Early winter in Glenville: Snowflake GOP Supervisor & Town Board members attack political cartoon

Glenville saw an early flurry of snowflakes and faux outrage last night, with the Town Board passing a resolution (starts at minute 46) condemning the Daily Gazette for publishing a cartoon critical of police brutality.

The cartoon

The resolution, sponsored by town supervisor Chris Koetzle and his majority Republican caucus - deputy supervisor Gina Wierzbowski and councilman Jim Martin - was a late addition to the meeting’s agenda, and was not included on the advance agenda provided online for the media and town residents.  Koetzle, who is also the chairman of Schenectady County's Republican Party, explained in his remarks that he felt “adamant and strongly” that the resolution go forward.

The text of the resolution, read into the record by Wierzbowski, accused the Gazette of “unjustly characterizing law enforcement in a disturbing and detrimental way,” which was “inaccurate, demeaning, and hateful,” before going on to demand an apology by the Gazette.  

The resolution further said that the purpose of the cartoon was to “incite anger in the community and further perpetuate negative feelings” toward law enforcement, and even called upon federal hate crime laws to be amended to include police as a protected class.

After reading the resolution, Wierzbowski said that the cartoon had made her “sick to her stomach.”  Not to be one-upped, fellow Republican councilman Jim Martin, sporting a blue lives matter mask, called the cartoon an “awful, awful thing to publish” and “completely inaccurate.”

The 2018 cartoon, which did not prompt
a resolution of denunciation 

Koetzle said that the “unfair, not true” cartoon “perpetuated hate,” but more interestingly asked a rhetorical question of the Gazette’s publisher and editor, “if it wasn’t law enforcement,  and if it was anything else that you did that to would it fly?  Why’s it only okay when its law enforcement?”  It appears that Koetzle’s memory is shorter than most, having forgotten that the Gazette just two years ago attracted national outrage after publishing, in the midst of the family separation scandal, a right-wing cartoon depicting an MS-13 gangster at the border with a baby saying “How could you separate a loving father from his newborn son?”.  No resolution condemning the Gazette was passed by the Glenville Town Board at the time of that cartoon.  Nor was one passed by any of the county's Democratic-controlled municipalities, who might have heard of freedom of the press at some point…

The hysterical outrage over a cartoon drawing attention to police violence is in contrast to the lack of any outrage expressed by Koetzle, Wierzbowski and Martin over police violence itself.  No one should be surprised to see this from the county’s Republican chair and his top two lieutenants, why would they be any different from their party’s leadership statewide and nationally?

Solomon Syed OUT at Spectrum News: What’s next for SoloSy?

Tuesday brought news, broken by the Times Union, that Spectrum News’s Solomon Syed will be leaving the network.

Solomon, a Niskayuna native and the brother of town supervisor Yasmine Syed, with whom he shared a dorm in college, is known in the Schenectady County town for his hotheaded temperament, having last year lashed out at the teenage daughter of Yasmine's Democratic opponent at an event hosted by the town’s Co-Op grocery store.  Solomon was also, in 2017, involved with his mother in an unhinged Facebook fight, operating under the thinly veiled pseudonym Solo Sy, against numerous town residents in defense of Yasmine.  Both incidents prompted complaints to Spectrum management by town residents, although they are not believed to have played a role in his departure.

In the Times Union’s article, the sneaker-obsessed 38 year old recommended that those interested in his next move follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

While Solomon does have a law degree from Quinnipiac, he is not licensed to practice in New York, making any such career shift unlikely. 

Some town residents speculate that a shift into Republican politics or right-wing media is probable, although others believe it is more likely that he will land in a communications gig at Ellis Hospital, where his father is Chief of Surgery.  Ellis previously hired Yasmine to be their father's "operations and practice manager."

One potential political landing spot for Solomon is the administration of controversial, Twitter-hooked Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin, who is in need of communications help as he heads into a surely contentious 2021 re-election fight, and has had friendly interviews with Solomon in the past.  The two could pair nicely if they split social media trolling duties between platforms..