Newspaper gave wrong impression of Concerned Citizens

Editor:

I have been an active member of The Concerned Citizens of Orleans County since February. I spoke at the public hearing. My husband and I have been traveling for quite some time out west with family. Keeping up with what has been happening back in New York has been a challenge. News coverage is scant. Those with whom I have been in contact say that the Medina paper has said little about our opposition to the sale of ‘The Villages of Orleans,’ our county-owned and operated nursing home.

None of our group’s leadership seems to have ever spoken to the Journal-Register reporter. The only article on one (out of six) of our peaceful protests made it seem as though we are all CSEA members. Actually, only about a dozen CSEA folks help us. One time, the union got about two dozen people out to one of the protests at which there was a total of 60 people. But none of the Concerned Citizens is active in any union that I know of. Several are Republicans and some are registered Conservatives. Three, I know, are Tea Party people.

On Monday, June 24th, a Journal-Register article did not mention that our court case asked that the people of Orleans County be allowed to vote on the sale of ‘The Villages’ nursing home. That was our biggest hope. We paid for the lawyer with our own money. Over two thousand dollars came from the proceeds of our spaghetti dinner.

There seems to be little freedom of the press in our county. And it seems really strange that the only printed media source in Orleans Countybased in our largest incorporated villagehas elected to almost totally disregard letters sent to it voicing opinion about the proposed sale of ‘The Villages’one of the most important issues facing all of our county residents in many, many years.

There has been little to no coverage of the ongoing efforts of local residents from all over the county to protest the proposed sale and to keep our nursing home under county ownership. Wethe Concerned Citizensare NOT the CSEA. We are simply Orleans County residents trying to keep one of our greatest county assets from being taken away from us. Our main ‘concern’ is for the continued excellent care of our most elderly county residentsboth those who now live in The Villages and those who may one day have to leave their own homes and go to live there.

Kay Walter
Albion, NY