I am very dismayed by the vile remarks that have been posted in the private Facebook group called Cold Spring Neighbors. Some remarks shared with our campaign from members of the page beggar description. The postings continually ridicule me in a very personal way outside the bounds of normal political debate. My ministry as a pastor in our community also has been mocked.
If you are a Philipstown resident and are not allowed on this page, I highly recommend you visit my Facebook page, Vote for Tim Greco for Philipstown Board, to view a sample of their remarks and decide for yourselves. [Editor’s note: Greco has since made his campaign page on Facebook a private group.]
I call upon Democratic candidates Richard Shea, Michael Leonard and John Van Tassel, as well as the Philipstown Democrats, to condemn this culture of hate and intolerance.
Tim Greco, Garrison
Editor’s note: We asked Lithgow Osborne, chair of Philipstown Democrats, for a response. He wrote: “While I understand Mr. Greco’s outrage at having been the focus of negative remarks by people on Facebook, I would remind him that once one enters the public realm, one leaves oneself open and exposed to all manner of sniping and criticism. Public figures, even the hardest working, most patriotic of them, must endure endless scrutiny. Finding fault has become a very public preoccupation because every citizen with a laptop and a Facebook account is endowed by the Constitution with the inalienable right to free speech. It’s not always nice and it may sting a bit, but that’s how it is in a democracy during the cyber age — I know this from personal experience, because I too have been a candidate for public office. My advice to Mr. Greco? Don’t spend too much time on Facebook.”
Sadly, there was no apparent “culture of hate and intolerance” prior to the Ailes sojourn in Philipstown, and Mr. Greco’s reporting only served to polarize what was once a loving and peaceful community. A perusal of his Facebook page (prior to this candidate for public office making it private) and his commentary on citizens who have dedicated time, talent, energy and goodwill to Philipstown (strangely, the reverend’s vitriol, creepy and misogynistic, targets and belittles women who have attempted to make enormous inroads in making a better community for all of Philipstown. As it was with his reporting, the tone and its menacing intention is unbecoming a minister or a political candidate.
Well, I suppose I should thank all the participants everywhere who in one way or another helped to let us know what’s been going on behind the scenes.
Evidently if one’s objectives are innuendo, rumor mongering, insult, bile, mudslinging, fear, paranoia, notoriety, finger-pointing, team-building, chest-thumping, fundraising, obfuscation, he-said-she-said… any and all these sorts of mental gymnastics and Olympian contests, anything but an open, frank discussion on matters of public importance… well, great news: a private Facebook group is perfect for you! (No, I did not read any of the comments, but I can just imagine. Relatedly, I heard it was Groucho Marx who said he wouldn’t want to have membership in any club which would admit him.
Good luck!
OK, so my opposition likes to link me to the late Roger Ailes. Here is my story. Happy to share it. It’s true Mr. Ailes was instrumental in getting me a job on just a handshake at his wife Elizabeth’s newspaper after hearing I was looking for work. But, in fact, it was Elizabeth Ailes, the owner and publisher of the PCNR, who I actually worked for. My beat was Cold Spring and I dove right, into it covering everything from Dunkin’ Donuts to Butterfield and everything in between. My favorite story of which I am most proud was of a local dry cleaner who lived through the Cambodian killing fields who trusted me to report her amazing journey. For years on end I watched the various Cold Spring boards block, stall and throw road blocks up against very decent property owners who legally had the right to develop their land within the confines of the law. From the Village Board to the Historic Board, I covered it all as senior reporter. I witnessed the Democrats cannibalize themselves after then-Mayor Seth Gallagher decided the Butterfield project was, in fact, good for the village of Cold Spring. I was amazed as Mayor Gallagher, at a meeting in 2012, went to get a police officer at a contentious meeting after having a dust-up with Stephanie Hawkins, then a member of the Special Board. This same person, who would go on to become the First Lady of Cold Spring, gave the finger to… Read more »
Mr. Greco evidently can’t stand up for himself without stepping on others. I’m voting for Mike and John.
