Editor’s note: This is a response to a letter to the editor published last week from Peter Kolesar urging Town of Highland registered voters to sign a petition for a permissive referendum on the town board’s action to purchase property adjacent to the Highland Town Hall. Kolesar says he did not send his letter to supervisor John Pizzolato. The River Reporter works to deliver accurate and balanced reporting and has no affiliation with any Facebook group other than the official River Reporter Facebook page at www.facebook.com/theriverreporter.

First of all, thank you for including me in your correspondence, Peter, and allowing me to respond to your concerns.

I would love you to come to a meeting. The current and newest members of the town board are hard working, committed to working with everyone to achieve our common goals, seize opportunities and maintain the things we all love about living here. Have you met Sonia (Petkus) Kidney, our new deputy supervisor—lifelong resident, businesswoman and longstanding coach of Little League and at the high school? How about Laura Burrell? She’s the former chamber of commerce president, beautification volunteer, former planning board alternate, local businesswoman and giving neighbor. Tom Migliorino is a volunteer for the Yulan Fire Department. I met him and his wife while volunteering for the St. Anthony’s Pantry during the pandemic. He works with Michael Parker in contracting and carpentry and has brought his skills to restoring the town’s buildings, working almost full time to actualize the more than $400,000 in grant funds we acquired just last year to fix our courthouse, town hall, and senior and community center building.

This is a diverse, talented, opinionated group, that brings everything they have to the table. They question and research and deserve more than the sensational, ill-reporting the River Reporter has reduced the community to, or the attacks of an anonymous group of cowards who edit, block comments, and censor truth on Facebook. The River Reporter is trying to sell papers and engage people and the people behind said Facebook group are revealing their intentions, to support candidates in the upcoming election that threatened to move the town backward into nepotistic and vengeful leadership.

Now to address the actual facts of the property. It was appraised at $85,000 this month. Our accepted bid of $78,000 is solely to be paid for in grant funding that needed to be designated by the end of 2024. Our first bid of $60,000 was rejected by the owner and countered at $89,000. I got involved at this time and countered at $78,000, the cap of funding we had available of the roughly $260,000 in undesignated ARPA funds. This acquisition was not my idea; it was proposed by the buildings committee to address a myriad of concerns.

The 564 Route 55 building’s septic is precariously located on town property, right under our beloved Heroes Park. The building has been in disrepair since 1999. Our longstanding engineer for the town, Ken Ellsworth of Keystone Engineering, put together a proposed parking plan for how we could utilize it for parking. The emergency building attached to town hall could be tied into the 564 Route 55 building’s septic because, as is, the septic tank regularly reaches capacity and is not adequate, and there’s been a need to service it at an increasing rate.

As we are in the midst of our comprehensive planning process, we have identified Eldred and the proximity around 564 State Route 55 as the town’s center. There are two prominent businesses for sale in direct proximity, Irene’s Diner and Shrewd Fox Brewery. The hope is that as our town center is developed and as these properties change hands, that the town can maintain the character in the center of town to protect from new owners that may not maintain the buildings to the community’s standards and promote steady growth and open spaces. These two buildings, practically attached to town hall, have been in disrepair since I moved here more than 20 years ago.

There are so many reasons why this is a good idea for the town. I vow to not spend any taxpayer money to develop this, and will acquire grant funding, but there is no rush to action. It’s an investment for the future, but it is also not my cross to die on. There is so much to do, and so many incredible opportunities in motion. Please be part of the dialogue, call me any time or let’s meet up. I truly want to hear from everyone but cannot sit back and allow the hard-working members of the town board to be admonished.

Best regards,

John Pizzolato,
Town of Highland Supervisor