Soto says no to Supervisor's invitation to Dunkin'
-
- November
- 27
Right after the regular Town Board meeting last night, Haverstraw town Supervisor Howard Phillips casually asked Hector Soto, Haverstraw Town Board member-elect, if he wanted to join him and others at Dunkin’ Donuts.
Soto politely declined, saying that he was watching his weight.
Phillips insisted and said, “I’m going to drink water. That’s what I’m going to do.�
Soto smiled, gesturing to his gut, and left.
Phillips looked disappointed, and I felt that his disappointment was not only because Soto didn’t want to eat doughnuts.
Soto, a retired Haverstraw town police detective, wanted run for a Town Board seat on a Democratic line, but the Haverstraw town Democratic Committee nominated incumbent Town Board members Isidro “Papo� Cancel and John Gould for the two seats up for election.
Soto did not give up and ran for the Democratic primary against Cancel and Gould. He defeated Cancel and went on to secure a Town Board seat in the November election, along with Gould.
Phillips, who supported Gould and Cancel for the primary, obviously wants to build a good relationship with Soto so that his town businesses will go smoothly, but if Soto can say no to Phillips’ suggestions beyond the invitation to Dunkin’, things are going to be very interesting.
At any Haverstraw Town Board meetings I’ve attended, I’ve never seen a Town Board member voting no to any resolution proposed.
We’ll see.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 7:10 pm by Akiko Matsuda.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: del.icio.us Digg Google Technorati Yahoo! | 
Print
| 
Email
I love how reporters with no talent LOVE to speculate as to what things mean.
Maybe, just maybe, Ms. Matsuda, Mr. Soto actually DID NOT FEEL LIKE GOING TO DUNKIN DONUTS.
But, go ahead read into something that's not there.
Journal News, more pathetic than ever!
I agree, "Oy Vey".
I'm sorry, but how this is a story? I agree, Mr. Soto may have just not felt like going to Dunkin Donuts. It's after a meeting, it was probably just a friendly invitation since Mr. Soto has known Mr. Phillips a while. So, he didn't go. Big deal. If it were me, and I'm watching my weight, etc., and I was asked, I would've said no. Doesn't mean I'd say no to the Supervisor on issues, etc. And I'm just a resident, not a Councilman, etc.
I think the reason many people become cynical of our officials, etc. is because of reporters trying to create situations that aren't there via innuendo.
I know there's freedom of speech, but I think a lot of our local reporters have "freedom of stupidity" and this blog Ms. Akiko Matsuda created is an example of just that. She had nothing to report on the actual items on the agenda, but she decides to "print" a probably private converation, without permission I might add, and then run with it and make a spin that doesn't exist.
If I were the Town Board members, and the Supervisor, I'd take the Journal News to task on a private conversation after a formal meeting and used it for a story. Shame on the Journal News!
In these days of eating disorders and the rise in obesity, that a reporter should make a story out of one politician's polite decline to an invitation to a post meeting snack is truly sad. As Oy Vey and Haverstraw Resident already noted, this was probably nothing more than a case of an individual not wanting the temptation a place like Dunkin'Donuts presents.
The Journal News has really fallen on hard times. The paper is devoid of any real hard news, the though-provoking editorials are long gone and anything but local news has been relegated to the back pages. It's getting to the point where even making an excuse that one is buying the paper for the comics is grasping at straws, since the comic pages are a joke (pardon the pun) at best.
Who really cares