The Raid

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
--Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from
the government and I'm here to help.'
--Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)


While the counters are counting, enabling New Yorkers and Hamptonites alike to know who will be the new Supervisor of Southampton, along with the Board Members who assist that person – it is instructive to review some of the tactics that have been used to sway the voters.
As the current numbers line up, without the paper ballots, Linda Kabot, the Republican has 70 votes more than Jim Henry, the Democrat. The incumbent, Patrick “Skip” Heaney follows both of them by between 350 and 400 votes and is unlikely to be able to win regardless of how strong he pulls with the 777 paper ballots remaining.
Rumors have Henry pulling closer to Kabot and despite the predictions by veteran politicians, someone will probably be heading to court to challenge the official results no matter who is awarded the victory.
Rumors that former Legislator, Attorney George Guldi will “steal” the election for Jim Henry have been debunked by the Republicans but both the Southampton Press and the Easthampton Star have, by the form of their questions, implied that he is controlling the vote counting process along with Neil Tiger. When queried about this, their only response was that together they have over 50 years of combined experience in the process of certifying election ballots.
So, it appears that we will definitely know who the winner is by the New Year.

However, “The Raid,” the shameless attack on Linda Kabot in this election is most instructive as to the level of corruption exhibited by the Heaney regime – along with the complicity of the Town Attorney, Garrett Swenson, the Public Safety office (Ms. Kraft), the Building Department, the Town Police, and the Code Enforcement officers – which shows all of us how seriously the almost comical incompetence of these agencies has been corrupted. While they could not enforce the laws on the books properly before, they managed to coordinate a clearly politically motivated attack fairly well.

Essentially, during the final days of the campaign, after Kabot beat Heaney in the Republican Primary, the Town Supervisor called upon almost every level of Town government to coordinate an attack on his opponent – for political gain.
The Town Attorney, Garrett Swenson, Heaney’s “Neanderthal,” as he is known mainly by the female politicians, had a Town investigator visit Kabot’s aunt’s property, Senior Building Inspector Fred Lang issued violations, and the Code Enforcement Police staged a raid supported by a warrant issued by Justice Kooperstein and instigated by Police Officer Badagliacca, who was unable to be reached because he was on vacation.
Now bear in mind that these people worked together to gather evidence and pull this stunt – in order to get a bunch of Guatemalans our of a few rentals units on the Wilkins property that they had known about for almost 10 years. It seems that what set this major machinery in motion was a report that someone set off a firecracker at some point in time.
So, get this, the entire machinery of government, such as it is, coordinated a Putsch – because there were too many beds in a couple of rental cottages.
And, for this, in a Town that talks incessantly about affordable housing but does nothing at all to alleviate the problem, they want to put the owner in jail for a year on each of 12 counts.
The fact of the matter is that we should all thank her for alleviating the shortage of cheap housing so that these people (who clean toilets and rake leaves) don’t have to live in the woods.

The wonder of all of this is that the Southampton Press reported this raid in an article whose headline says “Questions Raised Over Raid” and “Heaney says charges were not politically motivated.”
This is the same newspaper that showed its readers a front page photo of Heaney with a $1.5 million dollar check made out to “Hampton Bays Taxpayers” compliments of the 2 percent transfer tax paid by buyers of real estate in the Hamptons. It was a front-page ad for Heaney that was free.

Well, hello? Let go of Heaney, guys. He lost!
Time to move on with your “news” reports.

Heads need to roll at the bunker. Der Fuhrer is out and it’s time to request some resignations and reassign some of the good old’ boys, give the Chief of Police a loyalty test, move some Code Enforcement officers to the rubber gun squad, demote the Chief Building Inspector, and suggest that Officer Badagliacca go on another vacation.
Justice Kooperstein should reconsider the use of warrants to settle civil matters like evictions that are really part of the hidden agenda of racism.
Perhaps she was simply the Judge on rotation that particular week and may have been threatened by the Police State mentality that Heaney played to so well.