Planner suspended over vulgar messages

TOWN OF ROCHESTER, N.Y.

» A member of the town Planning Board was suspended Wednesday and could face charges under Ulster County’s cyberbullying law for vulgarity-laced rants against two women upset that the board granted a specialuse permit for a controversial cat shelter.

John Dawson admits sending text messages to one woman in which he called her a vulgar name, suggested she perform a sexual act on him and urged her to send him a naked picture of herself. He also admits posting similar remarks on another woman’s Facebook page.

Town Supervisor Carl Chipman said he suspended Dawson Wednesday morning pending a review of the comments by the town Ethics Board.

“It’s very unfortunate that this occurred,” Chipman said. “I feel the language was very inappropriate, especially for a government official.”

Chipman said he also has “concerns that have there could be some laws that could be broken.”

Dawson said he’s sorry for his comments but contends he did nothing wrong and blames the brouhaha on Len Bernardo, the county Independence Party chairman and a candidate for town supervisor. Bernardo, a one-time candidate for county executive, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Dawson said he was contacted through the “Messenger” app by Millbrook resident Shaunie Morano, who was angry about the Planning Board’s decision to approve Project Cat’s special-use request.

Project Cat has come under fire by residents who say that rather than rescue cats, the organization traps feral, lost and, in some cases, outdoor pet cats and euthanizes them.

Project Cat Director Gail Mihocko did not return a reporter’s call Wednesday.

The Planning Board granted the special-use permit during a meeting Monday that was attended by dozens of people opposed to the operation.

“She (Morano) called me a killer and said I was killing innocent cats and said I should be castrated,” Dawson said Wednesday.

Dawson said Morano initially thought, mistakenly, that he was town Planning Board Chairman Michael Baden, who is running for town supervisor in November.

But Dawson said even after he informed Morano he was not who she thought, she continued to send him angry messages.

“That’s when I said, ‘I know how to shut this woman up,’” Dawson said. “I called her the dreaded word that every woman in the world hates, on Messenger.”

In that exchange, screen shots of which have posted on Facebook, Dawson wrote: “Hey C— ... you’re obviously a liberal c— but I’ll let you suck my d—.”

In another exchange, also shared on Facebook, Dawson apparently sent Morano a photo of a woman’s profile picture, to which Moran responded, “not me, my aunt.”

Dawson wrote back, “Good I was hoping that wasn’t you. Send me a picture of you naked.”

Morano did not return a reporter’s call Wednesday, but she posted on Facebook: “I sent him a private message telling him how disappointed I was in his actions. Maybe I shouldn’t have but I was appalled by what [another woman] wrote about all the good people trying to help. This was his response to me. What a disgusting pig.”

Dawson had a separate series of exchanges with Accord resident Lisa Acton on Acton’s Facebook page. In those exchanges, he told Acton she could “suck my d—, too” and suggested she “suck on a carrot.”

“She reached out to me over that and started the whole nastiness again,” Dawson said. But, he said, the two “weren’t talking publicly, her and I.”

Dawson said Acton, too, egged him into making the remarks and suggested the entire matter was set up to help Bernardo win the November election. He said he was under the impression that his comments, which were replies to Acton’s posts, also were private.

Acton said she responded to a post by Dawson claiming there was a “riot” at the Planning Board meeting, and “he went on my personal page and went crazy, told me to do disgusting sexual things to him and carrots.”

“It was disgusting,” she said.

Dawson said he was not surprised by his suspension from the Planning Board or the referral of the matter to the town Ethics Committee. But he believes he’ll be exonerated of any ethics violations because he made the remarks in private messages, not a public forum.

“It was a private conversation that was made public,” he said.

Chipman said he expects to refer the matter to the Ethics Board when the Town Board meets next week.

Dawson’s term on the Planning Board ends in 2020.