Neighbor claims he has suffered 20 years of harassment from Sidonio

Editor:

It has been brought to my attention that Joe Sidonio, candidate for Murray Town Supervisor, has developed a hobby of taking pictures of my property and posting it on his Facebook page. After his recent posting of my address, my car has been broken into and beer bottles have been thrown at my front door and on my property. With the primary election quickly approaching, I feel the need to not only defend my family and myself, but to inform residents of the kind of psycho he truly is.

First of all, to Mr. Sidonio: do not bring my wife into your campaign for public office. Do not hold my wife responsible for my actions, just as I do not hold your wife responsible for your actions, now or in the past. I have a lot of respect for your wife and mother-in-law and the hard work they alone have put into a successful business.

In response to the pictures that show cars parked along the roadside in front of my home: that photo was taken three years ago when Holley high school students and their parents were taking photos on prom day. For the past seven years, my wife and I have generously opened our home for senior pictures and prom pictures, and all he does is open his mouth.

Per the code, parking is allowed at any residence, not just ours. It allows for parking along the road for example, if you have a yard sale or graduation party. This is different than a business that has regular traffic in and out all day, everyday. His obsession of taking photos of my property makes me wonder what other photos he has accumulated. I have seen him standing on the roof of his truck lurking with binoculars in the back of my property.

As for the photo of my posted property sign (my property borders his), you should know that the public persona he uses while out campaigning is all fake. He knows exactly why I signed my sign the way I did. I try my best to keep my property maintained and up to code and I hope I have not offended anyone. I suffered 20 years of harassment by him. He has handed out hunting maps for his nuisance permit to out-of-town hunters, with my property on it knowing it is posted.

He has tried to flood me out clearing wetlands and pushing trees and debris into Sandy Creek resulting in increased flooding on my property. When the County and Town authorized help clearing the creek, he refused to allow them an easement onto Hurd property to do this. He is constantly shooting into my property so my family and friends don’t feel safe walking on the property, and the Boy Scout Troops stopped camping on my property because of the shooting.

A DEC officer was on my property and witnessed the haphazard shooting for herself. When she went to speak to him she came back in tears and had to call her superior officer. At that time, he put restrictions on the nuisance permit. He has falsely accused me of stealing more than once and he has infringed upon my right to have peaceful quiet enjoyment of my property time and time again. He has tried to force me out but I am still here unlike many of my previous neighbors.

Unfortunately, these examples do not even scratch the surface of the harassment my family has endured throughout the years. He is sneaky and dishonest and has the nerve to call others unethical and immature. This man wants to be supervisor of our Town?

My feelings are the same feelings he generates from anyone who may have a different opinion than him or who doesn’t agree with him. I have many good reasons to vote against him and I hope after reading this you will see that this is not a person that should be our Town Supervisor. Without a doubt, he will put his usual ‘spin’ on my words, but I welcome anyone to come, sit on my porch and we can discuss this in more detail.

Gerold Mauro

Murray