Mayor quits Cobleskill post

PHOTOGRAPHER: Jason Subik

The mayor of the village of Cobleskill resigned Tuesday night, citing concerns for his family amid a heated controversy revolving around his utterance of racial slurs.

The village’s monthly meeting was packed with protesters calling for Mayor Mark Nadeau and town Supervisor Thomas Murray to resign because of an audio recording of the two of them using the “N” word that became public earlier in July.

The village board began its meeting at 6:30 p.m. and promptly went into executive session to discuss “personnel” issues for about an hour. When they returned they discussed village issues for about 10 minutes until Nadeau announced his resignation before an extended public comment period.

“I hereby do resign as mayor of Cobleskill. This is not an admission of guilt. My family is No. 1. This community has hurt my family. Anybody who knows me knows I am not a racist,” he said.

Nadeau and Murray were secretly recorded by Cobleskill Town Highway Superintendent Thomas Fissell discussing a racial joke. Fissell then publicized the recording through an e-mail stating both officials had used the racial slur.

In the recording, Nadeau is heard describing President Barack Obama’s campaign slogan “Change” as an acronym to mean “Come Help A [slur] Get Elected.” Murray used the same racial slur instead of “Martin Luther King Jr.” when referring to the annual holiday for the civil rights leader.

Since then, other issues related to racism have been alleged including whether Nadeau was acting in a racist manner when he was probing the issue of compensation time granted village and town employees. One of the employees receiving the time is black.

Nadeau said racism was never his motivation regarding the compensation time issue. He said the village is working to create an anti-bias policy and he intends to serve on the committee that works on the issue.

Deputy Mayor Mark Galasso said Nadeau’s resignation does not automatically make him the mayor, although he has the authority to write checks to pay the village’s bills. He said the village board has the choice of either appointing a new mayor or allowing the position to remain vacant until a special election is held in November. The special election would be to fill the remaining three years of the four-year term that Nadeau, a Republican, was elected to last November.

Murray, a Democrat, has not announced whether he will resign.

In response to the controversy, Galasso said, the Golub Corporation is helping the village develop an anti-bias policy — modeled on the Schenectady-based supermarket company’s own policy, which is a highly regarded program.

After Nadeau’s resignation, many villagers applauded and some issued cat calls to the departing mayor, calling him “a bully” in one case.

During the public comment period, speakers were more respectful. Effie Bennett Powe, a longtime teacher in Cobleskill who is black, said her parents were sharecroppers and taught her that while sticks and stones might break her bones, words would never hurt her. She told the audience Tuesday night that her parents were wrong.

“All words have meaning and words hurt. Words hurt badly. Hurtful words cause psychological pain, fear, sometimes deep self-loathing, internal pain that may never go away,” she said.

Bill VanHandel defended Nadeau, his friend of 13 years, but not his conduct. He said Nadeau made a mistake in using a racial slur but also thinks Fissell was wrong and engaged in “dirty politics” by recording him without his knowledge. VanHandel said he believes all people at one time or another have either said or thought “racial” ideas.

“I have never, ever heard Mark Nadeau say anything racial to me. Now we know he made a mistake. He’s apologized,” VanHandel said. “Everybody is down on Mark but they don’t stop to think that they’ve made mistakes or said racial slurs or racial thoughts. Everybody should forgive him.”

Brenner Fissell, who identified himself as the 22-year-old son of Thomas Fissell, said since his father exposed the recording of the racial slurs he and his family have not “gained” as some have suggested. He said since the controversy erupted, his mailbox has been smashed and he’s seen other incidents of what he considers racist reactions from members of the Cobleskill community.

Brenner Fissell said he thought it was fitting that the controversy has emerged on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “To Kill A Mockingbird,” a novel about lawyer Atticus Finch confronting racism in the Jim Crow era in the South.

“Atticus Finch paid for the things that he exposed. My father is no Atticus Finch but I think there was a lot of courage involved,” he said. “As much as the protests here tonight have been a good response, but as much as there has been a good response there is a really scary response that makes me feel like this is Georgia or South Carolina with the KKK roaming around in the night. I’m moving in a few weeks to go to school and I’ll no longer be a resident of the town. I’m glad. I’m scared to be up here.”

Before the meeting, protesters in front of the village Fire Department watched as a pickup truck with a Confederate flag drove past. Some of the protesters said they’ve seen as many as four such trucks driving around the community since the controversy began.

VanHandel said he believes Cobleskill is no more racist than any other local community but the controversy itself will motivate white people to hate black people and black people to hate white people.

“From now on Cobleskill will just be known as a little racist town,” he said.