Gulliver in Clarkstown

Mr. Gromack has the unfortunate habit when asked an uncomfortable question of using the stratagem 'argumentum ad verecundiam' (also known as the appeal to authority). 

The argument goes as follows:

1) Most of what authority G has to say on subject matter S is correct.
2) G says P about S.
3) Therefore, P is correct.

Such was the case at the April 3, 2012 Special Town Board meeting when I informed Mr. Gromack (G) that items 4 through 6 on the Town Board's agenda had not been published on the Town's website and therefore the public had not been given proper notification of the intention of the Town Board to vote on these matters (S) and was in violation of the spirit of the Open Meetings Law.

Mr. Gromack (G) with a wave of his hand indicated that the items in question had indeed been placed on the website "that very afternoon" (P) despite the fact I had just informed him that the iPad I was holding was at the time of his statement connected to the Town's website and was displaying the Board's agenda that was absent these items (S).

Supporting Mr.Gromack's  'argumentum ad verecundiam', Town Attorney Mele muttered muddled mantras that things were time sensitive. However, she remained unable to explain how a hundred or so copies of the agenda that the Board was working from could be printed 'on time' from the Town's copier machines but yet time could not be found to post the same document on the Town's website for the public's information.

Faced with 'argumentum ad verecundiam' I sometimes lapse into a strategy of 'argumentum ad hominem' which is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out the negative characteristics of the person supporting it. 

And so I stated to Mr. Gromack that when faced with a fact which causes him discomfort he attempts to dismiss it with a slick comment borne from either a mendacious or a malacostracan mind.

My strategy failed miserably against Mr. Gromack's superior stratagem. He slithered away from my reach and proceeded to have the Board vote on the items which had not appeared on the publicly posted agenda.  

But I did gain one small concession!

The agenda, with the missing items included, was posted the following day on the website proving as I had suspected that Mr Gromack has read 'Gulliver's Travels' and understands that a good architect can indeed construct a building from the roof down. 

In Clarkstown's Gulliverian world: Tomorrow's published agenda is yesterday's recorded vote.