Town of Hartsville & Hornellsville

AIRTIRCITY GIVES UPDATES AMID OUTBURSTS:

There was a lot of wind filling the Canisteo-Greenwood High School auditorium Wednesday night, but it wasn't from Airtricity representatives giving an update on their company's Hartsville and Hornellsville project.

Project Manager Bob Sherwin had to contend with rude audience members throughout his presentation, both during his project update and the question-and-answer period. At one point Steve Dombert - who was sitting more than halfway back from the front of the auditorium - asked Sherwin to speak up. When he attempted to do so and Dombert still couldn't hear him, the request for Sherwin to speak louder came up again.

“You could also move closer to the front,” said Sherwin, who was speaking without a microphone.

“Why don't you just speak up,” responded Dombert, a Hartsville resident who with Rochester billionaire B. Thomas Golisano has promoted a community-based wind farm.

Throughout the meeting, Sherwin was interrupted numerous times by audience members. He also had to contend with Brian O'Neil of WLEA-AM and WCKR-FM - who was attempting to record his comments for a sound bite - and asked him to back up and give him a little space. During the question-and-answer period, Sherwin was asked if O'Neil was causing him to not speak up. He said O'Neil was invading his space, to which O'Neil said he needed to get his sound bites.

There also was a back-and-forth between O'Neil and several members of the audience, and he was asked to sit down - he had been standing next to Sherwin with his microphone out - and get out of the way.

“I need to get my sound bites,” O'Neil replied, but he did sit in the front row for the remainder of the meeting.

It's a dismaying trend in public discourse these days for people to act as if passionate beliefs give them a license to be rude and disrespectful of anyone who takes a different, usually less extreme view. My (limited) experience wih partisan debates is that the party that refuses to respect the other is usually the one with the weaker argument.