Editor:

In response to Kathy Harnischfeger’s letter posted on September 19, and regarding the election for Town of Clarendon Supervisor, SCOPE of Orleans County has invited both Kathy Harnischfeger and Fred Seeman to speak to our membership and the public on Tuesday, October 13, at 7 p.m. at the Hoag Library in Albion.

Both candidates will be allocated up to 25 minutes. Only one candidate will be in the room at a time. This is not a debate.

Both candidates have received a questionnaire. The questionnaire can be found by clicking here.

Candidates may appear in person and/or submit their answers in writing if they are unable to attend.

SCOPE of Orleans County will publish its findings at a later date.

The SCOPE mission statement can be found by clicking here.

If we want to protect and strengthen our Second Amendment rights, we must be active at the local level.

Local elected officials make decisions that directly affect our communities, including policies involving firearm ownership, self-defense, public safety, and Second Amendment rights. When we show up, build relationships, and make our voices heard, we have an opportunity to influence those decisions.

Attend local meetings. Know your elected officials. Speak with them. Engage with local law enforcement. Stay informed and get involved.

These actions matter.

Strong local advocacy does more than stop bad policies—it helps build lasting support for our constitutional freedoms. What we do today will help determine whether those rights remain strong for the next generation.

Mark D. Allen

Orleans County SCOPE Chairman

The Orleans County Democratic Committee is proud to announce their endorsements of the following candidates:

• Kathy Hochul – New York State Governor
• Adrienne Adams – Governor
• Tom DiNapoli – State Comptroller
• Letitia James – State Attorney General
• Tom Arida – State Senate
• Sarah Wolcott – State Assembly
• Alissa Ellman – New York 24 Congresswoman
• Anne Joynt – State Supreme Court
• Craig Bucki – State Supreme Court
• Marlene Seielstad – At Large Legislator for Orleans County
• Fred Miller – County Legislator

These candidates have the experience, integrity and practical vision needed to address the key issues affecting our county, state and country. We believe that they are the best people to move us forward.

We encourage everyone to learn more about these candidates and their views.

Please join us in supporting them on November 3rd with your vote.

Sandra Walter

Democratic Committee member

Editor:

Rural communities must fight for themselves.

Since the quality of life has deteriorated since the early ’80s, new and bolder capitalist answers are needed. Not everything is socialist just because some robber baron pays for advertising, or Hub contributor, says it is. Structure, math and competition are quantifiable.

Our farmers are being hurt by the huge costs of diesel and fertilizer. Ending tariffs quickly with Canada – before it signs contracts with its new trade partners – is part of the answer.

Tax breaks to entice companies to relocate to New York are unfair to rural areas. Rural areas can only match the dollar amount rebated by urban areas if they give up a larger proportion of the property tax dollars they collects. Dollar for dollar it costs more.

The cuts to Medicare/Medicaid and forcing rural hospitals, ERs and Well Care Centers to treat more people without insurance. This means spending is in the red. (Some entire states, like New York, are hurt because good health care is a good way to keep people with small kids employed.)

Farm workers need a better way to stay here and work the fields or do the other low paying jobs typically filled by first generation immigrants. Talents we need, we need to attract and keep. (Canada and others have active relocation programs for researchers and university professors.)

In the early ’60s the County and Albion plan for expansion between the tracks and canal. Some communities with foresight have done this. Just because local governments can be clueless those communities should not suffer. New thinking is needed.

Recently a Hub op ed claimed “progressivism” was sneaking into “common man” Democratic politics. As with many polemic political nostrums it was fully backwards.

In fact, there have been 9 “progressive” parties since Teddy Roosevelt; 4 were Republican based and 1 was Democratic based. Historically the term “Progressivism” involved a concern over the socio-economic challenges produced by “Robber Baron” capitalism as defined by selfish elites, political corruption, and the concentration of corporate power. Several of the 9 had their roots in farm, rural, labor, and “common man” issues.

Rural problems are unique. The current Federal Administration is actively hurting rural areas. Bold action is needed to address deceitful “Robber Baron” self interest which is indifferent to what it destroys.

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

In the nearly two years of governance, Republicans have broken trade agreements, threatened our allies, forced through tariffs, gave the wealthy deep tax cuts and created extraordinary corruption, while cutting funds for healthcare, food assistance, education and other benefits for the rest of us.

This midterm election is a referendum on those policies. Representatives Claudia Tenney, Nick Langworthy and Republican candidates running for office are strong supporters of these policies. The direct result of these policies is rising unemployment, a slowing economy, and wages not keeping up with inflation. You feel the effects of their policies every time you fill up at the gas station or buy groceries.

