Rich Shapiro is seen at a board meeting in April. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

SARANAC LAKE — The village board is considering censuring Trustee Rich Shapiro after he shouted and swore at a village resident at a public meeting last week and got in a physical confrontation with a community member at a political rally over the weekend.

Mayor Jimmy Williams said he is “embarrassed for the board” and that both incidents were “not a good look.”

Both confrontations are steeped in years of conflicts, and disagreements between Shapiro and the people he clashed with.

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How censure works

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Shapiro is not currently censured, but with the board vote, the censure process started on Monday. He has 30 days from then to file an appeal and “correct misconduct.”

Shapiro is calling the censure process a “trial.”

It’s not, Williams says. He said the process can result in a “no confidence” vote from the rest of the board, but will not assign guilt or innocence.

“We really do not have any power over you Rich,” Williams said.

“Right, you don’t,” Shapiro said.

If approved, the public can take a censure to the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division and ask for him to be removed by a judge, Williams said.

“If I can’t call witnesses, I will boycott this thing and sue you,” Shapiro told Williams after the meeting.

The grounds to censure a trustee are for persistent disruptive conduct at meetings; or for violations of bylaws, rules or code of conduct.

Trustees Matt Scollin and Kelly Brunette voted to approve the censure proceedings, along with Williams.

Trustee Tom Catillaz said he had not witnessed either incident, so he abstained from voting. Shapiro also abstained from the vote.

Brunette told Shapiro she’s not intimidated by him, but she’s heard from people in the village who are nervous and intimidated by his actions in the past week.

“That has to mean something to me, representing this community,” she told him. “I am personally embarrassed.”

Shapiro said on Tuesday that Williams is trying to “silence” his “most vocal opponent.”

“This is but a thinly veiled attempt to force me to stop questioning the actions taken by the board,” he wrote in an email.

Williams said the censure vote is “100%” about Shapiro’s behavior.

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Shapiro support

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After the vote, several members of the public, and Shapiro’s wife, spoke on behalf of him.

Peggy Wiltberger said she was at the political rally in Riverside Park on Sunday where Shapiro got in an altercation with Jacob Vennie-Volrath, who was protesting while his wife spoke. Wiltberger called the incident “unfortunate” but believes there was no “malice” in the confrontation.

“We all make mistakes, but I’ve known (Shapiro) to be a man of excellent character,” she said.

She said Shapiro is generous with his time, knowledge and resources, helping the needy and working on public projects.

Peter Benson said he was at the park on Sunday and he saw a “heated” moment, but said he did not see aggression.

He said Shapiro will probably regret the words he said at last week’s meeting later. Shapiro had shouted the word “bulls***” and called a village resident an “a*** pore” at the meeting.

Benson added that in a public setting, there is a code of conduct for people to follow. But when someone is antagonized, sometimes emotions get the better of people, Benson said.

“It’s easy to set someone’s hair on fire,” he said.

Lindy Ellis, who is married to Shapiro and is a Franklin County legislator, said she removed her “wife hat” and “legislator hat” and put on her “engineering cap” when she spoke.

In the video, she said, structurally, she doesn’t see how Shapiro could have pushed Vennie-Vollrath, invoking Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

“Look at his right foot,” she said. “Having watched a lot of sumo wrestling, I know that he was put under pressure and moved back.” Vennie-Volrath did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The 30-day window for Shapiro’s censure process, when the board will take a vote on whether to move forward with the censure, ends on June 22.