he had a pair of balls and owed up to the obvious instead of proving that not only is he stupid, he is also a lying coward. He was handed his seat on the Committee through blatant nepotism and he is so incompetent that he could screw up a wet dream.
He is my second choice for the Committee, my first choice is anyone else.
Low life is the name of this game and we have seen it before. Republican politics in this town has become a blood sport.
The recent flyer from these creeps against the Democrats was enough to send every Democrat in this town and all other decent people to the ballet box to support all three democratic candidates.......These bottom of the barrel tactics are totally repulsive .This town is better than this crap !!!!
Everyone should be required to watch the exchange that begins at 2:13 of the video before they cast their vote.
It is a disappointing display of our committee obfuscating, using a straw man argument and using protocol to guarantee that the public does not learn the truth about what Perry did. And as if Tony Perry looking like a complete idiot wasn’t enough, his namesake Mr. Fiore had to insert himself into the fray with a completely unnecessary, childish, partisan, off topic comment which might have been appropriate for a political rally but had no place at this meeting. We really deserve smarter people than this representing us.
I’m like most people in town in that I don’t pay much attention to these meetings or even local politics. I’m busy living my life and just hope that the wisdom of the crowd has put reasonable adults at the helm. But every time I read or hear anything about our committee that didn’t come from their own newsletter I’m embarrassed to be represented by these guys and this video is just the latest example.
I'm voting Democrat because in Middletown, elections are the only means a Democrat has to win. If Tony Perry loses, rest assured he will be appointed to some other position via the Middletown Republican Family and Friends Plan, There is only one way to stop the nepotism train and that is to vote in some balance and put some brakes on this pathetic bunch.
I'm not all that political but I always thought the color for the Democratic party was blue and for Republican red. In driving around town I've noticed all the huge BLUE signs for Perry Snell & Hibell. Don't they know what party they belong to?? If they can't get a little detail like that right then god knows what they'll do to the town.
The point of Fiore’s comment is that we should not be concerned with Tony Perry’s obvious lack of character because instead we should be focusing on the fact that apparently a Democrat got caught stealing Republican campaign signs in town. It is a red herring as was pointed out in the video. Sorry Fiore, I understand that you are uncomfortable discussing the fact that your cohort lacks the integrity to take responsibility for his own actions. But pointing out that some Democrats also do unethical things doesn’t seem like a very effective defense of your fellow Republican. It comes across more like a pathetic obfuscation and an admission of Perry’s shortcomings.
I heard that perhaps as many as three hundred Democratic campaign signs have also been stolen in town but the difference is that no one was caught stealing them. Why didn’t Tony mention the bigger problem in town of campaign signs from both parties being stolen? If they catch the Republican(s) responsible for stealing Democratic signs will Tony be chomping at the bit and speaking out of turn to point it out at the next meeting? Of course not.
The only thing that Fiore’s comment tells me is that in Middletown, Republicans are much better than Democrats at getting away with unethical behavior. I guess practice makes perfect.
This is from the "Middletown Minutes" webpage under the heading of "III. USE OF INFORMATION"
"Township will only use the information you provide to us for the purpose for which such information was provided."
WTF? Their privacy agreement with us says that they will not give out our information and then they violated this agreement and gave it out anyway? That's bullshit.
Does this mean that our township will give out our personal email addresses to any telemarketer, car salesman, scam artist or hate group that submits an OPRA request?
Or will they only violate the agreement they made with us to help one of their committee members get elected?
I want to know what individual approved releasing our protected, personal information to Perry. Don't we employ lawyers to review OPRA requests before they are granted?
And apparently it's not just our email addresses that they will share. Did you know that if you sign up for the newsletter they also collect information about you including:
"tracking your activities through your IP address, most-recently visited URL and referral sites. This information is used for identifying certain information such as; hits, referral sites and unique IP addresses."
Why does our township need to track the websites we visit? Why do they need to identify "certain information" about us in order to disseminate information about our town to us?
Who has access to this information that they collect on us and what are they using it for?
We all need to unsubscribe from Middletown Minutes ASAP. And someone needs to contact the ACLU to see if our rights have been violated and possibly the federal government to see if they violated the Privacy Act.
There is nothing in this town that the Republicans won't use or distort for political purposes, including emergency contacts. To them, staying in office is an emergency. I don't know if they could ever do it honestly, because I don't think they have ever tried. The keep up the same mudslinging year after year because it works. Every single thing stuck in my mailbox by the Republicans is a poorly written scare tactic about the Democrats. They always win because most of the voters in Middletown are scared, old and uniformed. Not all, but most of those who turn out. Perhaps eventually with younger people moving in this mentality will fade. But that has been the situation for many years.
Ironically I hear people talk about what would happen if Democrats took over. Decades ago Democrats DID run Middletown and I think most people who remember would tell you Middletown was a much better place to live and the big bad boogeymen didn't come to spirit them away!
Don't be scared by the lies, VOTE BLUE.
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