Your health premiums are more costly because Republicans are giving a tax break to the wealthy. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that more people are going hungry in the United States now than during the height of COVID-19. Republicans support these policies and they will vote in this election; just look at all the yard signs supporting them.

Staying home, not voting, in this election will be seen as acquiescing to Republican policies. Policies that are driving up cost for farmers and small businesses, making life more difficult for Western New Yorkers.

Democrats running for office support  policies to strengthen our economy, help farmers and small business and support families.  Please vote early; if that is not possible make plans to get to the polls to vote. Please vote to end the rampant corruption and support Western New York.

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

In a recent letter to the editor, the writer referred to some people as GOP zealots, bigots, and those with senile rants. He might as well have just said “Vote Democrat.”

Instead of resorting to this degrading verbiage, it is important to understand why the Democratic Party has fallen into decline, causing a lot of people to question its integrity, mission and adherence to democracy.

These justifiable inquiries don’t make one a zealot, or a bigot or senile. Instead people are internalizing the world around them and seeing some disturbing changes within the Party. They are using their brains to make conscientious decisions. Also, they know that what happens at the polls will not only affect their generations but future ones to come.

The party has suffered significant damage, starting with leadership failures. By the end of Biden’s time in office, the old Democratic Party was moving away from the advocacy of “the common man”.

As Kamala Harris surfaced, another metamorphosis happened within the Party. The Democrats were moving away from their roots – the party of workers. Instead they were leaning towards the post-industrial politics of California-style Progressives.

One only has to look at the disastrous mismanagement of California, with its financial instability in diverse sectors, to see how this state has failed its community: water resources, wildfire response, budgetary issues. California has spent over $18 billion on the high-speed rail which has been plagued with delays and ample criticism because the track is still not in place. When one emulates a loser, you usually lose too.

When the Democrats focused on housing, wages, living and working conditions, their voter loyalty was rock solid. Living standards took a nose dive when other issues like climate change, abortion, reparations and trans advocacy took center stage.

Also concerning are shifts in the Party towards socialism. Extensive government control in the economy threatens economic efficiency and growth. Many younger advocates of socialism are not fully equipped to understand the historical failures of this ideology. A

s more people embrace socialism, the decisions in the Democratic Party are bound to cause polarization within and also further alienation of the voter base. This will undoubtedly impact the electoral process. When the centralism of power in government takes hold, individual liberties are at stake. One need only to look at Venezuela and its socialist policies, which led to economic decline and social unrest.

We need to look at the whole picture, not the pretty propaganda that gets thrown in our faces. Abstain from name calling. Instead do your homework, and make a choice based on the facts.

Mary Mager

Fairport, formerly of Albion

Editor:

I just want to comment on how beautiful the “Lest We Forget” mural at Veterans Park is!

Albion teacher Kamie Feder and her students have, once again, taken a mundane site and transformed it into a true work of art! The thought that went into what the mural should contain is shown in the finished product!

The site is where it should be, although it is too bad that it is not out along one of the major arteries where more can admire it! A big “thumbs up” to Mrs. Feder and her art class for a great job well done!

James Comden

Oak Brook, Illinois (former Orleans County resident)

Editor:

Final returns on more claims by people with over-active imaginations – GOP zealots, bigots, senile rants – were exposed this month.

Trump first claimed there were 250,000 illegal voters in Nevada. Then DHS claimed 16,000 and, when pushed, reduced it to 185. Nevada and others audited and the final real number was 0. (Search news outlets generally for verification.)

Also, GOP Riverside Co., Cal Sheriff Chad Bianco seized 650,000 votes and faces felony charges for corrupting the election process. (See news reports generally for successful prosecutions of similar conspiracy fans in several states.)

Facing weaponized talk and actions, Congressional Committees recently tried, without success, to get Administration Officials to promise that DHS, Justice, ICE, and even the reshaped military will not step in to pervert the vote.

Skewing the vote steals our future. Currently, economic fantasies which have resulted in long festering, now precipitous, problems with our pocketbooks.  We want our standard of living back and not political myths, now proven.

Every politician choosing to support a politician and falsehoods which hurt you has to go.

Huge turnout in November is critical while we still have one man one vote and the ability to improve our lot by top to bottom house cleaning.

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

The truth is out, and every resident in Orleans County needs to look closely at what our local government is Illegally forcing onto our shoreline. Right now, contractors are rushing to build a 150-foot heavy industrial cell tower at 961 Wilson Road (the Albion Water Treatment Plant property).

They are doing this with full knowledge of severe safety, financial, and procedural defects that place our entire community in immediate harm’s way.

