By NEAL RENTZ
The simmering controversy regarding Lewisboro Councilman Dan Welsh continued at Monday’s town board meeting with some residents sharply criticizing him for posts on his Facebook page regarding Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas.
Welsh’s comments about the war have been a topic debated for months before the board.
“I don’t want to attack you as you have been attacked by everyone else but you actually called your colleagues racist on your profile page on Facebook. I personally find it offensive, especially since the people who support you are constantly telling us to be kind and you’re aggressive and you’re mean,” resident Simone O’Connor told Welsh on Monday.
"I personally find it offensive, especially since the people who support you are constantly telling us to be kind and you’re aggressive and you’re mean,” – Simone O’Connor addressing Dan Welsh
Another resident, Cathy Deutsch, also criticized the posts, including a recent one that has received 223 comments, “none of which are his. He throws up posts then walks away,” Deutsch said.
Welsh called his board colleagues racists on Facebook, Deutsch added.
In a related matter, the board voted 4-1 to approve the employee handbook, but agreed to hold off on considering changes that would regulate how town employees and elected officials could use their official social media accounts.
Councilwoman Andrea Rendo voted against adopting the revised handbook because she wanted to incorporate a new social media provision and was concerned about the cost of creating a new handbook if the social media section was altered, as she recommended.
Supervisor Tony Gonçalves said the handbook is produced electronically, though there is a hard copy available for residents to read at the Town House. The process to revise the handbook took nearly two years and included feedback from the town’s three unions, he said.
The revised handbook has regulations regarding social media use for the first time and could be revised by the town board, Gonçalves added.
Councilwoman Mary Shah noted that the social media policy included in the revised employee handbook stated, “an employee’s social media usage must comply with town policies pertaining to, but not limited to, nondiscrimination and harassment, confidentiality and violence in the workplace, any unlawful harassment, discrimination or retaliation that would not be permissible in the workplace is not permissible between co-workers on line even if it is done after hours outside the workplace using computers or communications systems that are not” connected to their work.
Prior to the vote on the revised employee handbook, Rendo said, “more prompted by recent events,” she reviewed the social media policy in the proposed revised employee handbook and she wrote a revised policy for social media usage by town employees and elected officials, comparing it to other social media policies in other municipalities.
Rendo said the social media policy needs “to be expanded to include other types of instances.” The policy should include “employees who publish personal or professional opinions must not invoke their town of Lewisboro title when not representing the town of Lewisboro. In such cases users must use a “disclaimer” stating they are posting their own opinion, not the town’s.
Rendo said the social media policy should also prohibit employees from making “any discriminatory, disparaging, defamatory or harassing comments when using social media or otherwise engaging in any conduct prohibited” by the town’s harassment policy.
In addition, Rendo said the social media policy should include a variety of prohibitions on the posting of content or images that are defamatory, slanderous or pornographic, among other types of conduct.
Also, Rendo said, town officials, employees and volunteers should keep separate social media accounts. Welsh did not agree to a suggestion from Councilman Richard Sklarin to drop a reference that he is a Lewisboro Town Board member from his Facebook page.
“The weekend before last I got contacted by a board member who said that there was a proposal to make a statement about the murder of the hostages and to lower the flag and would I sign on to that?” Welsh said during the polling of the board portion of the meeting. “I told the board member, well, OK, we’ve been going for 10 months. There’s 40,000 people dead of all sorts.”
Just to honor the hostages killed recently would not make sense, Welsh said. If flying the American flag at half-staff on the Town House honored all those who have died during the conflict, he would have agreed, Welsh said. The town board rejected his alternative statement, he said.
“I do consider this as a racist act because every action the board has taken from the beginning of the conflict last October has only been to address the Israeli victims of the war and not including the Palestinians,” Welsh said. “Saying it’s a racist act doesn’t mean I think everyone on the board are outrageous racists in every aspect.”
Welsh added that others at meetings, not him, have brought up his comments about the war.
“I’m sorry that this hits hard, but that’s absolutely my opinion,” he said.
Zoning code update
The town board received an update from the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee on the proposed zoning code update process. The town board approved the revised town comprehensive plan in August. Steering Committee Chairwoman Katherine McGinn told the town board that in the winter of 2021 it decided to update the comprehensive plan at the same time it would update the zoning code as one project to save time and money.
A series of proposed edits have been submitted to the town board since last October, McGinn said. Final drafts have been reviewed by the town board since January, she noted.
Some of the proposed updates to the existing zoning code from the committee include the topics of cluster zoning, the definition of a performance bond, exterior lighting, and landscaping and district regulation. Some of the committee’s proposed new regulations include such areas as steep slopes protection, battery energy and storage, streets and sidewalks and solar energy.
McGinn said the next steps in the process to update the zoning code will include a town board public hearing or hearings, a referral to the Westchester County Planning Board, a referral to the town planning board and separate future reviews of septic and short-term rental regulations.
Garden Club plantings
The town board voted unanimously to wave the Architectural and Community Appearance Review Council fee and allow the Lewisboro Garden Club to plant 4,000 golden yellow daffodils on town-owned vacant property along Main Street between the South Salem Post Office and Keeler Court.
The request was made at the meeting by George Scott, a representative of the Garden Club. The daffodils are the same variety the club planted at the town house/library exit drive in 2022, Scott told the board. The planting, set back 3 feet from Main Street, will be about 180 feet long and 10 feet deep. Scott said the club is slated to do the planting on the morning of Nov. 2.