Rye Mayoral Candidate and sitting Councilman Joe Sack slammed competitor and sitting Councilman and Deputy Mayor Peter Jovanovich for failing to show at a debate held at the WVOX radio studio.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
Here is the release send out by Sack:
Joe Sack Debates Empty Chair on WVOX Radio, As Jovanovich Fails to Show Up at Debate
Sack Discusses Need to Negotiate a Fiscally-Sound and Fair Police Contract
Two-term Rye City Councilman Joe Sack today appeared on the “Hometown Hour,” the weekly one-hour radio program on WVOX Radio hosted by Hometown Media Publisher Howard Sturman.
Sack discussed in detail his record on the Council, as well as his future plans as Mayor.
Outgoing Rye Deputy Mayor Peter Jovanovich, who is also running for Mayor, was invited to appear with Sack on the program, but declined to attend.
“Mr. Jovanovich had said that the reason he was running in the first place, after no other candidates stepped up to challenge me, was to ensure that there was a debate,” Sack commented. “Since he made that into the rationale for his candidacy, I now have to wonder, where is he?”
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Jovanovich released an attack ad in a glossy mailing which he sent to all Rye households. The mailing attempted to make an issue out of the candidates’ purported views on negotiations with the Rye Police, who have been working without a contract since 2008.
“I think it’s a shame that Mr. Jovanovich would drop such a negative and misleading piece into my neighbors’ homes, but then refuse to show up and debate me face to face about it,” Sack stated.
Sack said: “My views have been clear – I’m committed to getting the best deal possible for the taxpayers of Rye. And in that regard, I won’t question that Mr. Jovanovich wants the best for Rye too. Unfortunately, the outgoing French-Jovanovich administration hasn’t gotten the job done. We need a new approach that works.”
Jovanovich has stated publicly that he favors a “grinding on” style of “not urgent” police contract negotiations, which he has dubbed the “Japanese” method.
This Jovanovich approach has resulted in five long years of unnecessarily contentious mandatory arbitration proceedings, with the City paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to outside lawyers, and with police morale and productivity suffering. Furthermore, the City now has a retroactive salary payment looming on the horizon, also in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which will have significant budget implications. Finally, any arbitration decision will, by law, only cover two years, which will only get the City to 2010. This means that the City will still be three years behind. So the City will be right back at the bargaining table, having lost the opportunity to leverage a long-term deal.
“No matter what the arbitration decision ends up saying, both sides have sadly already lost. My view – and the view of others – is that the Jovanovich approach has actually now proved more costly, than if the City had negotiated a reasonable settlement in a reasonable time frame, which was clearly the correct course all along.”
Sack, who is a securities litigator in private practice, continued: “As an attorney, I successfully negotiate mutually acceptable resolutions to seemingly intractable and complex disputes involving some of the largest banks in the world. Part of coming to an agreement is not just being tough, but also being smart, savvy and sophisticated.”
Sack continued: “Maybe the only thing Mr. Jovanovich got right in his mailing was that I’m willing to engage the other side in frank discussions while showing mutual respect. However, Mr. Jovanovich seems to thinks that’s something to be criticized.”
“Regrettably, Mr. Jovanovich’s approach has proven costly, ineffective and paralyzing, and has not resulted in an agreement – much like the bickering in Congress down in Washington. My teammates and I, as part of our ‘Rye United’ effort, are striving to change that with a return to common sense and good judgment.”
Well Average, you have almost already won. In case you haven't heard, Judge Katherine Forrest, ordered the pleading be changed to a civil complaint (a lawsuit) and an Order to Show Cause...drafted and finalized but the Committee is in no hurry to file giving Jovanovich and Thomas yet ANOTHER chance to fly the coop rather than playing their dangerous game of chicken...;)
Posted by: P. StephenLamont | October 23, 2013 at 07:06 PM
PSL, the wager was that the petitions that were filed would not knock Jov off of the ballot.
Posted by: Average Citizen | October 23, 2013 at 03:31 PM
Average,
We simply MUST stop meeting like this! So, in the meantime, please refresh my memory on what we are betting on that you are so convinced I am going to lose...:)...I know, I know I really don't have short term memory loss issues, I just have a lot going on at the moment.
Posted by: P. StephenLamont | October 23, 2013 at 02:44 PM
Jovanovich and his "sister" Robin HATE the Rye cops and always have.
Jovanovich has let his deep personal hatred of the Rye cops cloud his decision making process. In doing so, Jovanovich has probably cost us taxpayers upwards of a $1,000,000 to push his own hatred and biased agenda.
Together at the Rye Jerkoff newspaper, it seems to me that the Jovanovich's have let their hatred lead the way with their biased reporting and anti-Rye cop mentality.