Here is what the Orleans County Legislature and the Town of Carlton are desperately trying to hide from you:

1. Legislature apprised and refused to act

I personally stood before the Orleans County Legislature at their monthly board meeting and explicitly informed them of these major unlawful actions and oversights. I formally asked the county to hire one of their own independent engineering firms to oversee this project and audit these exact structural deficiencies. They flatly refused. Why? Because they know these fatal flaws are completely uncorrectable and uncertifiable at the current location. Instead of pausing the project to protect the public, they chose to plow ahead blindly, banking on the hope that nobody would call them out.

2. Steve Nesbitt confronts the board on zero notice

Steve Nesbitt from Nesbitt Farms also stood up at that same legislature meeting and called out the board directly. He stated on the record that he owns the property wrapping around all three adjacent sides of this tower site and was completely left in the dark—never receiving a single legal notification from anyone that this was being installed there.

Steve explicitly offered the County an alternative location on his nearby property that would remove every single safety risk and meet their exact broadband coverage goals without ruining our historic lakefront terrain with a massive tower just 250 feet from Lake Ontario.

3. Legislator Ed Morgan breaks the silence

During this confrontation, Orleans County Legislator-at-Large Ed Morgan spoke up on the floor and agreed with Mr. Nesbitt. Legislator Morgan turned to us and asked if our neighborhood coalition had obtained legal counsel yet, and our answer at that moment was no.

Morgan then turned directly to the rest of the legislative board and demanded to know why they wouldn’t talk with the community and review this legitimate alternative farm site. The rest of the Board sat in absolute, stone-faced silence. They had no answers. You don’t have to take our word for it—this entire meeting is recorded and fully available online for public review.

4. Carlton’s permit issuance charade and total deafness to code violations

The Town of Carlton has recklessly issued multiple, conflicting building permits for this exact site without a certified New York State Code Enforcement Officer on duty to legally sign them. First, uncertified official Kevin Sheehan signed off on Permit No. 2026/033. Then, they quietly rushed to issue Amended Permit No. 2026/051 under an outside inspector, John Higgins, who admitted on the record he was left completely in the dark.

The Town never received proper engineering certifications from the County that would protect them from the liability of approving this project. Worse, the Town of Carlton has been formally served with detailed notices of these flagrant New York State building code violations, and they are actively ignoring and refusing to respond to our demands.

5. Total failure to notify local residents

The Town of Carlton completely failed to properly notify any local residents of this massive tower installation. Their own official FOIL records prove they did not send a single certified mail notice to adjacent neighbors. They skipped Steve Nesbitt, Richard Stacey, Dave Coleman, Gary and Ruthie Smith,  and the Brownings. For my property, they mailed the notice to a lakeside lot with no mailbox, even though the town successfully sends our tax and water bills to our home addresses in Albion every single year. They purposefully hid this build from the people who live here until heavy equipment showed up.

6. The contractor is a startup with zero subscribers

How did we get here? North Shore Networks was handed a massive $11.2 million initial contract—ballooning under this infrastructure umbrella—without a single competitive bid. They were the only bidder because the previously awarded contractor is in litigation with Orleans County over a failed first attempt.

Public records from the New York State Public Service Commission reveal a shocking truth: North Shore Networks had ZERO corporate contracts, ZERO subscribers, and had never offered consumer or commercial service before being handed this massive project. Founded in Medina in February 2022 specifically for this network, this company operates out of a PO Box and formerly a residential home address. They have absolutely no technical backing, no field experience, and no logistical infrastructure to manage a project of this magnitude.

7. North Shore willfully ignores engineer’s directives to anchor tower

To try to manufacture legitimacy, North Shore Networks hired a local firm, Albul Engineering, to review the metal bracketry that holds the broadband hardware to the structure. Albul stamped a document certifying that the brackets themselves meet NYS Building Code requirements—but the tower itself is completely unrated for these coastal configurations.

Worse, the county and North Shore Networks are willfully ignoring the rest of Albul’s explicit directives. Albul’s paperwork mandates strict subbase improvements and structural anchoring to achieve a verified load-bearing capacity of 4,500 psf. This was completely skipped. Instead, they are dropping this multi-ton steel structure into a flooded hole that actively breaches the dynamic beach water table, sitting on a cheap 12-inch shallow gravel pad. Both the County and the contractor are fully aware of these uncertifiable defects.

8. No P.E. stamp and exposed coastal hazards

We have directly verified with the engineering firms that this tower does not possess a valid site-specific Professional Engineer (P.E.) structural stamp for this location. They are putting up cheap, generic equipment manufactured in Vietnam that is only rated for an inland wind threshold of only 40 mph. This completely violates ANSI/TIA-222-H/G coastal safety codes, which strictly mandate that structures within 600 feet of the Lake Ontario shoreline must withstand 109 mph ultimate wind velocities with solid radial icing. In shoreline gale forces, this flat-sided pole faces catastrophic failure.

