Ginsberg’s Foods Vice President of Operations John Brusie was observed snapping photographs of residents speaking in opposition to the company’s Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) application to the Columbia County IDA.
Ghent resident Jefferson Snider was the first to mention out loud what many others in the audience had noticed during the Wednesday public hearing: That Brusie, the son of Ginsberg’s co-owner Nancy Fuller Ginsberg, was using a gold-cased cameraphone to take pictures of various speakers.
Toward the end of the hearing, Snider specifically questioned why this was being done, after which Brusie appeared to stop taking the photos. (After that point, however, pretty much all the remaining commenters had already spoken earlier as well, and thus had already had their pictures taken.)
Brusie did not explain the purpose of the photographs, but participants gathered afterward agreed that the action came across as a possible attempt to intimidate speakers.
