Above: A severed water pipe in the basement of a house owned by Middleburgh mayor Matthew Avitabile. Photo by Matthew Avitabile.
In this week's Times Journal: A house owned by Middleburgh's new mayor has been broken into, in an incident that looks like a deliberate act of vandalism.
Sometime on May 11 or 12, the Times Journal reports, someone broke into the house on Maple Avenue, cut and stole parts from several pipes in the basement, and left water gushing onto the floor:
With repairs ongoing, Mayor [Matthew] Avitabile hasn't been living there yet, though a roommate has. The roommate wasn't at the house at the time of the break-in, the night of May 11 or morning of Saturday, May 12.
"He found it Saturday. . .the water was rushing in the basement," Mayor Avitabile said of the roommate.
"It was lucky he caught it because there's a new furnace there."
He estimated the damage at $1,100.
No arrests have been made, though police are investigating the incident. Avitabile told the Watershed Post that he believes the intent was vandalism, not burglary:
"I'm not a copper thief, but if I was, I think I'd focus on taking the pipe instead of cutting off the water to every room," he said. "It looked very deliberate."
Avitabile, who at 25 is one of New York State's youngest mayors, has been in office just a few months -- but long enough to have a few enemies. The election he won in March was a bitterly fought one, in which Avitabile took on not only a sitting incumbent, but the town's fire department.
Last November, as a village board member, Avitabile voted along with two other board members to suspend village fire chief Brian Devlin after the chief allegedly got into a public, drunken fistfight at the firehouse. The suspension angered many fire department members, and provoked a public spat between Avitabile and firefighter John Shaw at a village meeting in December.
The legitimacy of the election Avitabile won has also been challenged by his former opponents.
Last month, Tom Wargo -- a third candidate in March's mayoral election who got just two votes -- officially challenged the election results, seeking to have a new election held. Wargo's request had public support from former mayor Bill Ansel-McCabe, who Avitabile beat narrowly. State Supreme Court Justice George Bartlett declined to hear the case.
