There was an unusually large crowd in attendance at last night's meeting of the Village Board of Coxsackie. Many people were upset about the recent death of Finley, a beloved community member. "Finley was just the best. He's a great little guy," said John Borter.
"He was very spunky. He was about two years old, had a lot of energy," added Trish Smith.
"He was very special, he was very special," said John.
To be clear, Finley was a cat - a small orange one. John Borter and Trish Smith were his owners. They are, in John's words, sort of famous in Coxsackie. "We have a number of cats right now," he said. "We have six of our own, and we're kind of fostering two for a gentleman who's kind of get back on his feet."
Finley, however, was John's favorite. He was an outdoor cat, and John says he would often cross the road unsupervised. "He was one of those smart cats," John said. "He'd stop, look both ways, that kind of stuff."
But a few weeks ago, on a Friday night, John and Trish were packing for a trip, and they realized they hadn't seen Finley for a while. John asked Trish to check the community Facebook page to see if anyone had posted about finding a lost cat. "She opened it up, and the first thing we saw was our cat in a garbage bag that someone had picked him up with. A witness had said it was a car or a truck coming down the street at excessive speed. It hit him, and kept on going."
John is the first to admit: they were taking a risk by letting Finley roam free. But the fact that Coxsackie used to be the kind of place where Finley could cross the street by himself prompted John put up a post of his own on Facebook. He suggested Coxsackie should start a neighborhood watch to crack down on speeding.
John's post got a bunch of comments. People called him everything from liberal to fascist, even though there was nothing explicitly political about his post. "Let's see if we can put something together and continue to keep our town safe, hazard-free, and welcome for everyone," he wrote.
A few days later, one of John and Trish's neighbors made another post in the group, in all caps, encouraging concerned citizens to attend the next meeting of the village board. And as last night's public comment section of the meeting got underway, it was clear many people in Coxsackie are worried about speeding.
"Cars coming in from the north are flying when they come around the corner off of Mansion Street. The second they get in front of someone's house, they floor it. That's bad enough. You stand out there and you say, 'Hey, slow down, and they look at you like you are, you know, from another planet!," said Liz Galle.
"I mean, I see it all the time. They go through the stop signs, they just go crazy. I'm afraid to walk my dog. They come right by and almost brush it with their mirrors. I had one person one night come by me - I was so mad, and luckily, I just had picked up my dog's mess. And I threw it, and I hit him right in the windshield. And they never even stopped!" added Wayne Dixon.
"These trucks are loud," said Kathy Sancelli. "I mean, sometimes it's been like 11 o'clock at night, and it's ridiculous. And I did speak to them. I wrote them a note, and I told them, you know, I have a husband that's a veteran. It's very upsetting listening to that."
But even if most people agree that speeding is a problem, the debate seems to have exposed a deeper question: what kind of village does Coxsackie want to be?
One resident asked about the legality of photographing people without their consent. Mayor Mark Evans suggested that if people see someone driving recklessly, they should take a picture and send it to his office. "We'll spread the word to the state police and the sheriffs, and they'll be looking for you. You don't want that. You know, we don't want to live in a police state. But on the same token, if you're continuing to violate the law and be disrespectful to the people in the village, then maybe you deserve that."
Another guy suggested installing a series of fake cameras to make people feel like they're always being watched. One woman offered to let the cops park behind her hedges, where drivers wouldn't see them, to help them catch speeding cars.
After over an hour of comments, Village Board member Katlyn Irwin spoke up. She said she's been on the board for over six years, and she's watched as people express support for increased tourism and economic development in Coxsackie - in particular the boutique James Newbury Hotel and event center on the waterfront, not far from the park where Finley once roamed. Katlyn said she agreed with everybody that the village needs to be a safe place. But, she added: "I say this as a native. We are so resistant to changes."
After the meeting, John showed me the spot outside his house where Finley got hit. As we spoke, a big pickup truck with jacked-up tires came rumbling out of a nearby parking lot, turned onto Mansion Street, and raced up the hill. "There's one of the trucks they talked about," he said, shaking his head.
I asked John if he and Trish still let their other cats roam free. He said yes, two of them still do, but only when they're out for a walk with John and Trish. But John and Trish are also in the process of building a "catio" - a screened-in patio for cats.
He still wants the cats to feel like they're outside, but he knows that something has to change.