9. Project uninsurable putting taxpayers at 100 percent liability

Because these footprints fail to meet state life-safety building codes, this project is completely uninsurable. The county has been formally put on notice that municipal insurance carriers will exclude coverage for this site. By plowing ahead anyway, our elected officials are operating under reckless negligence—which completely strips them of standard governmental immunity and leaves Orleans County taxpayers 100% on the hook for multi-million-dollar structural collapse and utility damage claims.

10. Critical infrastructure & water disruption threat

To force this lot to fit, they shifted the tower for a fourth time, crowding it within a point-blank 28-foot window of active National Grid power lines. These lines are tied directly to the main transmission corridor 200 feet away that powers the Village of Albion Water Treatment Plant. If this tower collapses or drops massive, horizontally projected sheets of lake ice, it will snap the grid, shut down the water plant, wipe out municipal water pressure, and completely cripple emergency fire protection water supply across the entire county district.

11. Illegal FOIL lockouts & extensive secrecy

What are they hiding? Orleans County has refused to respond to our Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests filed over 8 weeks ago. Stalling these records is flatly illegal under New York State Public Officers Law. They are actively trying to run out the clock, build the tower, and hide the paper trail from the taxpayers.

What Happens next:

Our neighborhood coalition is not backing down. Because local boards chose backroom deals over public safety and constitutional due process, we are moving forward with immediate, aggressive litigation in the New York State Supreme Court. We have also escalated this entire timeline directly to the New York State Comptroller and Empire State Development to freeze their state grant capital under the New York False Claims Act.

We deserve broadband internet, but we do not deserve an un-stamped structural hazard that threatens our drinking water, our fire protection, and our financial stability.

Rick Stacey

Carlton

Editor:

American Legion National Commander, Dan K. Wiley, issued a statement about the war in Iran, calling on “Congress to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities to ensure we have clear objectives, strong force protections, and a strategy to prevent prolonged conflict.”

However, reports by multiple news media, including Military Times, claim that service members do not have “strong force protection” and are suffering a severe welfare and mental health crisis.

U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan have suffered significant damage from Iranian air strikes, with the use of Russian satellites. The loss of these bases has strained supplying U.S. servicemembers in the area.  Troops are dealing with food rationing, meager meals, and shortages of basic hygiene products.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office have found that there is a significant depletion of U.S. air-defense munitions. This depletion means that the 50,000 service members defending the U.S. in the Middle East are basically sitting ducks.

The constant stress of war and the lack of supplies is causing severe psychological distress. Meanwhile, Russia provided Iran with targeting and satellite intelligence to kill Americans and a Russian Oligarch, with close ties to President Putin, provided Mr. Trump’s son a gift with an after-wedding party costing thousands of dollars.

Republicans, including Representatives Claudia Tenney and Nick Langworthy, are silent on U.S. troops being sitting ducks; and they are silent on the President’s son accepting gifts from Russian oligarchs while Russia is actively targeting U.S. forces.  It is time for new representation.

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

We’d like to share our thoughts regarding the upcoming New York gubernatorial election.  We are not fans of Kathy Hochul, but have previously voted for her, she being our “lesser of two evils” choice.

Her heart is usually in the right place, but she’s seemingly seldom encountered an issue that she didn’t enthusiastically throw (our taxpayer) money at.

Her opponent, Bruce Blakeman, promises to cut our utility bills in half, but doesn’t tell us how he’ll make this happen. Are we to believe that he holds such power and influence over our electric, heating fuel, water/sewer, and telecommunication providers that this pledge could ever be more than an empty, unbelievable, laughable campaign promise? Judging from the number of Blakeman yard signs on display in western New York, sadly, many of our neighbors do!  Pretending for the moment that this could (or would) actually happen, we’d bet our taxpayer monies would be overwhelmingly utilized.

Beyond this silliness, he proclaims our current president “the greatest president in (his) lifetime.”  Setting aside every Democratic president, it would seem even the most ardent “straight ticket” GOP voters would strongly disagree.  A list of Republican presidents since Blakeman’s birth in 1955 includes (among others) Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan, and (the elder) Bush – each “greater” (on their worst day) than our current president.

And finally, any candidate who utters the words “Peace, love, and Donald Trump” in the same sentence seems foolish, desperate, and delusional – thereby unfit for office.

Without question, it’s another “lesser of two evils” vote for us.

Sincerely,

Robert C. Frost

Marcia Frost

Barker