Jovanovich actually thinks Connors, Pickup, French, Wilson, Nosedarse and Jovanovich himself are doing a great job. That should be reason enough not to vote for this Jerkoff.
Posted by: TheWryRecord | October 23, 2013 at 10:05 AM
Hmmm....I think I'm going to make mine a double espresso.
Thanks PSL!
Posted by: Average Citizen | October 23, 2013 at 08:18 AM
ticks, Tedc? I, as the rest of Rye, find him utterly revolting but I'd love to sit at a poker table with him; it's how I worked my way through college!...;)
Posted by: P. StephenLamont | October 22, 2013 at 10:06 PM
It is a game of chicken played by the team of Jovanovich and Thomas:
Count One: Violation of Campaign Advocacy laws
Count Two: Negligence
Count Three: Breach of Fiduciary Duties.
I haven't mentioned the penalties for Count One in a while: All FECA violations...felonies subject to imprisonment for five years and fines imposed ($250,000 for each offense by an individual and up to $500,000 for each offense by an organization). 2 U.S.C. § 437g(d)(1)(A)(i). Whelp, there goes Thomas's take from this BLATANTLY ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN conducted in this cesspool they have created in Rye, N.Y. Wake up, voters, you just have had a Federal Judge order the Committee for Election Equality to re-plead its claims as a civil complaint. Negative commenting? In this case it is FACT. A vote for Jovanovich is a vote for the continuity of the French-Otis Administrations, and you all know what happened there. Even the good Judge Joseph Latwin has emailed to assess the situation of this BLATANTLY ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN conducted by Jovanovich and Thomas!!!!!
Posted by: P. StephenLamont | October 22, 2013 at 09:26 PM
NEW VIDEO:
Looks like the Rye GOP had cameras rolling on Monday night at The Osborn Mayoral Debate.
Here in his debate summary, Candidate Joe Sack calls out Peter Jovanovich and the “Keep-Rye-Dirty-Just-For-Us”- crew for hiring slime merchant Matt Thomas of MP Thomas Consulting (who so successfully “tuned up” George Latimer for 9 months last year that Latimer ended up totally crushing Thomas’s candidate Bob Cohen). Be sure to watch the wide variety of ticks demonstrated by Mr. Jovanovich as he sits beside Mr. Sack and gets fully called out for his unsavory untrue attacks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKezGkDJR2k
"The twisted wisdom of some high priced political consultants is that negative ads work, and negative statements about your opponent work. Well, the thing is, they don't work- at least not in a great place like Rye. Because in Rye, we can see through the attempts to tear down good people by using misleading half truths and by trying to tell actual outright fabrications in order to distract people from your own record which may be lacking. Regular folks in Rye see through that. They saw it in George's race, and he won despite those attacks.
Regrettably, my opponent in this race has actually gone out and hired the very same person who was responsible for all of those horrible and negative attack ads against George Latimer. And now, they are turning their barrels aimed at me. Ladies and gentlemen, that doesn't work in Rye."
Posted by: tedc | October 22, 2013 at 08:40 PM
Weekend Warriors - Isn’t the WWF in Stamford?
SACK SLAMS JOVANOVICH FOR RADIO DEBATE NO SHOW
(followed immediately thereafter by)
LD10580 SLAMS SACK FOR OPAQUE TEMP MGMT HIRE GAMBIT
Looks to me that the strung-out initiation of a credible RFP process for The Rye Golf Club General Manager position has devolved into some really really short term thinking.
This would of course be par-for-the-course for the embattled consistently less than truthful (or competent) City Manager Scott Pickup who’s ”services” here on the east coast have resulted in an absurdly long local bridge reconstruction and scandal after scandal in Rye.
But surprisingly here our Mr. P has engaged none other than Joe Sack in one of his now classic short-cut schemes. And local media is all over it…
SACK, PICKUP PUSH FOR HANDPICKED INTERIM GENERAL MANAGER AT RGC–WITH NO COMPETITIVE HIRING PROCESS
http://www.lausdeo10580.com/lausdeo10580/2013/10/rye-golf-commission-approves-funds-to-begin-whitby-castle-rfp-and-new-general-manager-search.html
Posted by: tedc | October 18, 2013 at 04:23 PM
Ooo. The Rye GOP is out with new videos.
For anyone confused by The French-O-Vitch Reality-Distortion-Field mailer on The Rye Golf Club Scandal in your mailboxes yesterday, here’s the other side…..
Joe Sack on The Rye Golf Club Scandal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvdTPm_Nni8
Posted by: tedc | October 17, 2013 at 02:37 PM