by Robert Lynch; May 19, 2025
In what some may argue strays way beyond its pay grade, the Enfield Town Board this month adopted a strongly-worded Resolution that implores President Donald Trump to follow due process, respect the judiciary, and above all else, obey the Constitution.
Town Board action Wednesday, May 14 came near the end of a full agenda that also saw adoption of a Flood Damage Prevention Law over public objections, and affirmation of earlier, informal consent given a Westchester County business to locate a cannabis farm and processing facility within the Breezy Meadows subdivision. (Separate stories will be posted.)
“Resolved, that, being that these are tumultuous times, it is our charge and responsibility as elected officials to represent our constituents, to uphold the core tenets of democracy and the U.S. Constitution, in order to prevent our nation from slipping into dangerous and authoritarian chaos,” Enfield’s 20-paragraph, 800-word messaging statement asserted.
Adopted by a four-to-one vote, the Town Board’s decidedly anti-Trump admonition will be mailed to as many as eleven federal and state elected or appointed officials, including to President Donald J. Trump, himself.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, New York A.G. Letitia James and New York’s Governor, Kathy Hochul, will also be served.
Paradoxically, given the issue addressed, Enfield’s “Request… to Defend the Constitution and Constitutional Rights of Citizens,” was itself an immigrant crossing the border. Its language wandered its way across Cayuga Lake from Lansing, where the Town Board there had adopted nearly-identical language, but with little controversy, April 16.
Lansing Town Supervisor Ruth Groff subsequently forwarded her board’s resolution to other town supervisors in hopes they’d encourage similar adoption. Supervisor Stephanie Redmond emailed Groff’s request to other Enfield Town Board members in late-April, at which time at least two other board members expressed their eager support.
Whether Groff’s Town Board constructed the resolution itself or imported its content from other sources—perhaps in bits and pieces—remains unclear.
“As elected officials sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States of America, we are increasingly alarmed by actions we are seeing that violate fundamental constitutionally protected rights,” the Lansing and Enfield resolutions begin.
“Currently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is unilaterally revoking visas and deporting people without judicial review or due process,” the resolutions continue. “We recognize that due process is not an obstacle to justice; it is a constitutionally guaranteed right for a person accused to see what they are accused of and to present contrary evidence,” the resolutions state.
The towns’ position statement cites the Trump Administration’s alleged defiance of Federal Judge’s James Boasberg’s orders to return detained migrants from a prison in El Salvador, as well as the Administration’s alleged retribution against major law firms “that employed his perceived political opponents.”
When the messaging resolution debuted April 16 in Lansing, it gained minimal notice. Councilperson Joseph Wetmore had introduced the measure before an almost-empty room that night. Supervisor Groff called for discussion, but got none. After a few seconds of silence, the Town Board voted.
Democrat Groff, Wetmore, and a second Lansing Councilperson, Christine Montague, supported the measure. Given the video replay’s less-than-perfect audio, Councilperson Judy Drake, an Independent, was heard uttering a quiet response that could have been taken as a dissent, but was recorded as an abstention. (A fourth Councilperson, Laurie Hemmings, didn’t attend that night.) The Lansing Board embraced the matter in just under a minute. The resolution never got a full reading.
In Enfield, nearly one month later, the issue found a different reception. Supervisor Stephanie Redmond, at home, nursing a bad cold, declined to get involved, apart from casting her affirmative vote. Councilpersons Jude Lemke, Cassandra Hinkle, and Melissa Millspaugh joined to endorse the Trump-critical statement.
As in Lansing, the resolution could have breezed toward quiet approval had not the fifth beard member, Robert Lynch (this writer) spoken up.
“I may as a person, as an individual, support every last word in this resolution. Or I may not. It doesn’t matter,” Councilperson Lynch began.
