Although the appointment and swearing in of Guilderland Police Chief Carol Lawlor is over, apparently the political fallout isn’t, as what began as a partisan vote has turned into partisan bickering.
The town board in a 3-to-2 vote down party lines appointed Lawlor on Tuesday, June 3. She was sworn in three days later on Friday, June 6, with the Democratic majority who voted for her in attendance, but with the Republican minority who voted against her absent.
Supervisor Ken Runion sent out an e-mail on May 22 to his fellow town board members stating that he was recommending Lawlor for the post and that she would be on the agenda for June 3 and recommended that, if appointed, her swearing in ceremony be the next day on Wednesday, June 4.
When the swearing in ceremony was moved to Friday, June 6, Grimm contends that board members were not given adequate notice and that Runion used Grimm’s and Republican Councilman Warren Redlich’s absences to take a shot at what should have been a non-political event.
Furthermore, when asked about photographs of Lawlor’s appointment with Democratic board members on the front of the town’s Web site, Grimm said it was just another example of Runion using political propaganda and that he was using public events and the `taxpayer’s Web site` to do so.
Grimm said he wasn’t notified of the date change.
Runion said the change was an innocent move and denied any political maneuvering.
`The night of the appointment that was the first time I had heard it, when he announced it to all the world,` Grimm said about the June 6 ceremony. `It’s a matter of courtesy. He didn’t even check the availability of the other members. He made a deliberate partisan attack and gave us a two-and-a-half day notice.`
Continuing, he said, `All he had to do was say, ‘Mark, how about Friday morning?`
Grimm said he had cleared his morning for the original date but had a prior commitment when Lawlor was actually sworn in.
He said wanted to be there.
`The vote is over and she’s the chief,` Grimm said. `I fully support Chief Carol Lawlor.`
Runion said it was a scheduling conflict within the police department that caused the date to be changed to June 6.
`There were 12 police officers who requested that they be there but could not on June 4,` said Runion about the date change. `With something as important as a police chief appointment, if I wanted to be there I would have made time to be there.`
Runion described the notion that he purposefully changed the date of Lawlor’s appointment or withheld the new date from board members as `ridiculous.`
`They are the two biggest phonies,` Runion said of Grimm and Redlich. `They sit there with all of this open government talk, but I’ve had more executive sessions because of them then I’ve ever had on a board.`
Continuing, he said, `It’s total bull–.`
Runion wouldn’t say when exactly Grimm got his notice of the date change, saying, `I’m not going to deny he didn’t hear about it before. I guess I’m gonna defer to whatever he says.`
The supervisor said it could have been a miscommunication, but that the date change was included in the board members’ agenda packet on Wednesday, May 28, almost a week before the appointment meeting.
Runion prefaced his statements by saying he doesn’t personally create the agenda packet or deliver it to the mailboxes in Town Hall.
Grimm responded by calling Runion a liar, saying it wasn’t a miscommunication, but `a total lack of communication,` adding his date change notice was not included in his agenda packet, which he picked up before the meeting at Town Hall.
`He knew that was flat-out not true,` Grimm said, adding that he took issue with the fact that Runion took the time to ask the police officer’s schedules, but not the town board members who had voted on Lawlor’s appointment.
`Let me get this straight. He checked the availability of the officers, but not with us?` Grimm asked. `He made no effort to check our availability. That’s wrong, I wanted to be there.`
The other two Democrats that were there, Councilwoman Patricia Slavick and Councilman Paul Pastore, said they had short notice as well. Slavick said she called Runion about the date earlier in the week, but Pastore said he also heard it for the first time at Lawlor’s appointment.
`The supervisor announced it that night,` Pastore said. `If there was an issue, I wasn’t aware of it. I wasn’t made aware of any scheduling issues by the board.`
In an e-mail to Spotlight Newspapers, Redlich said simply that with a full-time job and his duties on the board, an 11 a.m. meeting on a Friday would be hard to make no matter when a date was scheduled. “