Battles in Brant show no sign of abating
Supervisor faces harassment charge; letters warn 5 to avoid ‘personal contact’ with officer
By Elmer Ploetz
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 06/11/08 6:56 AM
The supervisor has been arraigned on a contempt-of-court charge.
A police officer has received a letter from another police officer’s attorney, telling him to avoid personal contact.
Five residents — including the one who filed charges against the supervisor — also received the letter.
Welcome to the world of politics in Brant — population 1,906.
The little town in the southwestern corner of Erie County — just north of Seneca Nation of Indians Cattaraugus Reservation — has become a poster child for nasty politics, its meetings so contentious that public comment has been limited.
That, of course, fueled more uproar.
Most of the disputes involve Supervisor Leonard Pero, Police Officer Dave Hock and a group of residents opposed to them.
They are led by David and Christine Gierlinger and Kirk and Debra Ritz, a father and daughter and both former town justices.
The conflict began more than a year ago, before the town was forced to remove Hock as acting police chief because he didn’t meet civil service standards, since he was too old when he finished his police training.
Then last October, Pero was accused of chest-bumping David Gierlinger.
That case — moved to Orchard Park — finally made it to court recently, with Pero arraigned on a harassment charge and an additional contempt-of-court charge alleging he had engaged in a verbal confrontation that violated an order of protection to keep away from the Gierlingers.
He is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.
Pero denies both allegations, saying he never touched David Gierlinger on the first occasion and didn’t berate the couple on the second.
“I did nothing wrong,” he said. “It’s the same four-five people who have caused this confusion with the Town Board. “It’s a personal vendetta against a police officer. He’s the one who’s been persecuted. I’m just the one standing up for him.”
Now William F. Hock’s lawyer, has sent letters to the Gierlingers and four others, telling them to “have no further personal contact with Mr. Hock.” The recipients include a Brant police officer.
Trezevant said he was prompted to write the letter because the group had harassed Hock and his father, staking out their houses and following Hock when he wasn’t on duty.
He also said a police officer in a neighboring town had a dispatcher run Hock’s name through that department’s computer and disseminated the information among the the group opposing the officer.
“That would normally constitute stalking and harassment. Those are criminal offenses and are normally actionable,” Trezevant said. “We didn’t want to pursue that route. Instead we chose simply to try to resolve the situation by sending a letter and asking them to leave him alone.
“I would call that a restrained response.”
The police officer who received the letter said he was puzzled.
“There’s not truth to that at all. . . . I don’t understand the whole thing going on here; there are two sides, and I’m caught in the middle. I have nothing against Dave Hock,” he said, adding that Hock had hired him while serving as acting chief.
The letter was the second for most of the recipients.
The first didn’t include the word “personal” before “contact,” and recipients raised the question of whether that meant he would respond if they were involved in an emergency.
After Hock was not scheduled to work, his representatives met with town officials.
The second letter, specifying personal contact, then went out.
Pero — who is technically the town’s police commissioner — then called for police schedules to be shown to the Town Board before being posted and asserted he has the right to change them.
“The police commissioner has the authority to do all those things,” he said.
But Mike Felschow, the current chief, does not welcome the prospect of schedules being overruled.
“I think it’s the police chief’s job, and I should do the scheduling,” Felschow said.
He said Hock is on the schedule now and declined to comment on the officer’s absence before that, citing confidentiality in personnel issues.
Councilman Dan Kujawinski, meanwhile, questions some Police Department moves, including how an officer could be sent to supervisory training without Town Board approval of paying for class or the hours spent there. The officer was Hock.
“My point is town law says he should have gotten prior authorization,” Kujawinski said.
Trezevant said the training was “training [Hock] was entitled to take as a normal employee. . . . It was authorized by the town.”
Hock said supervisory training is recommended for all officers.
Hock also said that he had been a state audit has determined that his hours as a part-time officer in Brant, Gowanda, Springville and Eden did not overlap, although the written report wouldn’t be released for three or four months.
Hock said an the Erie County district attorney’s office had cleared him last year after investigating allegations that he had spent town money on personal vehicles.
The two sides in the dispute can agree only on one thing: Both wish it was over.
Hock said the experiences of the past year have been painful.
“They’ve ruined my reputation,” Hock said of his critics. “I’d like to know when it’s going to be restored. All the accusations. . . . I have been cleared by everybody except for them. They won’t give up.”
Gierlinger, meanwhile, said, “I think it’s just getting to where people are opening up their eyes now and getting fed up with what’s going on.”
