To the Editor:

There’s something I feel I need to write about a letter I had sent to The Enterprise last October.

I had contacted Vasilios Lefkaditis, and I asked what I could do to help him in his campaign for Knox town supervisor.

I spoke with Vas a few times on the phone and he suggested sending a letter to The Enterprise to run on Oct. 23, and according to Vas, “I know how frustrated you are with the town of Knox (take a number) so I would be happy to help you draft a brief letter in an effort to try and remove some of the emotion from it if you like. Just let me know.”

After not hearing back from Vas, I sent a letter to The Enterprise on Friday, Oct. 23, and emailed Vas about this.

On Monday, Vas calls me and asks if I can recall the letter.

I do, but I’m thinking that this is getting a little complicated.  

Then I get back a letter from Vas to send to The Enterprise and it has all these things in there about [town board members] Nick Viscio, and Amy Pokorny, and how there seems to be this infighting among town officials.

Not being familiar with some of this, I had to go back and look at the issues Vas was bringing up, and I made a few changes to the letter and sent it to The Enterprise.

I was very uncomfortable doing this, and I should have let my original letter stand, but, if it would help Vas get elected, I was willing to compromise my principals for a greater good, as in, “The ends justify the means.”

Almost everything in the letter that didn’t have to do with [then- Supervisor] Mike Hammond or [town attorney] John Dorfman was written by Vas, and he made himself look very good in all this.

After Vas was sworn in in January, I was looking to see how he was going to go about being town supervisor, and he seemed like a “take charge” guy, so I started sending him a lot of things having to do with my situation, but I didn’t hear anything back.

This all has to do with a town resident who had built a house too close to my property line, as well as a number of other zoning violations.

Going back to 2006, the town of Knox is partially responsible for this having happened.

Then, on March 9, I called Vas and asked if he had been looking through the things I had sent.

Vas tells me, “Some of it,” and then it was like I was talking to a different person.

And he’s asking me things like, “What do you want?”

“I want him to buy me out,” I told him [of the neighboring property owner].

“But you’re not being realistic, no one’s going to pay you what you want for that lot. You can buy lots all over Knox for $20,000 or $25,000” and, “I told you three months ago, you’d have to file a lawsuit.” (But Vas, you weren’t supervisor then.) And, “He’s got his CO [certificate of occupancy], everything is legal.”

And (this is too good), “It’s over... you sued him and you lost,” and this, “[Building Inspector Robert] Delaney’s dead, Hammond’s gone, the only one left is Dorfman.”

I don’t even know what that means.

So, I put my name on something I shouldn’t have, and essentially got nothing for it, and I feel like I’ve been used for someone else’s political gain.

Oh yeah, at one point in my conversation with Vas having to do with all this, he told me, “They have their own ways of doing things.”

I guess now that Vas is supervisor, “they” is “we.”

Vince Virano

Albany

Editor’s note: See August 2013 articles and editorial online at www.AltamontEnterprise.com.

Vasilios Lefkaditis responded that he “cleaned up” Vincent Virano’s letter to the editor at Virano’s request.

He also said, “A town can’t force a private citizen to buy out their neighbor...Once a variance is written, that’s it; everything is legal. You can question the process and timing but it’s history — ancient history; this is a 10-year-old problem.”