GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. (WIVB) — Grand Island Town Mayor Pete Marston is searching for the person responsible for the vandalism of his business sign that reportedly happened Thursday night.
“This is 100 percent because I’m a politician. I’m an elected supervisor,” he said. “There are 100 signs here, and they chose mine for a reason.”
Someone spray painted the message “Drain the swamp.”
“This is ironic because I’m a Republican,” he said.
Marston spent hours cleaning up the sign after it was vandalized.
He’s owned a business called Marston Power Equipment on Grand Island Boulevard for more than 20 years and said nothing like this has ever happened before, and that the incident highlights a larger problem happening in the community.
“Grand Island seems to be increasingly shaken by politics and extremists on both sides, and I personally regret that, but that’s just the way things are these days, and it’s unfortunate,” he said. “I tend to put the needs of Grand Island first, regardless of political stance, but certainly there are those who don’t agree with that.”
Marston is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators, and he said Grand Island Police and the Erie County Sheriff’s Office are investigating.
“What really concerns me is, if they’re going to do that to the mayor’s business, what are they going to do to other businesses,” he said. “That’s just not acceptable.”
Sara Minkewitz is an Emmy-nominated reporter from Buffalo who has been part of the News 4 team since 2019. Follow Sara at: twitter You can visit @SarahMinkewicz and see more of her work by clicking here.
