When it comes to apathy for seeking elected office, blame mayor, deputy mayor

From left, Deputy Mayor Pete Lachapelle, Mayor Paul Callaghan (City of Rochester screenshots)

As we near the November elections, city residents should know that eight sitting councilors - two thirds of the board - are not seeking re-election, and another eight are running unopposed.
The unprecedented exodus presents an existential threat to the city of Rochester and can be blamed in part on the actions of its mayor and deputy mayor on April 18.
That's when Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan and Deputy Mayor Pete Lachapelle concocted a scenario in which Lachapelle publicly berated three councilors in a vicious 12-minute tirade during which he called them a "cancer" on the council.
Two of the three targeted voted against removing former city councilor Chris Rice during a May 2022 trial. The other councilor who was attacked, Steve Beaudoin, voted for Rice's removal, but later said on Facebook he wished he hadn't.
The irony here is that Lachapelle, chairman of the codes and ordinances committee that spent more than a year drafting an ethics policy, violated it over and over again during his pathetic April 18 soliloquy. Links will be provided to the two meetings at the end of this editorial. We urge residents to take the time to view them.
Now, let's take a look at how this sordid little immorality play resolved itself.
First City Councilor Jim Gray filed a complaint with Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan, which he acknowledged at the start of the final agenda item during a regular City Council meeting on July 11.
The agenda item was titled: "Review: Status of alleged ethics policy violations by Deputy Mayor Peter Lachapelle."
Callaghan told the council that after Gray filed the complaint, he, the mayor, "looked into it" and didn't believe "it rose to a level of ethics violation, because it wasn't repeated conduct."
So Lachapelle, who on April 18, as the sole investigator into allegations that Callaghan violated the ethics policy, gets a pass from the mayor because his stunning public rebuke of three sitting city councilors wasn't "repeated conduct."
So, I guess that's why members of The Squad like Rashida Tlaib are calling for a cease fire after Hamas terrorists killed 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians and Americans on Oct. 7. Yeah, it wasn't repeated conduct.
And I guess the mayor never read that part of the ethics policy that says an aggrieved party (in this case, Lachapelle - the one who called the three councilors a cancer) - is supposed to first meet with the individuals he's in conflict with before going public.
The mayor then goes on to say that he spoke with Lachapelle about the complaint and they talked about maybe "hashing it out" with the three aggrieved councilors, but then Beaudoin requested an agenda item for July 11.
After the mayor prefaced the reason for the update, he turns the podium over to the deputy mayor, not Beaudoin, the councilor who requested the agenda item.
Why, Mr. Mayor, don't you know the person who requests the agenda item gets to address the council first to explain why he requested it?
Hmmm. A little bass-ackward
Then Lachapelle comes out and apologizes. He says he was representing himself on April 18 and no one else on the council.
But on April 18 when Beaudoin called a point of order to stop Lachapelle's speech this is exactly what Lachapelle said.
"Your honor, I'm going to proceed because this ... as the deputy mayor I was appointed by my peers to give my point of view on this and I will continue to read." Does that sound like's he's talking just for himself? It sounds like he's talking in an official capacity as he was appointed by his peers to make his opinions known.
City Councilor Dana Berlin by this time had seconded Beaudoin's motion to stop the deputy mayor's attack, which should have then gone to discussion.
In fact, the mayor should've said - according to Robert's Rules and normal City Council policy - "OK, discussion from the council," which would've been followed by a vote to stop the speech or let it continue.
But the mayor went mute and seconds later Lachapelle says, "Do you want me to proceed, your honor?"
Miraculously hizzoner gets his voice back.
"Yes," he says.
This is the kind of specious, heavy-handed tactics this mayor and deputy mayor have used to cow city councilors.
Ironically, Callaghan is the only person involved in the April 18 debacle to be seeking re-election. The rest have all decided not to run.
Rochester doesn't need this kind of leadership. It's killing the city. Apathy is a cancer, too.

For link to April 18 meeting (1:24:16 mark) click here.

For link to July 11 meeting (1:42:05 mark) click here

- HT