Editor:

Mid-October and mid-May are “prime time” for white dogwood trees. Their Fall color is about as sweet as foliage gets, and their Spring blossoms are nearly impossible to miss against their otherwise bare branches.

Of course, they also sport bright red berries which become more noticeable as their leaves fall. These fruits are a favorite of many birds.

Thanks to the efforts of volunteers—including A.C.S. students doing community service—Albion is graced with numerous examples of cornus florida. They provide a glimpse of what trees can mean to a community if given a chance.

Fall is the time to prune most trees—dogwoods included. Before doing so, it is wise to check for proper pruning techniques. Dogwoods benefit from mulching, and special care should be taken to avoid hitting them with line trimmers and other things that may damage their bark.

During prolonged dry periods it is advisable to make sure dogwoods have enough water.  Special thanks to volunteers such as Larie Vagg, who have shepherded many Village of Albion dogwoods through the first 15 years of their existence.

Sincerely yours,

Gary Kent

Albion

Editor:

Friends, no matter what you think about Marc Molinaro’s message, and no matter what you think about his choice for Lt. Governor, we have to get behind him and support him by voting for him in the General Election.

You may like the message of the Libertarian candidate and his Lt. Governor choice better, but history shows that a third-party candidate distracts primarily from the Republican side.

The Democrats don’t seem to be hurt by third-party candidates. Liberals, like the third-party challenges as those from Perotites and Libertarians, knowing full well that it will help the re-election of their left-wing Democrat incumbent namely “America was never that Great” Andrew “the Egotistical Bully” Cuomo.

No matter what the weather or the circumstances, get out to vote for Marc Molinaro.

We won’t know how you voted but by the records at the Board of Elections, we can find out if you made the effort. In obtaining signatures on petitions from some people, they talk like they get out and vote, but the records state otherwise. This is real serious business this year, and if we don’t want another four years of Cuomo, we had better treat it as such.

Allen Lofthouse

Kendall

(Lofthouse is chairman of the Orleans County Conservative Party)

Editor:

Article 10 was created to allow for energy production in areas where more energy is in demand. We in WNY have plenty of energy. The grid is not using all the energy now being created in this area.

Why then are towns being pulled apart and dissension created among family, friends and neighbors?

Greed and money seem to drive wind turbine companies at all cost. The devil at work with subsidy money from the State and Federal Government!

Taxpayers’ money is being wasted. It takes thousands of pounds of fossil fuel to build a turbine and thousands more to keep each one operational. No clean air here!

William Nacca

Barre

Editor:

Republicans, wake up!  Congressman Collins’ “Best-money-can-buy” lawyers have stalled his trial to at least 2020.  (Advice to “Lyin’ Chris”: Just tell the truth.)

If elected, Collins would serve a lame-duck term. If he did finally resign, the party bosses would control the nomination at a special election. (Recall how the now indicted Assemblyman Errigo substituted for the shamed Bill Nojay.)

Republicans: make a moral stand and skip Collins’ name on the ballot; maybe you could show real courage and vote for McMurray. The 2020 election would then be about real options: candidates chosen in open and free primaries and slightly more truthful and non-indicted choices.

Think about it; make a stand.

Gerard M. Morrisey

Albion

Editor:

There is a power struggle taking place in Somerset and Yates regarding those who support the Lighthouse Wind project and the majority who oppose it. It is interesting to watch how Apex reps are doing it using age-old tactics.

It seems that they’re taking a few pointers from Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, a handbook that illustrates how to get, and maintain power. Take Greene’s Rule #12: “Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim. One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift.. a Trojan horse….”

Apex has this one down. A free hot dog, a pig roast, a fireworks donation, a new sign, suggestions of lower taxes, or even magically no town taxes at all! Free garbage collection! Apex is aware that they need to divert attention from the destruction of the fabric of these two towns. Will these “Trojan horses” get us to ignore the reasons we want to live here? Is this enough distraction for us to forget our peaceful rural neighborhoods, the abundance of birds and wildlife, our starry night skies, our eagle sightings?

At the Oct. 2 presentation, Apex’s Paul Williamson suggested that this developer would help the towns spend whatever money they receive and develop them into a “high value area to live and work.” Interesting that Apex is using Greene’s Rule #9: “promising nebulous reward………” Have you seen the booming metropolis of Sheldon, NY? Here’s a wind turbine facility about 45 miles south of Yates, which Apex loves to use as an example of what wind turbines bring to a town. I’ve been there. Not exactly my idea of a “high value area to live and work.”

