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Does a Misunderstanding Between Two Brothers About An Alleged Illegality Tell Us Something About the Candidate…And the Potential Conflicts of Interest and Interference by the Candidate’s Wife?

Family Incident Sends Up the Red Flags for Ravena Voters!!!

A real-life incident between Dom Misuraca, brother of Bill “Moose” Misuraca, the Republican Candidate for Mayor of Ravena, may tell volumes of what Ravena residents can expect if Mr Misuraca is elected, and should send up red flags about the possible conflicts of interest and interference that may be caused by Misuraca’s wife, Jena Misuraca, with possible effects of abuse of public office. Here’s the scenario straight from the brother’s mouth:

The Brother, Dom Misuraca, of Republican Ravena Mayoral Candidate Bill “Moose” Misuraca, writes in a recent response to a comment made by one of our readers:

Ill just say this to your assine reply to my comment:

1. The way he [Bill "Moose" Misuraca] makes a sandwich matters little in comparison to running a town [Ravena].

2. I did storm into the bar, as far as it being “no reason at all”, well you wouldnt know that I had just gotten off the phone with my crying mother….crying because he was blaming ME , as the person that reported the bar for HAVING UNTAXED WORKERS. While I do not condone off the book employees, I certainly did not report him…I am not only [the] person on his bad side.

The police were not necessary if he had only been able to COMMUNICATE WITH ME, instead of jumping to conclusions and allowing his wife [Jena Misuraca] to spread rumors. I certainly wouldnt have WASTED THE TAXPAYERS MONEY by calling the police….who , in TRUE RAVENA FASHION ,arrived in a pack of three.

3. HE IS NOT FULL OWNER OF NEITHER THE BAR nor PROPERTY. As partial owner of the property, i was within my rights to be there…i left to talk to the police outside ,away from nosey barflies…… It seems like it is YOU [one of our readers] who does not know the whole story,

[Response to comment made to the article The Buzz is Out: Bill "Moose" Misuraca will Challenge John "Black Mamba" Bruno in the Ravena Mayoral Race!!]

Although it sounds like a family matter, there are three points embedded in Dom Misuraca’s comment that are of significant interest to our readers, and raise questions about the mayoral candidate, Bill “Moose” Misuraca:

(1) The allegation that Bill “Moose” Misuraca and his wife Jena Misuraca were evading the law as regards workers/employee taxes. Not that financial mismanagement hasn’t been the hallmark of the John T. Bruno & Co. regime, this is a serious allegation, especially serious when it is made against someone who wants to be the chief financial officer of the Village of Ravena. We need to hear more about this allegation and maybe get some clarification.

(2) The apparent communication problem is also worrying. If someone can’t communicate appropriately on a serious matter, whether the allegation is true or untrue, and that person can’t respond to the allegation in a rational and sensible way, that is another serious problem for someone who wants to be the chief communicator of the Village of Ravena.

(3) Rumors have always been a problem in Ravena-Coeymans and have caused a lot of heartache to a lot of people. We mentioned in a previous post that we are concerned that Jena Misuraca may not respect boundaries if her husband, Bill Misuraca, is elected to be Ravena mayor. We base our concern on Jena’s many sometimes questionable participattion in local movements and the company she tends to keep. The RCS Sports Association with its Twilight Zone history of shabby bookkeeping and total lack of transparency, Jena’s involvement with certain groups involved in the schools (and we don’t mean the cookie-baking team), her outrageous political activism and partisanship relating to the RCS board of education, her questionable friendships with local renegade figures like Cathy and Dirty-Hands Jerry Deluca, and the list could go on. Jena simply doesn’t know when to mind her own business and to lay low, if necessary. Jena’s “individualism”, if you want to call it that, goes far beyond what we would like to see in the wife of the mayor of Ravena. In our opinion, there could be many conflicts of interest and problems created if Jena isn’t kept in her crate with her mouth shut.

(4) The coziness with elements of the Coeymanazi police department bothers us, too. All of the above concerns culminate in the fact that the Coeymans police were involved and our question is: Why? Who called them? For what purpose? Was it Bill “Moose” Misuraca or Jena Misuraca? If Dom Misuraca was there to talk to his brother about a misunderstanding, why didn’t it play out that way? If Jena called her “friends” in the Coeymans police department, what business was it of hers to get involved in something that was between two brothers. (And is that going to become a pattern if Mr Misuraca occupies the mayor’s office?). And if Dom has every right to be on the property, and was not creating a disturbance, he was within his rights.

