‘Grand Island seems to be increasingly agitated with politics’: Town supervisor’s business sign vandalized with political message

GRAND ISLAND N.Y. (WIVB) — Grand Island Town Supervisor Pete Marston is trying to find the person responsible for vandalizing the sign to his business, which he said happened sometime Thursday night.

“This is 100 percent because I’m a politician. I’m an elected supervisor,” he said. “There’s 100 signs down here, they picked mine for a reason.”

Someone spray painted the message “Drain the Swamp.”

“Which is ironic because I’m Republican,” he said.

Marston spent hours cleaning up his sign after it was vandalized.

He’s owned his business, Marston Power Equipment on Grand Island Boulevard, for more than 20 years. He said this has never happened before and how it points out a bigger problem that’s happening in the community.

“Grand Island seems to be increasingly agitated with politics and the extremist on both sides and I personally take that sadly, but it’s just the way things have been lately. It’s unfortunate,” he said. “I tend to put Grand Islands’ needs first regardless of political affiliation, but some people certainly don’t agree with that.”

Marston is offering $1,000 for information that leads to the arrest of the person(s) responsible. He said the Grand Island Police and the Erie County Sheriff’s Office are investigating.

“The one thing that really bothers me is that if they’re willing to do that to the town supervisor’s business, what are they willing to do to others?” he said. “I find that unacceptable.”

Sarah Minkewicz is an Emmy-nominated reporter and Buffalo native who has been a part of the News 4 team since 2019. Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahMinkewicz and click here to see more of her work.