I have not been sufficiently distracted by Apex’s promises. I have watched a videotape of a Town Board meeting in Arkwright, NY, where the residents have just now realized that their wind developer lied about the noise, lights, and destruction they’d witness from 36 IWTs. Only two weeks into the operation of their project, residents were up in arms at their Town Board meeting on Sept. 10. As they complain to the town officials they are met with the reply, “What do you want us to do about it?” (Click here to watch) Their only recourse now that they are living with this, residents say, is to warn other towns about what really happens when industrial turbines are installed. It’s too late for them.

What does Williamson mean by “high value area” anyway? In my mind, we have one very “high value area” in Golden Hill State Park. Nothing shows Apex’s disdain for us more than placing eight turbines across the road from an historic lighthouse. Imagine eager visitors arriving to sleep in their tents and campers. Instead of hearing waves, they are treated to thumps, and blinking lights all night. For the next 30 years. Tourist attraction or detraction? “High value” or “Devalued”?

How about clean energy? How about renewable energy? Forget the need for construction. Forget the bulldozers and the habitat destruction. We can preserve our rural communities and keep fossil fuels out. We already have it in the hydropower produced in Niagara Falls, the fourth largest hydro-generating plant in the whole United States. In 2017, it contributed 25% of the electricity generated in New York State, with a capacity of 2,675 Mw at a minimum of 85% efficiency. Apex’s grand plan is for 197.4 Mw, operating at best at only 30% efficiency. Besides cost in dollars, Apex’s Lighthouse Wind will come at a terrible permanent environmental and human health cost as well.

Apex continues to weasel its way through its misleading materials through the mail. Their postcards attempt to minimize the hideous look of huge industrial wind turbines either by partially concealing them behind bucolic barns, or by attempting to romanticize them. Their October 2 presentation was standard American Wind Energy Association (wind developer lobby group) and wind profiteer handbook material. We heard how they will turn the turbines off, or down, to mitigate bird kill. Can they afford to turn them off at night, as they promise, during the high bird migration months of July and August? Or will they be turned on to produce the summer’s high-need electricity? Which is it?

I know there are some who also possess power. It’s the inner strength to resist the smooth talk and promises. I am referring to the two large landowners in Yates, and those few in Somerset, who did not sign leases. My admiration and appreciation for them is boundless.

I, along with most of the residents of Somerset and Yates and both Town Boards, respectfully request once again that Apex move on, go home, and leave us to revitalize our towns in a manner consistent with our character. We too have power and we will use that power with honesty and integrity to defeat Apex’s attempt to turn our towns into an industrial wasteland.

Sincerely,

Susan E. Dudley

Lyndonville

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Editor:

I was very surprised in more than a few ways that I was the only one from the public that attended the Western Orleans County Comprehensive Plan update public hearing on Sept. 19.

I was also equally surprised that there was no media coverage from the Hub or the Daily News on this boot-to-throat piece of legislation. What surprised me the most was that there was nobody else besides myself and a room full of bureaucrats. I read today in another news source about a couple of  public hearings in Shelby where residents complained about the town over regulating them.

Guess what, by you not attending the comp update and voicing your opinions you gave them even more power over every aspect of your life and property. This update “Global Citizen” plan should have never made it out of the first hearing.

This update has sustainable development in it that comes from the United Nations. Sustainable development was written by G Harlem Brundtland, the vice president of the world socialist party, a communist and introduced to the world as UN policy at the 1992 earth summit in Rio de Janeiro. In 1995 Democrat President Clinton in compliance with Agenda 21 signed Executive order # 12858 to create the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. It was introduced to “harmonize us” with UN environmental policies and directives. I’ll bet none of you, including our local politicians, know that.

This has been spoon fed by the left in our Congress to the whole country and with all the hysteria in these insane times over the environment, fools that believe in climate change, carbon foot prints, and buckle to their knees to political correctness.

The environment will become a weapon against our freedoms, properties and businesses. I was the only one who spoke out against this and there was only one person on the Comp plan board that had the courage to vote it down, but there was no coverage of it.