Now let’s superimpose this little scenario on what might occur if it was in Ravena Village Hall….

Now, readers, take this scenario a step further and imagine the Halfway House Tavern is the Ravena Village Hall. Now imagine that there’s some illegal crapola going on in the village workings involving some mismanagement or corruption (= the alleged untaxed employees at the Halfway House Tavern), and some people are upset about it (= Misuraca’s mother and Dom Misuraca). A citizen (= Dom Misuraca) goes to the public space (= Halfway House Tavern = Village Hall) to discuss the issue with an elected official (= Bill “Moose” Misuraca) in order to get the story straight. The citizen (= Dom Misuraca) has every right (1) to be concerned about the situation, (2) to go to village hall, (3) to talk to the elected official, (4) to get the facts and the story straight. OK so far?

Perhaps the discussion gets a bit emotional (it happens at town, village and school board meetings all the time) but it’s not an incident. Now, say someone who is not an elected public servant or even an employee of the village government (= Jena Misuraca, although she works at the Halfway House Tavern) sticks his or her nose in it, and starts spreading rumors about the citizen’s (= Dom Misuraca) discussion with the elected official (= Bill “Moose” Misuraca) all over town, when s/he should have kept his/her mouth shut. Let’s also say that that rumor-monger (= Jena Misuraca) has questionable motives and hangs out with questionable groups (RCS Sports Association, Fiends of RCS, the Coeymanazi police department, Cathy and Dirty-Hands Jerry Deluca, etc.) and the whole thing gets perverted in the telling. And say, as the story goes, that that Ms Buttinsky (= Jena Misuraca), calls the police to intervene in something only to make a scene.

Now think: Does that paint a picture of open government where citizens can feel free to approach their elected officials, to discuss isses with them, to freely interact with local government without fear of retaliation or intimidation? Sure doesn’t sound that way to us! In fact, it sounds a lot like what we now have in Ravena Village Hall. It sounds a lot like what a local resident describes when he visited the Ravena Health and Fitness Center, a public place, during the open house, and was told he wasn’t welcome and to leave. It sounds just like what Cathy Deluca and one of her minions, Claude Wheeler, did when they falsely reported an incident to the Coeymanazi police, too. It also sounds a lot like the obstruction of justice by the Coeymans police department when it came to investigating the violation of the resident’s protected civil rights (a crime), the charge of falsely reporting an incident (a misdemeanor), the charge of conspiring (a misdemeanor) to file a falsely reporting an incident, when they concerned Cathy Deluca, the wife of Coeymans cop Dirty-Hands Jerry Deluca! And that’s only one incident. Many similar ones appear in the list of Notices of Claims against the Village of Ravena, the Town of Coeymans, and the Coeymans Police Department.

Get the Facts and the Story Straight!
Stop the Rumors and Gossip!

We need some answers to these questions we’ve posed above. We need some certainty that on March 18, voters are not jumping from the frying pan into a very big bonfire. We need to know what we’re getting into and whether we need to seriously ignore what the political parties have cooked up for us and start thinking very seriously about some local men and women who can be write-in candidates and who don’t have so much damned baggage! Think Laszlo Polyak or Michael Fisher, or another trustworthy write-in candidate for Ravena mayor, if the Bruno gang or Misuraca pair is getting too scary. Send us the names of your write-ins and we’ll campaign for them!

We need to hear from the candidates, too. Silence will only keep the rumors alive and will be an admission of guilt!

What we DON’T NEED in Ravena Village Hall is More Dirty Laundry and More Baggage! Do the Laundry and Unpack the Baggage, Candidates, Before Election Day! How about financial disclosures? Tax records? Answers to straight questions? Don’t voters deserve to have answers from the men and women who are asking to be elected? If we cant demand accountability and get transparency at the local level, how in hell can you hope for it from Albany or Washington D.C.?

Don’t forget to vote in our polls for Ravena Mayor and Ravena Trustees. Click here: Polls

Trust your Guts
NOT THE CAMPAIGN RHETORIC=LIES
The Editor