http://tinyurl.com/pbnzmqEnough! Board bans deer discussion
Cayuga Heights calls for 60-day moratorium
By Krisy Gashler
kgashler@gannett.comThe Cayuga Heights Board of Trustees has voted unanimously to forbid public
comment about deer during village board meetings for the next 60 days.
The board voted Monday "to limit presentations at privilege of the floor for
60 days to non-deer-related topics while still accepting input on the deer
topic in writing," Mayor Jim Gilmore said.
"These times when we're together must be productive and we need to cover a
lot of business," Gilmore said. "We can't do it if we have these long,
drawn-out privilege-of-the-floor shows."
Public comment at the July 20 village meeting lasted roughly an hour.
The board is considering a proposal to sterilize 30 to 60 deer, then hire
trained sharpshooters to cull or kill the rest of the deer in the village.
Cayuga Heights has been exploring strategies to deal with deer-related
problems for almost a decade. The most recent proposal came from a committee
that met for 10 months, most of that time in public and including time at
each meeting for public comment. The village also hosted two public forums
on deer earlier this year.
However, since the current proposal was publicly announced, there has only
been one regular, evening board meeting. At that July meeting, trustees
discussed making their decision by August or September in order to begin
sterilizing deer this winter.
Public comment at municipal board and council meetings, often called
"privilege of the floor," is not required by state law, though it is a
widely accepted practice.
Villager Mary Tabacchi, who opposes culling, said she thinks the board's
decision is "undemocratic."
"There have been a lot of comments pro and con, letters pro and con, but
most of those were before the specific proposal came forward," she said. "So
it takes a couple hours out of a month to hear people express their feelings
on a topic that is divisive. The people who are anxious - pro and con - when
you pull out that ability to express it, I just think you're asking for
trouble."
"They can still give us a written statement," Gilmore said. "The reality is
we have ample and voluminous amounts of information from our residents as
well as the greater populace. We are charged with making a decision, and to
me, continuing to get input ad infinitum is irresponsible. We could
effectively be dodging the decision by continuing to gather input. Now we
need to assess everything we've read and everything we've heard and vote on
it."
Cayugadeer.org, the citizens group opposed to culling, attended and recorded
Monday's village meeting, held at noon. The video of the board's discussion
is available at www.cayugadeer.org.
The board began holding a second monthly noon meeting in June this year.
"The purpose of this meeting, which is open to the public, is to hear
department reports and pay village bills," according to the village web
site. The proposal to limit public comment on deer during board meetings
came from Gilmore during his regular "report of the Mayor."
During their discussion, the trustees considered eliminating privilege of
the floor entirely for 60 days, but eventually decided to retain time for
public comment on anything not related to the deer decision.
"If we eliminate all privilege of the floor, we gain the extra time that's
been so sorely lacking for the past close to a year to deliberate," Trustee
Ron Bors said. "On the other hand, occasionally there will be non-deer
issues that residents have, such as planning board or something else and we
should allow those comments to be addressed."
Trustee Bea Szekely agreed, arguing that people keep repeating the same
things during privilege of the floor.
"Nothing new was said at the last meeting," she said.
Trustee Robert Andolina "played devil's advocate" on continuing to allow
public comment about the deer during the board's final months of
deliberation on the controversial issue.
"We're talking about a couple more late nights and I feel like we could make
that sacrifice for the purpose of having as complete a discussion as people
are interested in having," he said.
Trustee Diana Riesman asked how the board would enforce its new policy.
Trustee David Donner responded that they would ask people to stop in the
same way they enforce time limits on individual public comments.
"If they start talking about the deer, your time's up," he said.
The next village board meeting is 7 p.m. Aug. 17 in Marcham Hall, 836
Hanshaw Road.
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