Tensions flare at Freeport Village board meeting

Freeport Mayor Andrew Hardwick ordered village school board Trustee Ronald Ellerbe removed from an explosive village board meeting after the pair traded words during a discussion over proposed school district spending.

Two Freeport police officers escorted Ellerbe from the village board room just before 11 p.m. Tuesday during the contentious meeting in which residents also angrily questioned Hardwick's trips abroad and efforts to change the village's police-hiring policy.

Ellerbe was ejected after he took issue with Hardwick criticizing the school board's proposed spending plan, which the mayor termed "outrageous."

When Hardwick said he wouldn't tolerate audience outbursts, Ellerbe, seated in the audience, said to Hardwick: "You respect me, I'll respect you."

To which Hardwick replied: "You're not going to disrespect me from the seats . . . You have to go."

Earlier, Hardwick had called out superintendent Kishore Kuncham's $229,000 salary, what he said was a $40,000 raise, and a supposed six-figure salary for a secretary in the proposed budget as "outrageous."

Ellerbe, taking the podium during the public comment period, countered that Kuncham's salary had changed when he was promoted from deputy superintendent to the top post last year.

"I think it's unfortunate that you sit there and misrepresent the facts," Ellerbe said to Hardwick.

Dissension at the meeting, was not limited to school issues. Some residents yelled at board members from the podium and questioned several policy decisions, from village officials' trips to China and Germany to investigate modern incinerator technology, to a now-defunct bill in the state legislature that would've changed the way Freeport hired a police chief.

Hempstead Town Councilwoman Angie Cullin asked from the audience about an April 6 meeting where scores of people, including Cullin, were denied entry to Village Hall.

Freeport officials said the Nassau fire marshal was enforcing the occupancy limit, and Hardwick said the backdoor admission was "because we had a reception here for the family members" of employees appointed to village posts on that day.

A woman spectator yelled an expletive at a woman who had criticized Hardwick, and police officers removed her.

Village officials said Ellerbe was kicked out for being disruptive. Ellerbe said he was ejected for disagreeing with the mayor.

"He ejected me because I objected to the veracity of his statements," Ellerbe said.