Editor:

On Tuesday, November 3 town of Shelby voters will decide whether the highway superintendent and town clerk positions should be hired by the Town Board (appointed, as the ballot says) rather than elected. I urge you to vote yes on both.

First, what this is not about. No one is taking away your right to vote. You are the ones deciding this question. The board is asking whether you agree, as we do, that hiring these positions means better management and more accountability.

I have served on the board for three years. Our highways are one of the largest things your tax dollars pay for: plowing, paving, drainage, equipment, and a crew of employees. Yet the person who runs that department answers to no one between elections. The Town Board works with the highway superintendent to set the budget, but it has almost no say in how the department is run. When an elected superintendent chooses not to cooperate with the board, as has been our experience, there is little the board can do.

Supporters say an elected superintendent is accountable to the public. In theory, yes. In practice, residents rarely attend the meetings where highway spending is discussed. When money is wasted or the department is poorly managed, the board takes the blame, even though it has no authority over the department. Responsibility without authority is no way to run a town.

Consider the rules everyone else works under. Town employees follow the town’s personnel policy. Highway crew members work under a union contract. The elected superintendent follows neither. The elected position has no limit on vacation, sick, or personal time, no set hours, and no one who reviews their schedule. Taxpayers pay a full salary and have no way to know how those hours are managed.

A hired superintendent would report to the board, work the hours it sets, and follow the same time-off rules as other town employees. If the department isn’t performing, the board could act, and voters would know whom to hold responsible: the board they elect.

Hiring also means choosing on qualifications. The board could post the job, review resumes, interview candidates, and select the best person. An election offers none of that. Candidates can claim qualifications during a campaign that no one verifies, and voters are limited to whoever chooses to run.

The same reasoning applies to the town clerk. The clerk collects millions of dollars in taxes, in addition to keeping official records and issuing licenses and permits. Handling that much public money takes training, accuracy, and reliability, and the board should be able to hire for those qualifications and hold the clerk to the same standards as other town staff.

Opponents will say elections give voters direct control, and that a hire could simply be a favorite of the board. Those are fair concerns. But voters would still control who sits on the board, and the board would answer for every hire it makes. Today, no one is answerable for these offices in any meaningful way. This isn’t a new idea. Towns across New York (Bath, Avoca and Howard to name a few) have moved to this model.

Please vote yes on both propositions on Tuesday, November 3.

Sincerely,

Linda Limina

Shelby town councilwoman

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Editor:

I write this letter of support for Don Allport in my individual capacity.  While the Orleans County Government is perceived to be an all-knowing, haphazard, decision-making organization that works solely behind closed doors, as projected by the Marlene Seielstad campaign for County Legislator At-Large Central position, this is categorically false, and a highly misleading platform for a political campaign.

The Orleans County Legislature and all of the departments that we oversee for the taxpayers that we represent are committed to transparency and public input.

We have invested heavily on designing our outreach, through our County Website, which is ADA compliant, our press releases, that are one of our many cost-saving shared services with neighboring counties, the continuation of hybrid in-person and online standing committee and Legislature meetings, and our monthly Association of Municipalities’ meetings, in which your local Town and Village officials attend to get additional information that may be pertinent to make your local municipality a better place to live, work and play in.

Every resident can rest assured that we completely vet and probe all possible impacts and options, while taking in current and long-term implications. The keyboard critics and the coffee-clutch membership may talk a good game, but ask them where they got their information to form their opinion. With almost certainty, they probably weren’t at or streaming our meetings, viewing our website, or talking to any of the seven Legislators. Their want for transparency is commendable, and actually using it is paramount.

The campaign to Re-elect Don Allport is the obvious choice. Don’s IT background, his dedicated leadership on the Public Health, Mental Health, Office for the Aging, and Veterans Standing Committees, which are vital segments of our community, and his involvement in critical County-wide decisions, demonstrates his commitment to improving the quality of life in our county. Don understands the wants, needs and desires our county residents have and those must be navigated through the myriad of un-funded mandates that are pushed down by New York State, that the Legislature must abide by or be financially punished, much of which is the result of the One-Party Rule we see endorsing Mrs. Seielstad.

Marlene’s website also distorts the sales tax distribution calculation within the County. As the holder of an Accounting Degree from my Alma-Mater, SUNY Oswego, has she studied the current county budget? When we had to utilize approximately $15 million of sales tax revenue to make up the shortfall that the Real Property levy couldn’t sustain, that’s basic accounting. How could we fund our internal obligations and also increase our subsidies to the other municipalities? There isn’t enough wealth to redistribute, unless we raise taxes, break the mandated tax cap, and face the financial repercussions.

While competition is a cornerstone to success, even Marlene should consider voting for Don Allport, since her own website says “She believes experience matters. Transparency matters. And every taxpayer deserves to understand how public decisions are made.” That sounds like an endorsement for Don Allport!

Respectfully submitted,

John Fitzak

Carlton

Mr. Fitzak is an Orleans County legislator for District 4 – towns of Carlton, Kendall and most of Murray.