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Trustees walk out of meeting following ethnic slur allegation
Two Village of Sloan board members walked out of Tuesday's meeting after one was accused by a fellow trustee of making an ethnic slur during an argument between the two on April 12 outside the village hall.
Deputy Mayor James Niwinski exited village hall about 45 minutes into the meeting after Trustee Anthony Sisti accused him of insulting his Italian heritage with a derogatory remark, and called for an investigation into what he called improper conduct by Niwinski.
Niwinski denied the allegation before getting out of his seat and, along with Trustee Judith Calhoon, leaving the building.
"He's lying," Niwinski stood up and said. "For the public record, I did not say any ethnic or racial slur, period."
Sisti insisted his allegation was true and offered to pay for a lie detector test for himself and Niwinski.
"This is so unfortunate," an upset Calhoon said as she left.
Mayor Leonard Szymanski said the meeting was not an appropriate forum for this to be brought up, and several times attempted to cut off Sisti to bring the meeting back to order.
"Whatever happens on the outside of this board room should stay on the outside," Szymanski said.
Sisti read from the village code for meetings, saying the mayor had no authority to keep any item or par-
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