I hope like the dickens that you all don’t sit home on November 6th and let the Democratic Party take back control of our country or our county. Don’t vote for Cuomo. Save the Republican seat from the “Democrat” endorsed by The Working Family’s Party (Communists).  There are others choices on the ballot. Mine is Marc Molinaro. Say NO to Cuomo and his ruination of our state. Say NO to the UN Comprehensive Plan, it is coming to your Town or Village for a vote soon.

Paul Lauricella

Lyndonville

Editor:

The Yates Town Board passed a resolution in a 3-to-2 vote to enter into a 50/50 split to pay an attorney to stop the turbines from coming here and Lighthouse Wind will bringing tax relief to our town.

As Ed Urbanik said in his letter, referring to the school merger hearings, “the common remark from the Barker meetings  – We are not here to subsidize the Lyndonville tax payer.”

The town of Somerset already has a PILOT with the coal plant and  Niagara County granted them $15,000 to help pay for their lawyer fees. The town of Yates that has no extra income other than our tax money. Why are we paying for high-priced lawyers who have accomplished no more than the lawyer we had who was highly capable of doing the same thing? Somerset does not need us to subsidize their taxpayers.

Together, we can let our Town Board know that we think their decision was wrong.

Sign our petition and join us at the next board meeting. If you would like more information about our team, you can go to the Mothers Out Front website or contact us personally.

Harvey Campbell

Yates

Member of the local Mothers Out Front team

Editor:

In response to wind energy surveys in Barre, your article said responses were taken online and in person at the Barre Town Hall. How was everybody to know of the in-person or online survey? Why was there no survey in the Pennysaver? Most residents read the Pennysaver. (Maybe that’s the problem.)

Some people received a paper copy of the survey, but not everyone. Why? You said you did a phone survey, where did you get phone numbers for this survey as most people have cell phones and numbers are not listed. Randomly selected?

The town hired a consultant, Labella Associates, which did the survey for the town. Only 290 responses. Apex also conducted a survey – 170 responses stating 52 percent are in support of the project.  Maybe that’s where the problem starts – Both groups conducting surveys are working with the town.

There hasn’t been complete honesty about this project so far. How about letting everyone know about this survey, print one in the Pennysaver or send out a mailer.

Thank you,

Ronald and Susan Carr

Barre

Editor:

As most of all of you know, we in Orleans County are facing a deforestation crisis. When you travel in Orleans and the surrounding two counties have you noticed the industrialization of much of our rural landscape? We have growing industrial solar projects, growing industrial dairy farms and now some people dream of industrial bird-killing, 600-foot wind turbines in someone else’s back yard.

I spent some time a few days ago speaking to a man who knew the fathers and mothers of the people involved with local promotion of the Heritage Wind project, which by the way lies in the middle of a major flyway for many migrating birds. He said that the ancestors of some of those people must be rolling in their graves. He said many of the people who dream of raking in the money from the turbine leases at the cost of our rural landscape ought to be ashamed of themselves.

In the Bible, part of Romans 14:10 states that we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Knowing this I can only say, how could you! How could you sign leases that will cause the destruction of many more acres of what is left of our rural landscape. How could you understanding the delicate balance between man and nature allow that to be usurped for money. How could you allow a company such as Apex/Heritage Wind to come to our town and destroy the integrity of our town boards in that many who are seated there have signed wind leases.

How could you, knowing that we already face a rural habitat crisis, allow outsiders to destroy even more forest that for so many generations have been enjoyed by so many of your friends and neighbors. How can you go to church every week and look at those neighbors and hold your heads high, knowing that they and their children will have to suffer the consequences of your actions for generations to come.

As I was a child I was taught that I should endeavor to leave the world a better place than I found it. I’m sure many of you were taught the same things. I’m not going to judge any of you, that’s someone else’s job, but please consider this, when your children and grandchildren look at you and when you look at yourselves in the mirror, is that person who is looking back the same person who was taught as I was so many years ago?

As I said earlier I’m not your judge, that’s someone else’s job. Well there you have it, all the things many wish to say but are afraid to. In closing I just want to say, I still pray for all concerned.

Your friend and neighbor,

John Metzler

Barre

Editor

DPS Comments Assessment Regarding the Lighthouse Wind Project (14-F-0485) for Q3-2018

The table below shows the results of an empirical assessment of public comments made to the DPS website in relation to the Lighthouse Wind Project as proposed for the Towns of Yates and Somerset by Apex Clean Energy.

