A shame that the Village saw fit to dispense with the services of an attorney, Howie Protter, who apparently is felt by the Bar Association, and his own firm, to be something of an expert on municipal law. I guess the Village gummint had a better (and substantially more expensive) idea,...

Nice work Howie! While the Village was short-sighted, the Bar Association isn't.

Stephan: If memory serves me correctly, and I believe it does. Wasn't Howard Protter and his firm not retained by the former majority of Gross,Gosda, and Gioia?
Howard Protter served the Village for many years as Attorney for the Village. It still baffles me why his firm was not retained when the former majority was at the helm? Was it do to their belief of loyalty to the prior administation? If Jacobowitz and Gubits had been re-appointed back then, perhaps there wouldn't be so much mudslinging about who hired what firm and how they were hired. So ultimately, who is to blame for not retaining or re-appointing the firm that had provided the services to the Village for many years with the expertise of, as it turns out the "best in class"?

Sean, I believe that "the Village's" problem with my admittedly long-time friend Howard Protter was that it was felt he shared blame for the DPW building problem, in that he did not see that no engineering plans existed. Perhaps that wasn't his job, I don't know. But one of the problems I increasingly have with the Gross administration--and yes, Joe has been a friend for at least 35 years too--is that the solution too often seems to be "fire his ass!" I've heard that it's a threat not infrequently unholstered against Village employees, though that may be just gossip.

In the real world, firing somebody is the absolute last recourse, long after "let's see if we can work this out" or "don't make that mistake again." As the editor-in-chief of a relatively large national magazine, I fired one person in my entire career, and it was supremely painful.

We've never made a secret of our close, personal friendship with Howard & Debbie Protter. We're privileged.

We've also let it be known that Howard is our attorney. We?re fortunate.

Now we learn that Howie, who used to act as Cornwall on Hudson Village Attorney - before being fired by Mayor Joe Gross - has been acknowledged by the NYS Bar Association and named to head its Municipal Law Section.

But we in the Village aren't so fortunate,because Howard Protter's expertise in municipal law is lost to us because of Joe's pettiness (no one connected with the former administration would work for him if he could help it).

So now, an attorney and Village resident, recognized for his knowledge, works for several other communities, but not ours.

Sad.

Lee & Jaci Murphy