Letters to the editor August 6 to 12

'Right is right, wrong is wrong' and more

Posted 8/5/20

‘The best person, no matter the party’

I try to imagine who would not vote for Jen Metzger. It would have to be someone who doesn’t follow the news in local papers, has no idea …

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Letters to the editor August 6 to 12

'Right is right, wrong is wrong' and more

Posted

‘The best person, no matter the party’

I try to imagine who would not vote for Jen Metzger. It would have to be someone who doesn’t follow the news in local papers, has no idea how much she has already accomplished, someone who has not experienced the integrity she emanates. Those who will vote for her are those who vote for the best person no matter the party. I, for one, eagerly look forward to how much more her creative thinking could accomplish for our rural community.

Roy Tedoff
Fremont, NY

School taxes

Will Pike County taxpayers be receiving a rebate on their school taxes, or did Delaware Valley School employees continue to collect paychecks even while schools were closed for more than a third of the school year?

Anthony Splendora
Milford, PA

Right is right, wrong is wrong

A very simple concept.

Right is when a citizen of Sullivan County pays his taxes for the services he receives: various police units, the office of the aging, roads and bridges and many more. This is right.

What is wrong is when a public servant abuses the use of county-owned vehicles for his or her own particular political purpose. That is when wrong is wrong.

We have all encountered this, perhaps illegal, situation. We are at a public organization’s outing when a representative of law enforcement drives up in a government vehicle, he gets out, all smiles, begins to socialize and casually at first, begins to solicit votes for a particular individual or a specific political party. Perhaps he’s promoting himself. Nothing wrong in campaigning. It’s the American way. What is wrong is when any employee of Sullivan County illegally uses a county-owned vehicle to transport themselves to and from any event for the purpose of promoting or campaigning for any political party, individual or themselves.

To do so is wrong. Such practices must stop.

Robert E. Moore
Barryville, NY

‘Such an old, dead, dangerous tree’

I have a very tall, dead tree on my property, bordering a busy county road. It is dangerous. I have contacted several tree services to have it removed. They all said it is illegal for them to remove the tree because of the power lines and that I should contact NYSEG. So I did—two and a half years ago. NYSEG contacted me after a while and said the tree would be removed. In May of 2018, a N.G. Gilbert truck stopped in the road by the tree. The driver got out, walked over to the tree, looked up and said it had to go. They’d be back tomorrow. Well, tomorrow never came. I have contacted NYSEG by email and telephone. A customer service person told me “to be a squeaky wheel.” A NYSEG car came slowly down the road in January or February of this year, looking all around and up at trees. I talked to them and they assured me the tree needed to be removed. On June 2, I received another reply to an email. I was told “to be patient.” I received a post card from NYSEG in June informing me of tree work to be done in my area. A message was left on my mailbox on July 2 from a representative of N.G. Gilbert. Almost all tree activities were checked off and it said, “Trees within 10 feet of lines must be removed and/or trimmed.” However, when I (immediately) called the representative, he came over and he said maybe the tree was on “the list” of tree removal. Such an old, dead, dangerous tree wrapped in so much mystery and incompetence.

A few weeks ago, I asked another tree service to look at the tree and see if they could remove it. “Hope springs eternal.”

He said he couldn’t because of the power lines. And then he suggested rather jokingly, I think, that there was probably someone around where I live who isn’t all that interested in legal or illegal, who would get rid of it.

So there you have it: I can ask around and see if some probably not bonded/uninsured person will get rid of the tree, illegally, possibly killing themselves or someone else. Or I can be patient, keep squeaking away until the tree falls down, taking the wires down, probably in the busy county road, probably on the coldest day in January, putting rescue peoples’ lives at risk. But let’s look at the “bright” side. Now when there’s no electricity because of this, we can get on our cell phones and be assured we can view the map of where the outage is, how many people it affects, and when the lights will go back on... maybe.

Victoria Kohler
Eldred, NY

Jen Metzger, Delaware Valley School, Sullivan County, NYSEG, tree removal

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