Remarks by Gerardo Vildostegui
85 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 4
- Play at 8:43
“Okay. You met him right at the party. That's it? I'm good.”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 10:38
“Don't feel you need to stay any longer than you can or comfortably.”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 11:35
“The Pledge of Allegiance is a flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 11:58
“Yeah, again, I just briefly want to voice my concern about this legislative technique of having the special meetings during the morning. And I want to say a couple things. I raised this point on August 6th, but I think there's two new things I wanted to add to the story. A point that's often been made by the defenders of these special meetings And I want to just say for the record, I oppose doing major legislation at this hour on a weekday when residents have difficulty attending. A point that's been made is that, look, people do show up. And I want to say something about that. Yeah, people…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 37:48
“Look, so here's just a very big picture starting point. When people email me and I write them back, I always thank them for their comment. When I see residents at the meetings, I thank them for coming. The majority of this commission, I think, is not receptive to free speech. And the proof of that, I've seen it. It happened at the August 6th meeting. There was an item where Commissioner Trevani opted not to speak, and the mayor thanked him for not speaking. That happened to me once in his previous term, too, where I had put in a card to speak, and I opted not to, and he thanked me for not…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 54:52
“Mr. Mayor, may I respond to one point you said? And I want to first say thank you for. the changed and eliminating impertinent. I think that's an important step forward. I think that word shouldn't be in there. I just wanna say though, you actually misstated the definition of slander. And I think that kind of makes my point. Slander in the law has a mens rea requirement, that is to say an intentionality requirement. So just accusing somebody of corruption without evidence, which is what you gave as a definition of slander, is not slander. It has to be either knowingly false or have a reckless…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 56:43
“I would consider asking the attorneys about this. There are First Amendment issues involved here, and people can make accusations in public fora without evidence. I think that is actually within the scope of First Amendment criticism of the government. And I think this is the danger, is that we're silencing people potentially for legitimate criticisms. I think that's what makes me concerned.”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:11:57
“I just want to say, you know, I'm grateful to my fellow commissioners. I think we had some better dialogue on this than we've had on some other items, and I appreciate that. I appreciate the change with impertinent. Some of the other issues are still deal breakers for me, slanderous, and also the override mechanism that's being taken out at lines 131 and 32. So for those reasons, I vote no, but I think we got to something better.”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:26:34
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:32:25
“May I answer that? I know others want to speak. That was the whole point of my remarks. It's not about having a meeting space for meeting with other people. That is already provided for. It's about having an office where you can go in, shut the door, and work on emails and stuff like that. It's permanently occupying an office, which is something that happened in the recent past that had never happened before. So it's not about getting a conference room. We already have a procedure for that. It's true that if there is a moment of heavy, heavy use, Manny Crawford may be booked, and the small…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:34:21
“please under the existing law we can i just want to say this is about something else this is about because there's going to be even less space if a commissioner takes a permanent office for themselves then there's less space for people to do extraordinary things like record a video and stuff like that repealing this and giving commissioners their own permanent offices reduces the amount of available space”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:39:56
“reserve your comments to public comment all right thank you i i would like to just make one quick point mr mayor the the restriction was not put in at the very end of the previous commission it was put in in the middle of it in 2025 and we lived with it too so it was um you know as i think with all the ethics laws that we passed including the one we're going to talk about in 2d we passed it and then we lived under it so it wasn't it wasn't meant to just to bind a future commission in some hypocritical way We lived under that, too. And I just want, for the record, that to be clear. I think…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 1:51:30
“Look, on this topic, I think we all fundamentally want... On this topic, I think we all fundamentally want the same thing, especially where child safety is concerned. Commissioner Weingart raised a question just now about getting a records request of how many people have been fined. That is actually an important issue for just discussing what's at stake here. I'm quite confident that not a single person has ever been fined under this law. I was thinking about this when I read Commissioner Weingart's email in the summary of the special meeting a while back, and he said, however, fining people…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 2:16:03
“So I got a couple of emails from people after I sent an email out yesterday in a blog post. And they said, why are you so worked up about this? It doesn't really matter. The vice mayor recently asked a question, too. Why be so negative? Why assume that people are going to do bad things? What's the big deal with ethics laws? The reason why I'm doing this, this is really at the core of why I'm here on a commission. Corruption is the even the suspicion of corruption is the single worst thing that can happen to a government. I had a friend who used to work at the organization Transparency…”
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 2:27:54
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Town Commission · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 0:17
“COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI. COMMISSIONER GIOVANNI.”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 4:55
“by me we uh i got a briefing on this from the manager so i'm comfortable putting both in i would uh like to suggest two other additions to the agenda um let's just get approval on those two and then we'll move on sure thing um i'll move to approve the mayor's uh changes to the agenda all in favor i'll second it all in favor aye all opposed none all right So I'd like to make two additions. I think we should add a 1G for board and committee appointments. I think the youth council may have missed the August meeting, but so that they can have the September meeting, we've got to appoint the five…”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 6:42
“IT WOULD BE GOOD TO DISCUSS IT A LITTLE BIT TOO BECAUSE WE HAVE SIX APPLICANTS FOR THE FIVE AT LARGE SEATS AND ONE PERSON IS GOING TO BE THE ODD ONE OUT AND IT'S A REGRETABLE SITUATION. I'D LIKE TO HAVE A MOMENT TO DISCUSS IT. I'LL KEEP THE MOTION AS ADDING 1G AND ADDING 9J.”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 7:20
“The motion is to discuss youth council board appointment so that they can have a meeting and get started in September. I'd like to have that as an item 1G. We can always postpone it, but I think we should discuss it. And then I'm adding a 9J to discuss.”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 7:42
“We the Youth Council I plan to appoint a third and you're gonna be a put and then we have a quorum Yeah, okay so but I but then we have the pending at large applications and I I”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 8:14
“I know I understand the reservation I would again I have the motion to as it is to have the 1G and the 9J is my motion.”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 10:07
“Yeah, I'll just say a quick word of welcome to everybody to this August meeting. It is nice to see the turnout, and I agree with what both of my colleagues have said. It was, you know, public engagement is important and makes a difference. So to those of you who have turned out tonight, emailed, I also want to add my thanks. I also want to take a moment to congratulate our new interim chief of police, Jay Metellus, who is here with us. And... You know, it's obviously a very familiar face in these chambers and around this town, but when you see the outpouring of affection and support that he's…”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 11:01
“All right, so yeah, if I may, I wanted to go first on this. I discussed this with the town attorney today. There's one student whose application I can't consider, so I wanted to just go ahead and make the next appointment so that that person can get fair consideration. There are then three people that I am able to consider for the first-timer slot. And it's a tough choice. I really do wish we could let everybody on. I would prefer, I'm just going to say to my colleagues, I would prefer to change the charter so that we can have even greater participation. But the three applicants, and I want…”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 17:05
“I think, Mr. Mayor, you may have misunderstood, and this is in the resolution, in the charter of the council. The at-large members must be former members.”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 17:20
“It says who are. I spoke about this with the town attorney. Through the chair, I could ask the town attorney. My understanding was that the five at-large, it says who are, who have served. We spoke about this on the phone. That's why I was saying this earlier, that the six who applied are the only ones who can apply, and they are all the ones who can apply. That would be the reason for moving forward on this. I mean, it's good to get clarity on that issue, but my understanding is that the way it's worded, they have to be former members, so no one else could apply.”
Town Commission · Aug 11, 2026