“When I walk into this room and I sit down at this table, I am… no longer representing just myself. I’m representing three-thousand, six-hundred some people of the Town of Enfield,” Lynch stated, in a message he took three minutes to complete. “And like it or not, this is a blended community. There are people with different opinions. And there are some members of this community who will staunchly support the policies that this resolution condemns. And I must respect their opinion diversity.”
Were the Town Board to embrace the resolution—which it subsequently did—the message to Trump supporters would be “you don’t represent me anymore,” this writer told fellow board members. “And I can’t do that. I can’t in good conscience put my vote to something that I know some people in this town are going to so resent and is really going to have minimal impact, if any.”
The only Town Board member to answer the criticism was Councilperson Lemke.
“I don’t have a strong feeling one way or another about sending this. But I would say that what it’s asking us to request isn’t all that controversial,” Lemke maintained.
“We’re asking them to follow the Constitution and respect the rule of law, and uphold the core tenets of democracy and the U.S. Constitution,” Lemke said. “They’re required to do that by their oath, anyway, so I don’t see that is all that controversial.”
At the Enfield Town Board’s earlier, April ninth meeting, Lemke had introduced a measure, which the board adopted over Lynch’s objection, to post on the Town website what amounts to a statement of detainees’ rights. Lemke said its words came from a leaflet passed out at an Ithaca protest rally she’d attended the weekend before.
“It’s just a list of what happens if you’re stopped by ICE (‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement’), or if ICE comes to the house, and you’re arrested; what are your legal rights,” Lemke explained words from the handout she’d gotten, a flyer printed in both English and Spanish.
“As elected officials, our ability to create and maintain a safe and stable community is undermined when our residents live in fear of being rounded up by the federal agents and deported at any moment” the Enfield Town Board’s adopted May 14th resolution states.
“As elected officials, we implore our federal and state representatives to take any and all appropriate legal actions to ensure that all members of the federal government follow the Constitution and respect the rule of law,” the resolution continues.
When it travels to Washington and Albany, the Enfield Resolution on constitutional liberties may be seen by some that its Lansing counterpart will not.
Before adopting the final measure, the Enfield board—at Lynch’s urging—broadened the list of recipients to include not only Democratic Party lawmakers and New York officials, but also President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, and Republican Congressional leaders Mike Johnson and Senator John Thune.
The Town of Lansing “was fairly timid,” Lynch asserted. “They just sent it to friendly ears,” he said of the Lasing resolution. But as for Enfield, “Those who vote for this Resolution tonight, whoever they are, should be able to stand behind it and basically look the President and his Attorney General in the eye. And without that, this resolution is meaningless.”
As adopted, the Enfield admonition will go all the way to the top.
Much less politically-charged, though still imported from the same Lansing Town Board April meeting, the Enfield Board also adopted a second resolution May 14, this one urging federal budget negotiators not to end the long-held income tax exemption granted interest earnings from municipal bonds.
“An advisor to President Trump recently floated the idea of taxing municipal bonds,” the Enfield and Lansing resolutions stated, never specifically citing the advisor in question or the probability of the change’s enactment.
“As elected officials, we implore our federal and state representatives to take any and all appropriate legal actions to ensure that all municipal bonds continue to enjoy their tax-exempt status,” the towns’ resolution states. It passed both the Enfield and Lansing Town Boards without opposition.
“This has a quantifiable financial impact on Enfield,” Councilperson Lynch stated at the meeting, differentiating his support for this second messaging resolution from his opposition to the one prior. “If we remove the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds, those bonds will cost more money for towns like ours, and it will impact our taxpayers negatively,” he stated.
No other Enfield Town Board members offered comment.
The Kiplinger financial website cites Stephen Moore, whom it describes as “an informal advisor” to President Trump, as a key driver behind taxing municipal bond interest. Kiplinger reports Moore believes that taxing those bonds’ interest “aligns with Republican goals of ‘widening the tax base’ and is ‘politically feasible’ because it primarily affects high-income investors who benefit most from the exemption.”
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