Amid Cheers for Fire Truck Gift, One Dissent

When Sleepy Hollow donated its venerable—but surplus—fire truck to hurricane-ravaged Broad Channel, Queens, last month, the village's helping hand was applauded, immediately and widely.

But not, apparently, universally.

On Tuesday, village board members heard from Donald Caetano, delivering an opposing earful. A 55-year village resident and a trustee hopeful as recently as last winter, Caetano sees the donation as “money thrown away.”

Addressing the board with spirited brio, Caetano conducted an extended, rambling critique. At one point, discussing the fire truck donation, his comments evoked a warning from the mayor, temporarily halted the meeting and trebled the police presence in the trustees’ chamber. 

Sleepy Hollow’s 20-year–old pumper truck went on the block this fall, but at $28,000 it had attracted no bidders, officials said. After Hurricane Sandy ravaged Broad Channel, on Queens’ south shore, Trustee Jennifer Lobato-Church recommended selling the truck to that community for a nominal sum, an action the board completed Nov. 13 for $1.

“You gave the fire truck away,” Caetano told the trustees Tuesday.

“I think it was money thrown away,” he said. “If you want to help somebody, help your own taxpayers. Try to reduce our taxes, not give our property away.”

Caetano said one man had been willing to pay $15,000 to $20,000 for the truck.

On Tuesday, Lobato-Church defended the truck donation, noting the village’s purchase of a new pumper and lack of potential buyers for the older one. “There’s no equipment on it,” she said of the discarded vehicle. “It’s just a big yellow truck, and it’s surplus and we didn’t have anyone who wanted to buy it.”

Noting the devastation Sandy had delivered to the Broad Channel community, Lobato-Church said, “I feel very good about what we did.”

Caetano was speaking for the second time at this week's meeting. Instead of returning to the lectern, set aside in the back of the chamber for public comment, he used a handheld microphone this time and stood close to the board. Steps away from Lobato-Church’s seat, he asked Mayor Ken Wray for permission to respond to her remarks.

“Mr. Caetano... I’m going to let you do that,” Wray told him. “But... I just want to back up what Trustee Lobato-Church had to say. This entire board voted to do that. And we did it because we felt that it was the right thing to do. These are our brothers and sisters, the people who live in our front yard.”

While other relief efforts send assistance to remote points on the globe, he pointed out, “This [disaster] happened right in front of us.”

Wray called the outpouring of help a village-wide phenomenon. Donated items—canned goods, batteries, flashlights, water, diapers, paper products and more—accompanied the yellow truck to Queens. “It was this whole community that said we’re going to do this,” Wray told Caetano. “It’s hard for me to accept the criticism of what we all did.”

Ignoring Wray, Caetano addressed Lobato-Church, saying, “I don’t want to hear your mouth.” Wray rapped the gavel for silence as Caetano continued. “I heard enough of you,” he told her. “I heard enough of you.”

Notifying Caetano that his allotted speaking time had expired, Wray beckoned Police Chief Greg Camp, who was seated in the board’s second-floor chamber for much of the meeting.

Caetano continued to harangue Lobato-Church, telling her, “I’ve had enough of you, young lady.” Lobato-Church was among three candidates—all of them now seated board members—that the Democrats nominated in January, denying Caetano a place on the ballot.

“Control yourself,” Wray warned him, “or I’ll have you removed.”

Camp, joined by two uniformed police officers from downstairs headquarters, stood beside Caetano, who is 78 and walks with the aid of a cane.

“You won’t have me removed,” he told Wray. “You’re not removing me because I’m not doing anything wrong.”

And he told Camp, “I’m not leaving this meeting, Chief... On my mother’s grave, I won’t leave here.”

And he didn’t.

Wray, who had momentarily halted proceedings, allowed Caetano to stay after extracting a pledge that he would utter “not another word.”

And he didn’t.

Like us on Facebook  |  Follow us on Twitter  |  Sign up for our newsletter