Councilwoman Capriglione Dismisses 'Keyboard Warriors' At Woodbury Town Board Meeting

Commuter comments are apparently not welcome at meetings.

I’ll have more to say about the February 1st, 2024 Woodbury Town Board meeting soon. 

But there’s one quick thing, that seems kind of minor, that I think is worth paying attention to.

Councilwoman Sandra J. Capriglione ran for a spot on the Woodbury Town Board in 2017. 

She was defeated by Jacqueline C. Hernandez, receiving 832 votes to Hernandez’s 1,288 votes.

Capriglione was appointed to the current Town Board by Supervisor Luciani on January 4th, 2024, to serve out the remainder of Luciani’s term as Councilwoman.

So, someone who was:

1. Defeated in an election,

2. Appointed and not elected to her current spot said the following:

“It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior, but when you come to a meeting and stand up behind that podium, and you look us in the eye, and tell us what you think, that carries weight. All this other noise, it can be noise.” (You can watch her say this here.)

Now, I don’t know about you. 

But I’ve lived in the Monroe-Woodbury area on and off since 1988.

In that time, most people I’ve encountered around here commute to New York City for work.

It’s true that the pandemic has changed this.

But I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the majority of working people in Monroe and Woodbury are still commuters. Even if it’s three days a week instead of five.

I can’t speak to other people’s commutes, but here was mine up until March of 2020:

7:15am: Bus from the Millpond to Port Authority. 

8:30am: Ride the E to the World Trade Center

9am:  Walk to the office.

4:30pm: Leave the office

5:00pm: Take the E to Port Authority from the World Trade Center

5:45pm: Bus from Port Authority to the Millpond. 

Assuming there’s no traffic, I’d get home by 7:30pm.

The Woodbury Town Board meetings start at 7:30pm. 

Could I make it from the Millpond to the meeting? Maybe. But I’d have to break the land speed record to do so.

And that would also mean skipping dinner. 

It would also mean sitting for another hour or so after sitting on the bus for (about) 90 minutes.

With me so far?

I think it’s reasonable to assume that most people, given that kind of commute, are not going to go out of their way to attend a Town Board meeting.

So what are constituents of both Monroe and Woodbury’s respective governments to do?

If you guessed, “Use the thing we’re all carrying around in our pockets to give our opinion” you will have guessed correctly.

The outright dismissal of “keyboard warriors” and the inference that if you’re not at these meetings you’re not a serious person is pretty insulting. Not to mention ableist. 

If you have a disability, and want to give your opinion on something either government is doing, what exactly are you supposed to do if the Town Councilwoman is saying you have to come before the board to be taken seriously?

But hold on. It gets worse.

Let’s say you do go, in person, to one of these meetings and express your opinion.

So far this year, we’ve seen people punished for disagreeing with their respective boards:

As we saw with Councilwoman Bingham in Monroe, she was punished by Cardone for speaking out when he withheld her nomination to the Moodna Sewer District Board. (This was later reversed, thankfully.)

And as we saw on February 1st with Maria Hunter, she’s now being punished for “looking the board in the eye” to put it in Capriglione’s words.

Maria Hunter is the Chair of the Woodbury Beautification committee, and an active participant in local government. I wish there were more people like her at these meetings, but like I mentioned, we’re a commuter town.

Hunter asked Capriglioni to abstain from voting on the pay raise for Supervisor Luciani because of her appointment to Luciani’s Town Board seat. Hunter also pointed out that the unelected Councilwoman had previously stated, when the Supervisor pay was $33,000 and held by her political rival, Frank Palermo, that she was totally fine with the pay rate as it was.

In retaliation, at the end of the Town Board meeting, Councilman Calore directly took aim at Maria Hunter by stating he preferred that the committee chairs not speak or appear at the Town Board meetings, instead providing their updates in a different forum. 

So, there you have it.

If you say something this Town Board does not like online, you are a keyboard warrior. 

If you come in person to this Town Board and say something they don’t like, they immediately try to punish you.

It’s gross, and it’s not acceptable. 

And that’s before we get to Supervisor Luciani’s pay raise. The Board did its best to spin the raise as an “adjustment” but an unbudgeted raise of just over $26,000 is still an unbudgeted raise of just over $26,000.

More on that soon.