May 30, 2011
By Jim Byrne
RYE – Over Mother’s Day weekend, many families, who were out and about, couldn’t avoid spotting the return of Ray Tartaglione’s revamped “Floatiemobile”. The navy minivan, with a toilet bowl up top and Photoshopped images of Mayor Doug French and all Councilmembers except Joe Sack engaged in a private act on the sides, was seen outside Ruby’s Oyster Bar & Bistro, as well as other locations around town.
Mayor French quickly addressed the issue at the May 11 City Council meeting, and asked Ray Tartaglione, who was in attendance, to come to the podium to answer questions he received from Rye citizens about the “obscene” and “crude” images. Among them: “What do you say to children who have to look at that?”
Mr. Tartaglione declined the invite, but stepped to the podium later in the meeting. The Hen Island provocateur entered a heated back-and-forth with Mayor French and City Manager Scott Pickup, and called the Kuder Island Corporation “a bunch of polluters” and Mayor French a “polluter enabler”.
“We are solving the problem,” said Mayor French in a later conversation. “Hen Island has been this way for 50 years and we are addressing the problem and making progress, and will communicate a solution when we get there. I’m proud of the work the Council and City Staff have done in looking at pieces of Hen Island while taking a straight-forward tactical approach.”
The Mayor reiterated that existing Hen Island issues – mosquitoes, sewage, sanitation, potable water – will be resolved in coming months.
