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Overcast Village Clerk retires early after Women’s March post
Bob Barra wrote that pro-choice marchers ‘probably should have been aborted’
Village Clerk Bob Barra retired a day early on Thursday, after a public outcry in reaction to his Facebook post that the pro-choice marchers at Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington “probably should have been aborted.”
“It was an off-color joke to a friend of mine,” Barra said. “I’m not hoping that people get aborted.”
He added that he has two daughters and takes women’s rights seriously, but he lambasted celebrities like Madonna, Ashley Judd and others for using profanity in front of children. Madonna said in a speech at the Washington event that she had thought about blowing up the White House.
Barra insisted that his comment was only a joke, and that the backlash was misguided. “Why aren’t they protesting what’s going on Chicago?” he said, referring to a recent shooting. “They’re worried about what I said on Facebook.”
Barra, who was due to retire on Friday, was honored at the village’s regular board meeting on Monday night. A Republican, he served in the State Assembly from 2000 to 2010, when he decided not to seek re-election. He had previously been a Hempstead town councilman for one year and a Lynbrook village board member for six years.
The village issued a statement about Barra’s comments Thursday afternoon:
“The Village of Valley Stream emphatically condemns the personal and private statements expressed by Robert Barra. Mr. Barra is no longer employed by the Village of Valley Stream, and does not in any way express the views of this administration. The Village recognizes and shares the anger and disgust that Mr. Barra’s personal and private statements have generated.”
“He was asked to leave the building,” Deputy Village Clerk Bob Fumagalli said, declining to comment about the status of any retirement benefits Barra may be entitled to. His salary was $134,724 in 2016, and he has worked for the village since 2011. He was also paid $24,225 by Nassau County as a part-time golf course attendant, according to Newsday.
County Legislator Laura Curran, who is running for county executive, also issued a statement Thursday. “I am disgusted by Bob Barra’s comments, and he owes women across our community an apology,” Curran said. “For a public official to so cravenly and grotesquely attack his neighbors, simply because he disagrees with them politically, is an embarrassment to our community, and exactly what’s wrong with politics today. Barra should be ashamed of himself.”
