BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Carl Paladino was circumspect when reached for comment about protesters marching Thursday outside his Potters Road home, calling for his resignation from the Buffalo Public Schools board of education.

The event was organized against Austin Harig, who ran against Paladino for his school board seat last year. Harig says he and fellow residents of South Buffalo remain angry about derogatory comments Paladino submitted to Artvoice toward President Obama and the First Lady.

The newsweekly asked noteworthy Western New Yorkers, including Paladino, what they would like to see happen in 2017. Paladino's answers to the wishlist included Barack Obama catching mad cow disease and Michelle Obama "[returning] to being a male and [letting] loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla."

"We're standing in solidarity, telling Carl Paladino, he can't get away with this anymore!" exclaimed Harig.

Paladino, insisted later on that is "certainly not a racist; that he wrote those answers as a joke to forward to friends and never meant to send them to the paper.

Paladino offered this on Thursday for a comment:

"They are exercising their First Amendment right to protest my First Amendment right. Amazing."