Group of Corfu residents grabble with what to do about mayor

A small group of Corfu residents gathered in the Pembroke Town Hall on Tuesday evening to discuss what's been happening in the village recently, and more specifically, what to do about Mayor Ralph Peterson.

The consensus of those who attended is that the mayor is not acting in the best interest of village residents.

Pam Ware, who said she paid the $25 fee to rent the space for the meeting, acted as facilitator for the meeting, which started at 5:30 p.m.

"I thought we could come together and discuss what we can do to address the situation and not be tied up in that meeting (a regular village trustee meeting) with all that anger and all those issues going on," said Ware, a 25-year resident of the village.

Two lines of thought emerged -- protests (favored by Charlie Flagg) and gathering documentation and presenting a complaint to the Genesee County Ethics Commission.

The state doesn't allow recall elections and removing an elected official from a local public office is exceptionally difficult in New York.

Flagg thought public pressure -- from 3 a.m. protests at Peterson's house, to posting videos of Peterson at trustee meetings to YouTube -- could force Peterson, who only has a year left on his term, to resign.

"We just keep after him," Flagg said. "There's nothing he can do to stop us."

Ware favored a more measured approach -- using the Freedom of Information Law to gather documents and write a detailed report for the ethics commission.

Any finding by the commission against Peterson, however, would be non-binding and not necessarily lead to his ouster from office.

The list of complaints against Peterson include: harassing village staff; seeking questionable access to village computers and filing cabinets; hiring police officers without authorization; failure to support recovering funds allegedly missing from the village court; interfering with the employment of a former trustee with a village contractor; and lying to the trustees about various issues.

"I think we've seen enough so far that this should go before the board of ethics," Ware said.

Trustee Ken Lauer, who attended the meeting, warned that any thought of getting Peterson to resign is probably fanciful.

"I asked him to resign and he wouldn't," Lauer said. "That's the problem. This guy is not going to leave voluntarily."

Former trustee Al Graham responded, "You keep shedding light on him."

Former mayor Todd Skeet, who lost by two votes to Peterson last November, also attended the meeting.

Skeet noted that he appointed Peterson to a seat on the board of trustees originally.

"He was a decent guy and then things got really ugly," Skeet said.

Things went bad, he said, after a comptroller's report found about $10,000 was missing from the village court. Peterson and former justice Robert Alexander are reportedly friends.

The committee has tentatively scheduled a meeting for 10 a.m., July 23, at the Pembroke Town Hall, if the space is available.

Last night's attendees hope that a Saturday morning meeting will be more convenient for people to attend.