At a recent village meeting, Solvay Mayor Derek Baichi demanded a vote that the village pay his legal bills in a planned suit against Solvay for a hate crime regarding his sexuality. Baichi is straight.

He ended the meeting calling his fellow board members “babies” and “idiots,” and slammed shut the laptop on which a fellow board member was Skyping into the meeting. He then demanded that the Sergeant-at-Arms, newly appointed this month, remove the laptop from the meeting. Earlier, he declared the village in a state of emergency in an attempt to block a vote he disagreed with.

Baichi was elected mayor of the village last year after beating the incumbent Ron Benedetti by only 116 votes. Baichi, one of three republicans on the village’s Board of Trustees and its youngest member at 38, likens himself to Howard Stern — shocking and boundary-pushing. Now, he has been asked to resign by a majority of the board after committing gross abuses of his executive powers.

His abuses of power are unheard of in central New York politics, and he needs to be removed from office.

While Baichi refuses to compare himself to President Donald Trump, though he “respects the hell out of our president,” the similarities are eerie. His brash, vulgar personality has garnered support from many locals, some of whom have almost formed a cult of personality around him. Baichi has been constantly feuding with the board since coming into office, even saying “if the rest of those guys don’t like me, f*ck ‘em,” Syracuse.com reported.

He’s made claims of a “shadow government” in Solvay and frequently rants on Facebook Live videos. He even gives Trump-esque belittling nicknames to his political opponents like “Little Man,” or “Mr. Florida.” To no surprise, Baichi has never before held public office.

Executive power is the most pure embodiment of the public’s trust in an individual. Out of every citizen of Solvay, Baichi was selected to lead, and with his title comes power. Baichi has repeatedly used this power to belittle, annoy, disrupt and obstruct village business. He has threatened to sue his employer, threatened to fight his colleagues and has even claimed that his office holds influence above the law.

Many New Yorkers and SU students look to Washington D.C. as a dumpster fire of dirty partisan politics, with both sides of any argument gunning for each other like a dog fight in a back alley.

In the Village of Solvay, mere minutes from Syracuse University, there is one very loud, angry fighter.

What is going on right here in central New York is exactly what is going on in Washington. One king-like personality has driven a deep divide in the foundations of democratic society. Instead of pursuing the business of the government, many have resorted to vulgar name calling or blatant obstruction.

Solvay needs to find a new mayor, not just for the sake of the village, but for the sake of the democratic underpinnings of American political culture.

Nick Robertson is a freshman news and online journalism and policy studies major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at njrobert@syr.edu. He can be followed on Twitter at @NickRobertsonSU.

Published on October 23, 2019 at 9:19 pm

Contact Nick: nickrobertson@dailyorange.com | @NickRobertsonSU