Lakeshore resident in Yates urges support for town candidates with vision

Editor:

I am one of those despised “Lake People,” who pays the highest tax rate to support a “town with no potential.”

Unlike a current Yates Town Board member, who voiced this sentiment to a boardroom full of residents, I was born, raised, worked and raised my own family a few miles down the road in Medina.

I had some great Lyndonville friends, and my grandfather, aunts, uncles and friends owned tiny seasonal cottages on the lakeshore. I didn’t inherit any of them, but I always thought of Lake Ontario as our lake too.

I never realized, until we purchased a small cottage here 11 years ago, that the “Lake People” were so resented. Most lakefront communities capitalize on their asset, even if it is seasonal. They “make hay when the sun shines.”

In the eight years I have lived here year-round, I have not found Lyndonville to be the friendly, welcoming community I had hoped for. There are exceptions, of course, but there are enough individuals who degrade those who live on the lake shore, labeling them the “rich people” or “outsiders” because they are not 4th generation Lyndonville people, that it seems they have become the attitude of the community.

I, personally, am thankful for all that the Amish and Mennonite communities have brought to the area, and I am constantly taken back when I hear the resentment voiced by so many. I feel they are a huge asset, and I find kindness within their community that I do not feel elsewhere in Lyndonville.

I have met some new friends, recently, and I am beginning to see a ray of hope. Kind, intelligent, generous, hardworking people have come forward in the past months as we have seen Apex weasel its way in, threatening to destroy what little remains of the fabric of this town. They don’t toot their own horns. They do nice things for the village, such as donate new flags for Main Street, and they support every remaining local business.

The upcoming election may also bring hope of a brighter tomorrow for Lyndonville and the entire Town of Yates, by replacing what I view as complacency, cronyism, and lack of foresight; men who won’t state their position or vision for tomorrow, who look only for a quick fix of a dying town, by inviting sleazy, money hungry, carpet baggers with only one valid promise: to spend your tax dollars to pad their pockets, before they sell out and leave.

I will vote for men with intelligence, integrity and foresight. These candidates would never suggest voting for less than a full town board, as the planning board member, with questionable personal interest, recently did in a scathing letter to the editor of Orleans Hub.

Write-in campaigns are challenging, but certainly not impossible. Medina did it last year! I urge you to write-in your vote for Jim Simon, Supervisor, who, by the way, is not one of us “lake people.” He is a college dean, history teacher, family man with children in the Lyndonville School District, one having graduated as valedictorian and one salutatorian.

Vote for John Riggi, the Republican-endorsed candidate for town council and Conservative candidate, Glenn Maid. These men have already shown us they are willing to fight for this town. They will be on the ballot and require a simple X or a check mark. All of us deserve the very best leaders to strengthen this community.

Cynthia Hellert
Town of Yates