Back To The Days Of Kerfuffle?
by Thaddeus Flint
The word “Kerfuffle” (from the Scottish verb Fuffle, meaning “to throw into disorder”) is such a fabulous sounding word that many reporters (or maybe none) use it as inspiration; going from meeting to meeting with the hope that a kerfuffle will one day bloom before their very eyes, allowing them to finally write “kerfuffle” in a sentence (and then find they probably misspelled it).
The New Lebanon Town Board is known to host a good kerfuffle now and then, and thus was the case once again at its August 13 meeting. To be fair, there hasn’t been all that much fuffling in New Lebanon since the previous Town Supervisor, Colleen Teal, took over from the previous previous Town Supervisor Mike Benson. Sure there were a few (the Rail Trail expansion fuffled on for months), but it was nothing like the Benson Administration where people would cancel dinner plans and reschedule vacations so they could line up at meetings to kerfuffle with the man.
Now that previous Supervisor Teal is down in Virginia at her new job of Chief Financial Officer for the Town of Colonial Beach (which looks nice, but lacks the snow, ice, mud, and taxes so cherished in our hearts up here in the Empire State) the previous previous previous Supervisor, Meg Robertson, is back to the front of the room as Acting Supervisor until the end of 2019. So, what better way to welcome her than a good ol’ fashioned kerfuffle?
Believe it or not, last week’s kerfuffle was about the Fire Department. That’s because some people will believe it and some people won’t. Lucky for the people that like to read the word “kerfuffle” over and over, both of these groups of people were in the room at the same time.
The Lebanon Valley Protective Association wasn’t even officially on the agenda. Councilman Mark Baumli merely reported some Fire Department news because he is the liaison to the LVPA. And that news would have probably gone unnoticed because it was largely a repeat of earlier news: According to the Councilman, the LVPA is “diligently” working to get some paperwork to the Town Board as part of the agreement for the Town’s yearly payments. Baumli noted that most of the information needed has already been submitted, but an “asset management plan” is still being worked on and should be in shortly.
Absolutely nobody was all that surprised that the LVPA’s homework was late. Even almost a month late. That’s because the firemen are short staffed and trying to figure out their future—or, if they even have one—all the while losing experienced members and not gaining enough new ones, experienced or otherwise. Meanwhile they are saving lives. If people would just stop getting into accidents, falling over, and burning their houses down the LVPA could get its homework done. In the meantime, Baumli asked that the Board cut another $32,000 check so the Fire Department can continue to aid those who continue getting into accidents, falling over and burning their houses down. “They are acting in good faith,” said Baumli of the Fire Department, not the people getting into accidents, falling over and burning their houses down.
The problem with “good faith” is that plenty of lawyers would jump out of their burrows and pounce with vicous glee on such kindness. It’s a sad truth that not everyone is good, and plenty of the not-so-goods have ESQ after their names. This is more or less how Councilman Norman Rasmussen saw things. Preferential treatment of “vendors,” said the Councilman, “is not in the best interest of the residents of this Town.”
And that’s where the fuffle hit the fan. A large portion of the relatively small audience really didn’t like the word “vendor” being used to describe their beloved LVPA. Even if “vendor” is what they are legally considered, it kind of made the Fire Department sound like some guy in a dusty suit peddling vacuums door to door. One person in particular, Planning Board member Robert Smith, could even be described as feeling past upset, skewing toward incensed. Rasmussen treating the LVPA like anyone else, when there is nobody else like them at all, really got the man’s goat. In fact his goat was so gotten that he openly wished that the Councilman’s house would burn down.
This of course also incensed a lot of other people—with the apparent exception of Councilman Rasmussen who maintained the expression of a man who buys the expensive batteries for his smoke alarms–and the meeting entered full kerfuffle for a while before someone switched the air conditioning back on and the matter went to a vote. The result was all but Rasmussen voting in favor of paying the latest installment of the LVPA money with the hope that the final documents are in before budget season starts. “They are doing the best job they can with their shrinking membership,” noted Interim Supervisor Robertson. “It’s a scary thought,” she added, “ to think if in a year from now they aren’t there.”
Needless to say, the Interim Supervisor was unruffled with her first kerfuffle. That’s because Robertson has gone through this all before. Which is much of the reason that the Board voted her in as Interim Supervisor: Experience. Who better to keep things on an even keel for the last months of the year than somebody who has already done the job already? So it was a bit odd at the August 9 Special Meeting where Robertson was appointed, that a group of people in the audience didn’t feel she should be paid for those skills. Apparently, the Deputy Supervisor, Doug Banker, had offered to do the job unpaid because his lack of experience at being an actual Supervisor would cost the Town more in administrative work. Using this information, some residents thought they could get the job done for free. Such experience for Robertson’s resume would certainly be all the compensation she would ever need! Any recent college grad knows this!
Well, about that. The same people who like other people to work for them for free also wanted Robertson to say she wouldn’t run in the upcoming November elections. Were they afraid of powerful women? Some people are still afraid of powerful women, say powerful women who know about such things. Even though Robertson can’t get her name on the ballot so late in the year, some residents seemed frightened that a majority of other residents might write her name in over and over and over, and make her the next Town Supervisor anyway.
Robertson had sighed, and shook her head. “It’s called democracy,” she said.