All comments made to the DPS site regarding the Lighthouse Wind Project were included in the assessment and cover the time period from January 1, 2015 through September 30, 2018. All comments were read fully in order to ascertain position regarding the industrial wind turbine project.  The positions were tabulated as in favor of or opposed to the project.

The results are as follows:

The overall results for the time-period January 2015 to June 30, 2018 are as follows:

Comments in favor of Lighthouse Wind Project =  289

Comments opposed to Lighthouse Wind Project = 1194

Percent of comments in favor of Lighthouse Wind Project = 19%

Percent of comments opposed to Lighthouse Wind Project = 81%

Q3-2018 saw receipt of form letters in support of Lighthouse Wind.  A significant number of form letters were from outside of the Yates and Somerset area. To assist in understanding, the following assessment of local vs. non-local Q3 comments follows:

Q3-2018 results show that 39% of total comments in favor of Lighthouse Wind were written by residents. However, 91% of opposition comments were submitted by residents.

The nearly four-year opposition to Lighthouse Wind remains overwhelming.

Apex Clean Energy needs to pack up their Lighthouse Wind Project and leave Yates and Somerset.  Our towns desperately need to heal the wounds inflicted on us by Apex Clean Energy and Governor Cuomo’s Article 10 Process.

Thank you,

John B. Riggi

Councilman, Town of Yates

Editor:

To me—in my opinion—Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth. That said, why does that matter?

I was a teen in the fifties and sixties. After college, I taught grades 9-12 for 34 years. I had a fairly close look at teenagers for nearly fifty years. All teens do not feel entitled to harass and assault females against their will. If assaulting females is the yardstick, the notion that, “Boys will be boys” is bunk from my experience.  At any rate, they do not need to assume they will never be held accountable.

What Dr. Ford came forward with took enormous courage. And accountability is an issue here.

Though different in many ways, beyond all of what we know is the type of damage likely to be done to females and males should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed to the Supreme Court. After the Clarence Thomas fiasco, what standard of behavior—by males, toward females—would we be reinforcing in males by turning a blind eye to such disrespect?

When retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens weighs in on Kavanaugh’s fitness for office by saying he is lacking, we may need a time out—as Stevens says—“for the good of the Court.”

There are plenty of ostensibly pro-life justices who also believe the President is ultimately accountable on earth only to the impeachment process and separation of powers. Let someone familiar with the law—and less baggage—be chosen for the long-term good of the Republic.

Sincerely yours,

Gary Kent

Albion

Editor:

This letter is to get some information out to the residents of the Town of Yates. In April of this year, your/our Town Board passed a resolution that committed the Town of Yates to splitting the attorney fees 50/50 with the Town of Somerset to fight the turbines coming here. There was no limit stated as to how much the Town of Yates would be required to pay.

The Yates Town budget for attorneys this year is $19,000. Somerset has already spent almost $278,000 in attorney fees as of December 2017 to stop the turbines. When the board was asked if this would make the taxes go up in our town, we were told we would have to see when the budget came out!

This past week, the Yates Board and the Somerset Board filed a motion to stop Apex from having the public forum to release the preliminary layout of the project without first releasing it to the Town Boards. The forum was to give the communities (including the town boards) the  information about the project.

ALJ Sean Mullany’s ruling was that Lighthouse Wind has been and remains compliant with requirements under Article 10 and the motion was struck down.

So Yates residents, this is where some of our tax dollars are going that the Town Board agreed to share with Somerset on lawyer fees. We are paying fees for a lawyer to fight the release of information about the turbines! Where is the transparency? How much was spent to file this motion?

What are they afraid of?

True, verifiable facts should be made available to the public about this project. In my opinion the only reason to stop the forum was that the lies that have been being spread for years are going to be exposed as lies.

The Town Board is using our tax money to stop a project from coming here that will put money into our town that has the possibility to lower our tax burden, support our schools and breathe some air back into our dying economy.

This is our tax money they are wasting!

Every resident in the town should be asking our town board these questions at the next board meeting on Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. at the Yates Town Hall on Main Street in Lyndonville.

