Disorderly Conduct Charged In

Confrontation With Town Board

FLY CREEK – Jon McManus, 35, the engineer, was arrested last evening on disorderly conduct charges after confronting the Otsego Town Board at a 5 p. m. meeting in the town hall here, according to sheriff’s deputies.

“”Following a disturbance in the parking lot” of town hall, according to the sheriff’s press release, McManus was arraigned in Hartwick Town Court.  However, he was back in the municipal building for the 7 p.m. ZBA meeting, according to Town Supervisor Anne Geddes Atwell.

By evening’s end, Town Board member Julie Huntsman, who had been considering resignation, had done so.

According to Geddes Atwell, McManus showed up at the town board meeting with two associates and began screaming at the supervisor and board members.  The two associates “remained quiet,” but McManus had “an absolute ranting breakdown,” said the supervisor.  “Really scary stuff.  I tried to calm him down.”

She told him, “Don’t talk to us that way.”  But “he was just out of control.  He insulted everybody.  Mostly me, but everybody at that table,” she said, and so she called the sheriff’s department. By the time deputies arrived, McManus was in the parking lot, and the officers took him away, the supervisor said.

The incident follows at least two months of rancorous debate in the town over a zoning issue on the Toddsville Road (County Route 26), where a landowner planned to build a number of large storage buildings in a Residential-Agricultural 2 Zone.

Such a project was not permitted in an RA2 zone, but the town board revised the language of the law to more precisely say so, the supervisor said.    That led to angry meetings with the town Planning Board.

Huntsman and Town Board member Carina Frank took on the role of liaison.  “Julie’s been trying extremely hard to get a better dialogue going with the Planning Board,” said Geddes Atwell.  “But there are a couple of loudmouths there who are constantly screaming at you.  You can’t have a meeting.”

Huntsman “was put through the wringer,” the supervisor said.  “I think she just crumbled under the negative stress and thought, ‘I’m out of here.’  And I don’t blame her.”

She continued, “McManus has never done this before.”  But, she added, “there’s a culture of disrespect. I’m old school: Be civil.  If you’re civil, you can disagree.   We can’t even meet with the Planning Board because they scream.”