Village and Town board meetings can often be fraught with cautious talk and official speak and, well, somewhat sleepy.

The Village of Spring Valley apparently does not suffer from that particular municipal malady. A recent late April meeting descended into name calling and communication breakdown, complete with banging and yelling. Often agenda items move along quickly and quietly, usually to sparse attendance. But with tax dollars and budgets front and center, things can get animated and sometimes heat up in a hurry.

A recent Spring Valley Board of Trustees meeting (April 28) was all that and much more as the proceedings turned raucous and wild, and then, as the strange scene played out, finally, riveting.

The Journal News writer Laura Incalcaterra reported recently about the odd incident that had Spring Valley Trustee Anthony Leon and Deputy Mayor yelling and banging his nameplate at  fellow Trustee Emilia White, presumably over disagreements about the Spring Valley budget.

Incalcaterra reported that White called on Spring Village Police Chief Paul Modica to intervene as Mayor Delhomme stepped between the two trustees and took away, or tried to, Leon’s nameplate.

Leon eventually called fellow Trustee Emilia White “retarded” before stamping out of the meeting, whereupon Mayor Delhomme called a recess to cool the proceedings down.

Spring Valley Police Chief Paul Modica told LoHud that the incident at the meeting “wasn’t unusual.”

“Tuesday night was not the first night something like this has happened at a board meeting,” Modica said in The Journal New article, adding that “tapes of the meeting were under review by the District Attorney’s Office.”

For a full report on the meeting, see Incalcaterra’s article here.

Video of the incident was captured by Steve White.