Susan Campbell

Co-leader of the local Mothers Out Front Team

Lyndonville

Editor:

I want to thank Lighthouse Wind for offering the towns so much information and transparency Tuesday night at LA Weber Middle School/High School.

Not only did Lighthouse Wind bring in experts who presented a wealth of information and then answered questions for over an hour, they videotaped and documented the evening and will post those and answers to remaining questions on the Lighthouse website within a month.

What many of us find so baffling is that the opposition continues to blast Lighthouse Wind for not doing enough outreach and then blasting them for having an info session.

The towns even went so far as to use our tax money to interfere with Tuesday night’s information session. This kind of action is making it clear that the opposition is not actually interested in facts. In fact, they are afraid of facts. They are obstructionists only.

Linda Fisk

Lyndonville

Editor:

Back several years ago, the Lyndonville School Board, envisioning declining population, made an attempt to discuss a school merger with Barker.

The Lyndonville School Board decided to let the voters make the choice to pursue a merger. Barker’s board rejected the merger without a public vote. I attended the public hearings, the common remark from the Barker meetings – “We are not here to subsidize the Lyndonville tax payer.”

Evidently they were unwilling to share in the revenues generated from the coal plant. Little did anyone realize at the time that Cuomo and Obama would declare war on coal and natural gas. We need to go green and subsidize unreliable wind and solar and raise the cost of electric.

The Somerset plant no longer produces the tax revenues it once did. The declaration of evil coal was within two years of that merger study. A merger sure would have made sense for both parties.

The question I have for our Yates Town Board: Why are we willing to subsidize the Somerset tax payers on the legal fight with a 50/50 split. The split should have been 80/20 at best. We are not hear to subsidize the Somerset tax payers.

Edward Urbanik

Lyndonville

Editor:

This letter is written in response to Mr. Joseph Rak’s letter to the editor dated October 4, 2018, in which Mr. Rak makes numerous conclusory statements about the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh without offering an iota of substantiation besides emotional anecdote.

I, too, watched the entirety of not only the September 27, 2018-U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, but also the Committee’s hearings on September 4, 5, 6, and 7th, 2018. I also have my Juris Doctorate from the University at Buffalo School of Law, and I am currently pending admission to the Bar.

Mr. Rak’s synopsis of the events in question sorely misses the mark at every turn. First, Judge Kavanaugh did not display the requisite judicial temperament and impartiality to serve on this nation’s highest court. Don’t take it from me, take it from the more than 2,400 law professors from around the country, including 17 from the University at Buffalo, who have signed a letter stating exactly that.

Second, Judge Kavanaugh openly and repeatedly perjured himself under oath. “Boofing” does not refer to flatulence, it is a term used to describe the ingestion of illicit drugs or alcohol through the anus. The “devil’s triangle” is not a drinking game, it is a sexual threesome involving two men and a woman. Furthermore, Judge Kavanaugh testified that he did not partake in any way in the vetting of judges during his tenure with the George W. Bush administration. His own emails from his time in the Bush White House prove otherwise. There are many other well-documented instances of perjury that I will not go into here.

The rest of Mr. Rak’s regurgitation of conspiratorial talking points from Breitbart are without merit and do not warrant much of a response. Mr. Rak even mischaracterizes what Constitutional “originalism” is. An originalist falls into one of two camps: (1) original intent, which is when the jurist attempts to interpret the Constitution consistent with what was meant by the Founders; and (2) original meaning, which is when the jurist attempts to interpret the Constitution based on their view of what a reasonable person living at the time of the Constitution’s adoption would have understood the text’s ordinary meaning to be. Judge Kavanaugh is decidedly in the latter camp, like former Justice Antonin Scalia.

I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Nearly all of the psychological research indicates that normative misogyny and patriarchy provide a marked disincentive to those who have been the victims of sexual violence from coming forward. I believe that those who reject her allegations out of hand are perpetuating a rape culture all too prevalent in this country. There is no question that the controlled, scientific research in this arena unequivocally concludes that there are far, far (1,000:1, or more) more unreported victims of sexual violence than there are falsely accused individuals.

I hope that Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Rak’s rigid, regressive ideology are soundly defeated at the ballot box in November. Judge Kavanaugh is utterly bereft of the impartiality, open-mindedness, and temperament required to serve on this nation’s highest court; and I vociferously urge the U.S. Senate to reject his nomination.

Andrew Remley

Albion