In response to the dozens of emails and messages I received about my post, I’d like to clarify a few things. First of all, I did not mean to imply in any way, shape or form that I bore any ill will to the Ailes family; in fact, I was a great admirer of Roger Ailes and considered him to be a personal hero of mine. Both he and his wife Elizabeth did a great deal of good for the Village of Cold Spring including numerous donations to various causes. At the time, it seemed that no matter what they did, they got castigated by a certain group of locals who despised them for who they were, regardless of how much did for the community. Also, nothing I wrote was intended to disparage the PCNR or Tim Greco. I am still a fan of that paper and I think that Tim did a great job reporting. (I also think he will make a good board member if does get elected, not that I can vote for him because I don’t live in Philipstown). The main point I was trying to get across was that there seems to be a certain amount of hypocrisy on the part of those I call the “usual suspects” when it comes to the Ailes family, the PCNR and Mr. Greco. It is ludicrous at best to claim that Philipstown/Cold Spring was a veritable Garden of Eden prior to the arrival of Roger and Elizabeth, and… Read more »
In his greatest “hits” above, I am quite surprised that candidate Greco has brought up his attempt to smear me, and the scandalous violation of the PTA’s private Facebook page he undertook to do it. The actual story behind the story says much about his lack of ethics and poor character. It is slander, plain and simple, and he invites legal recourse.
Not long ago, when Ailes’ PCNR newspaper was busy making imaginary enemies out of some the finest people in Cold Spring, candidate Greco was the PCNR reporter who engaged in the obligatory character assassinations. I became one of Ailes’ and Greco’s targets because of my progressive opinions, which I often made known in this very comment section when it was the Ailes’ alternative known as Philipstown.info.
As a parent and PTA member, I have had the occasion to share interesting articles on the private, members-only PTA Facebook page with other PTA parents. One that I shared — an expert’s piece that discussed the ill-effects of the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance on certain students — apparently caught the eye of reporter Greco, who recognized its potential if weaponized. He could portray me as some kind of anti-patriotic, Communist anarchist extremist. And so he did.
Greco lifted a private comment from this private group and attempted a character assassination by turning it into a completely misleading front-page story in order to “get me,” as he had threatened months before in person.
THIS is who Tim Greco is.
Let us not lose sight of what that Pledge of Allegiance stunt really was. It was village election season 2016, quite close to Election Day. Lynn Slater Miller and Steve Voloto were running for Village Trustee against Barney Molloy, the favored candidate of the Ailes’s PCNR. It was a clumsy set/spike meant to imply shadiness on the part of Lynn and Steve by linking them to the standing “Enemies List.” Yes, the Star Reporter, under the tutelage of Ailes, developed a McCarthy-like list of enemies, many of whom are named again above. It went like this: Steve finds an interesting article about whether the pledge should be required or optional in schools. He posts it on the PTA Facebook page — a page intended for the use of Haldane families and members of the organization — with an intro that says, roughly, interesting read, something to think about. Not “I want the pledge removed from Haldane,” or any such thing. Greco attempts to incite folks on the PTA page, and is booted by the administrators for his misuse of the forum. He crawls back to the protected blockade of Philipstown Uncensored, where he can incite and hate unfettered. Wouldn’t you know, in the next issue of the PCNR, there is a front-page article that attempts to connect all of this to Lynn and Steve. The Facebook-sourced article went like this: Laifer hates the Pledge, Laifer is not a patriot. Laifer is friends with Stephanie Hawkins and Kathleen Foley. Stephanie and… Read more »
I was never booted from the PTA site. I was added when I had to prove my son was a student. I happily sent a photo of him wearing blue on the soccer team. I was then added and the story was written. Also, my site was called “Philipstown is Talking,” not “Philipstown Uncensored.”
It’s silly to keep drawing a line between me and Mr. Ailes when Ms. Foley contributed to a story exclusively run in the PCNR. Does that make her complicit, too? The fact of the matter is she has posted many untruths behind a closed site, so much so that people are still sending me her nasty comments. When I win this election she will be at the top of my list of people to thank for handing me the election.
Philipstown people know the truth and not the truth spun through a distorted lens.
It seems to me that there is more even hostility, rumor mongering, back-biting and negative behavior in Cold Spring/Philipstown since the Ailes family left town and Mr. Greco ceased being a reporter for the PCNR.
