Bye-Bye Brewster?

Responding to a Courier survey revealing that 74.5 percent of Southeast residents have a “fair or poor” opinion of their town board, Supervisor Michael Rights proposed government consolidation as the solution to the widespread angst. Rights said that the Village of Brewster, which is contained within the Town of Southeast, should be dissolved and that its mayor, James Schoenig, is to blame for the local woes. But Schoenig, who opposes dissolution of his village, told the Courier that it is Rights who is doing a poor job.

Among the top grievances of those polled in Southeast was illegal immigration, with nearly everyone—96.4 percent—saying it is a serious problem locally. High taxes were also cited as a major concern.

Rights, who has been supervisor since 2008, believes that dissolving Brewster would solve many of his town’s major issues, including illegal immigration. This would eliminate village property taxes for Brewster residents, who would then only pay Southeast taxes. Rights added that the Brewster authorities admit they are collecting only 38 percent of these village taxes.

But Schoenig, who has been Brewster’s mayor since 2008, is of a different mind. “He [Rights] has a lot of nerve, he should look in the mirror. He can’t even run the town of Southeast, how does he think he’s going to fix the Village?”

Rights is not the only one who has proposed consolidating or dissolving governments. Last weekend, Assemblyman Greg Ball and Dr. Steve Katz, candidates for 40th State Senate District and 99th Assembly District, respectively, called for the dissolution for the Brewster. Under such a proposal, all Brewster citizens would simply be Southeast citizens, a status they currently hold anyway.

Schoenig said the calls for consolidation are a charade. “Everyone keeps saying consolidation is the solution, but consolidation has nothing to do with illegal immigration,” Schoenig said. “It must be election season otherwise we wouldn’t be hearing from Greg Ball. He’s another one who hasn’t done anything.”

Supervisor Rights, for his part, did not reserve all of his criticism for Mayor Schoenig. He added that the perspectives of the four other village trustees, Christine Piccini, Teresa Stockburger, William Banks, and Yoshi Ito, “do not reflect reality.”

“I’ll let the mayor’s comments speak on our behalf,” Piccini, Brewster’s deputy mayor, told the Courier. Stockburger, Banks, and Ito could not be reached as of press time.

Southeast Councilman Roger Gross agreed with Rights that consolidation of the Brewster and Southeast governments— more of a merger than a dissolution— is worth considering, but he questioned the supervisor’s leadership. He told the Courier that, though he did not want to put people out of jobs, consolidation would ultimately be a cost effective solution. However, he said the Village of Brewster has a lot of debt that Southeast could not afford to inherit. Moreover, Gross said, “Michael Rights has demonstrated absolutely no leadership. He’s absolutely incompetent. I’m looking forward to the end of his term in office.”

According to Rights, the dissolution of Brewster would required a “community consensus.” Enough signatures would need to be collected on a petition before the Board of Elections could place the motion on a referendum.

The Town of Southeast, established in 1788, has a population of 17,316, which includes roughly 2,117 people living in the Village of Brewster according to a 2009 estimate from the U.S. census bureau.