Town Attorney confronted over drafting dark skies law

A neighbor of Town Attorney Laury Dowd suggested there was a connection between Ms. Dowd’s writing the dark skies legislation and vandalism on his property.

Gerald Mallow, who lives on Congdon Road, told the Town Board Tuesday that Ms. Dowd had asked him to “move a light,” which he did. He then discovered lights broken and beer bottles on his property, Mr. Mallow said.

“I can’t get a response from Laury,” he added, mentioning that he called her a number of times and came to Town Hall to leave messages, all unanswered.

“It’s Laury who drafted the law,” Mr. Mallow said.

During the entire discussion, Ms. Dowd, sitting 10 feet from Mr. Mallow, never responded or raised her eyes from her computer. After the meeting Ms. Dowd didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

Councilwoman Chris Lewis told Mr. Mallow that Ms. Dowd wrote the law because she was requested to do so by the board.

“I came down here because I’m very disturbed,” Mr. Mallow said. He described the vandalism and littering on his property again and said he had called the police department to document it.

“I’d be very surprised if the episodes of vandalism was the result of us discussing dark skies,” Ms. Lewis said.

Mr. Mallow disagreed. “There’s a direct correlation between what’s happening on my property and whatever’s going on with dark skies, he said.