At what point do the residents of that community get honest and own up to the fact of their own intolerance toward people who do not believe as they do when it comes to politics?
On Oct. 27, I was engaged in what I believed to be a private conversation with a friend on Facebook. As a mother of two young children, I have very private security settings on my profile. So I was shocked to learn that Philipstown Town Board candidate Tim Greco was reading my private conversations and would even go so far as to write private messages to me. Unfortunately, my friend didn’t realize that his security settings were not optimal. Consequently, our discussion was being read by Greco. No one engaged in the discussion would assume that Greco was reading our conversation because none of us are friends with him. Personally, I have never met him or engaged with him. He is a stranger to me other than the fact that he is running for public office, which was the topic of the discussion that I engaged in. We were discussing the fact that Greco had set his campaign Facebook page to a setting that would prevent anyone who was not a member from accessing it. I joked that I would try to join the page but that I’d probably have to “unfriend” most of my friends first. Moments after typing those words I received a private message from Greco that said the following: “Hi! Please don’t unfriend your real friends just for ‘lil ole me! So glad you believed in the Constitution! You probably are not going to vote for me anyway, right? God bless you real good for giving… Read more »
The long, tawdry history of candidate Greco in action in this town as reporter and sycophant are well documented by those he set his sights on. I don’t need to add to that, as those involved tell it and know it best.
But what I’ve observed during this campaign as a Philipstown resident, voter and Facebook user has given me serious pause about the fitness of this candidate to campaign, much less govern. He has harassed women with private Facebook messages and phone text messages, blamed his unwise co-opting of the Time logo on others, and written the most petty, childish, insulting and taunting comments about people who don’t happen to support him. Is that how he would behave on the Town Board? I have no other experience of his leadership to say otherwise. What a poor showing.
This behavior barely qualifies as adult, and it is miles from that of a pastor or community leader. It is behavior that one would avoid, block on Facebook, and hope will soon disappear into community lore.
I’m so glad Andrea Hudson had the courage to submit her comment to The Current. Candidate Greco is a bully, plain and simple. When a friend and I expressed (on a private Facebook page) dismay at how many locals seemed to be supporting him, not long after a screenshot of the conversation appeared on his campaign page with a comment along the lines of, “Now we know where to go first when more of my signs disappear.” In short, my friend and I were accused of being thieves, and we shouldn’t be surprised if Greco or his supporters show up on our porches looking for stolen signs.
Honestly, this is a man running for public office? Philipstown deserves so much better.
I will add that many people in the Facebook group in which you posted these comments sent them to me, thinking they were over the line. I took the time to message you directly and privately with my concerns, and I did it with a bit of humor. I feel writing you directly was the neighborly thing to do. Harassment? Far from it. You could have just asked to join my Facebook group. All you had to do was ask.
The comments that were “sent” to Mr. Greco authored by Andrea Conner were not posted in a Facebook group. They were on my personal Facebook feed and taken from there. I have since appropriately reset the privacy settings.
It’s a tremendous piece of logical gymnastics to equate Kathleen Foley’s contribution to a few PCNR articles over the course of several years as anything equivalent to Greco’s daily and weekly role as “reporter” for that fish wrap. Using the platform of the paper of record for information distribution is exactly what it is there for. However, constantly wielding it like a jagged lawn tool and using it to tear down neighbors is something entirely different.
I will be voting for Michael Leonard and John Van Tassel in this upcoming election, because they have been working diligently, taking one hard look after another at things like the safety of our dams, tourism’s challenges and issues of consolidation. They know this is a town full of flawed and faithful citizens, and they seek to collaborate with all of us, inviting us into public service instead of pointing out our feet of clay at every turn. Mike and John’s temperaments are suited to doing the complicated and often thankless work of community. They do so in the spirit of volunteerism and compassion that clearly brought them to their positions. Lastly, I am casting my absentee vote this week for these two men because they have not questioned my patriotism; they have inspired it.
Many of us had asked to join Greco’s Facebook group but that was not all we had to do. We were given a question on the Constitution and then mysteriously blocked. So asking to join is not all that it takes.