Town Meeting Ends In Wrestling Match - Repuke Got Violent

[matcom]

<snip>

NASSAU -- A yearlong, quarrelsome discussion over a proposed graywacke hard rock mine erupted into a Town Hall wrestling match Tuesday. In one corner was an elected official. The other, a mining opponent.

It started at a meeting of a volunteer committee formed in early 2004 to examine the proposal by Troy Sand and Gravel. Dean Collamer, 63, of Gardner Hill Road, an outspoken mining opponent, asked repeated and pointed questions of Republican Town Board member Ian Hart, 54, the committee's chairman.

Hart ignored Collamer's questions, other committee members and those in the audience later said.

Collamer became upset and called him a "quisler."

No one knew what the word meant, but after the meeting, witnesses said, someone asked Collamer for the definition.

While "quisler" is not in the dictionary, the word "quisling" originated in Norway and refers to Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. His name has become a synonym for "traitor."

The response upset Hart, who stood up and approached Collamer, witnesses said.

What happened after that depends on who you ask.

"Mr. Hart took a long silver mechanical pencil out of his pocket, put it in his fist and poked it into Mr. Collamer's neck under his chin," said George Furth, a mining opponent who attended the meeting. "Then Collamer grabbed Hart by the neck and they both wrestled out the door and into the parking lot, where we had to separate them."

Others say it did not happen quite that way.

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http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=329502&category=RENSSELAER&BCCode=HOME

[Richardo]

1. Quisler? Maybe he meant 'Twizzler'

Implying that he was a red piece of gelatinous corn syrup that you can use as a drinking straw if you bite off both ends.

[fit4life]

2. Deleted by poster

n/t

[underpants]

3. The first rule of the NASSAU town hall mining discussion is

Don't talk about the NASSAU town hall mining discussion

[XNASA]

4. The only other time I've ever heard that word.....

'Cause somewhere in the "Quisling Clinic"
There's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes
She's listening in to the Venus line
She's picking out names
I hope none of them are mine

But you tease, and you flirt
And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt
You can please yourself but somebody's gonna get it

Never said I was a stool pigeon
I never said I was a diplomat
Everybody is under suspicion
But you don't wanna hear about that


---Green Shirt - Elvis Costello

[ooglymoogly]

5. quisler what a great word

and it so fits the pugs of today

[yellowcanine]

6. That Nassau Town Hall sounds like a real hoot. Check it out...

The fight follows controversy that arose a week ago when a tape recording of a Dec. 30 public Town Board meeting surfaced. On it, a town board member can be heard uttering an anti-Semitic remark.

According to a tape, Supervisor Carol Sanford was discussing a turn in the negotiations with the labor union for the town Highway Department that would save the town some money. Republican Town Board member William F. Lobdell, 72, who runs a construction company in town, said of Sanford, "I think she's part Jewish, 'cause we came out cheaper than we went in. I'll tell you what, we don't have any of them here do we?"

Town Democrats have asked for Lobdell's removal and Republicans have suggested he apologize.