JUNE 21, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: PETER MATUZA 516.395.7723; [email protected]

Number of pages: 2 (two)

REPUBLICAN CLUB DOORS CLOSED TO REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE

Carle Place, NY – Despite being one of the two Republican candidates for Congress in New York’s Fourth District, Frank Scaturro has been barred from Republican club meetings throughout the district.  His exclusion from the Garden City Club was reported in March.  Since then, leaders of the six other clubs he tried to visit barred him.  Frederick E. Parola, Republican Executive Leader of Wantagh, told a member of Scaturro’s campaign staff who asked by phone that Scaturro “is totally not welcome” at his club and added that “we’re going to kick his a--.”  (In June 2012, Parola ejected Scaturro from a club meeting while handing out flyers which fraudulently identified Scaturro, a lifelong Republican, as a Democrat.)  Scaturro’s hometown club, the Greater New Hyde Park Republican Club, of which Scaturro once served as president, has only two or three meetings per year and none during primary season.  Its ranks have diminished as members have left in disgust at the spectacle of county GOP bosses lying to members of other clubs that Scaturro is a liberal and a Democrat and doing all they can to undermine someone from their hometown whom they know to be a principled conservative Republican. New Hyde Park-Stewart Manor leader Angela Powers responded to a phone request with “No,” and when asked for clarification on the issue, added, “I said no,” and hung up.  East Meadow leader Tom McKevitt’s response to a request regarding his club’s meeting was “absolutely not.” The GOP Primary for Congress is being held on Tuesday, June 24.

Results were no different when Scaturro showed up at meetings of other clubs.  Hempstead leader Bill Sammon took Scaturro 

outside the meeting room when he entered the Hempstead GOP’s May meeting, and when Scaturro asked “Why not have an open forum” where he would be permitted to speak , Sammon responded “this isn’t the place for such a forum” and that the “club is a social event.”  Sammon did say that he would let his members know if a debate was scheduled, but the planned debate was cancelled because Blakeman refused to show.  On June 10, Bellmore leader David Weiss kicked Scaturro out of his club 15 seconds after he entered the meeting room, telling him, “It’s a private club meeting.  It’s only for our chosen candidates.”  Someone who was in attendance later reported that Frank was called a Democrat during the meeting.

Scaturro was barred from Tony Santino’s East Rockaway club June 18, being told by a committeeman in the parking lot outside the meeting place that “we can’t let you in” because he was not a member of the club.  Santino himself ignored Scaturro when he arrived during the encounter and Scaturro tried to greet him.  Bruce Blakeman, despite not being a member of the club, did attend and addressed the meeting, and attendees walked out carrying Blakeman lawn signs.

As one executive leader admitted, the exclusion of Scaturro was ordered by Nassau GOP Chairman Joe Mondello.  The chairman reportedly told Nassau Republicans that Scaturro is “dead to them.”

Reflecting on this, Scaturro noted, “This disgusting conduct shows just how much contempt party bosses have for free speech, and it reveals a top-down, authoritarian culture that bears no resemblance to democracy.  They are doing all they can to deprive the voters of the choice of their nominee.  They know that those who control the nominating process control the government, and those who control the government are using it as their own personal piggy bank.  That’s why the bosses are afraid of fresh leadership that doesn’t come from a tiny circle of insiders.  It’s bad for business.  Their formula to secure Blakeman’s victory: Defraud the voters; have their boss-anointed candidate refuse to appear in any public forum with the other candidate; shut the other candidate out of Nassau County Republican clubs; and mislead those who do attend those meetings about the choice they have on primary day.

“Party bosses hope this will be the last time Nassau County’s Republican voters have a choice of their nominee, and they will revert to whatever sleazy tactics they think they can get away with to accomplish this goal.  It’s the exact opposite of the message I am trying to send: That if we stand on principle and keep our integrity, we can bring the change we need to our long-suffering neighbors.  This primary will not only determine whether the Democrats will be given a free pass to hold this now open seat in Congress.  It also will determine whether the Nassau County Republican Party exists for the people or for the party bosses who have repeatedly betrayed us.  I can’t count the number of Republicans who have walked away from the party in disgust over the corruption at the top.  The GOP is the party of values, and it’s time our local leaders started acting like it.  If I have my chance as a leader, I will work for a party that encourages free speech, puts the people first, and cultivates new talent.  Public service should be a selfless endeavor, one based on sacrifice.

“It is my prayer that such a day will come.  And years from now, I can envision the generation after mine reacting in horror to the stories of the bad old days, when supposed party leaders would take and take for themselves and seek to destroy those they do not control.  I would remind them that the bad old days only ended because people stepped up to reclaim their future.  And they did so back in 2014, when they turned out to make their voices heard on June 24.”