Residents: Masonville supervisor cut off public comments

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August 3, 2012

Residents: Masonville supervisor cut off public comments

By JOE MAHONEY Staff Writer The Daily Star Fri Aug 03, 2012, 09:24 AM EDT

In the Delaware County community of Masonville, citizens advocating for restrictions on natural gas drilling say they are displeased with the town supervisor for not letting them have their full say at town board meetings.

Town Supervisor Mike Spacaforno said he is displeased with those pushing for zoning regulations because their commentaries have become repetitious and because they grow impatient and insistent when they don't get their way.

The latest clash, according to both sides, came Wednesday night when Marie Soroka and her husband, Robert Beards, along with several other supporters of a group called Masonville 1st, tried to urge the town board to impose a drilling moratorium and begin to draw up zoning regulations.

Beards and Soroka said they are not opponents of gas drilling, but rather believe local communities need to protect themselves by developing comprehensive plans and zoning regulations to control where gas extraction occurs and create setbacks to protect homes and water supplies.

Beards said his wife, at a public forum part of the meeting, began to read a "short and sweet" statement outlining why she wanted to see the town board implement zoning rules for drilling when she was cut off by Spacaforno.

Beards quoted Spacaforno as saying: "If this is going to be about this again, I don't want to hear it. I'm getting tired of this."

Spacaforno said it was Soroka and her supporters who were out of line.

"If you don't agree with them, it's like you're an idiot, and they ain't," he said. The supervisor said he sees no point in rushing to craft zoning rules when it remains unclear when and how the state Department of Environmental Conservation will act in regulating hydraulic fracturing for shale gas in New York.

"It's like shooting in the dark at a moving target," he said. "You have no idea what is going to happen."

Spacaforno estimated that 98 percent of the citizens in the town of 1,700 people are opposed to having zoning regulations. He said Soroka, Beards and their supporters are relative newcomers to the town and are out of touch with the viewpoints of those who have lived there longer.

"They are local very recently," he said. "They were from down in the city. They really don't have too much a clue how upstate people think. When you don't agree with them, they yell at you. They are arrogant."

Beards, a graphic designer, said he and his wife moved to Masonville from Manhattan a decade ago because they loved the beautiful landscape and decided it would be a good place to raise their two children. Soroka, a substitute teacher, ran for the town board last fall and lost by a handful of votes. She said she plans to run again later this year, when Spacaforno will also have to face the voters.

Said Beards: "We just want to get our board to study this seriously and consider imposing a moratorium before it is too late. The chances are very good the gas industry will come here eventually."

Part of Masonville is within the New York City watershed territory, which the state agency has already declared will be off-limits to any gas drilling because it is a sensitive natural resource. Other parts of Masonville are outside the watershed and could be open to drilling, if the state decides to issue permits to the energy industry.

Spacaforno said he wants to bring in two experts -- representing both sides of the debate over gas drilling -- to have them brief the board and interested residents on what the options are for the town to prepare for potential gas development in the region. He brushed off the criticism from Soroka and Beards.

"They take up an hour and a half at the meeting, and it's not like they bring anything new to the table," he said. "They just try to scare the hell out of everybody. A lot of what they are saying is hearsay."

Masonville resident Lisa McDonald, acknowledging she is a supporter of Masonville 1st, said she was at the Wednesday meeting and concluded that Spacaforno has "no sense of decorum."

"It just seems like our town board doesn't care, which is odd to me because these people were elected to represent us," McDonald said. "What happened here was appalling."