To the Editor:

The irony in Knox is amazing!

A week ago, Supervisor Vas Lefkaditis made his case to the town board that a new lawyer should represent Knox.  He stated that the new lawyer would save us $4,000, is more than qualified to do the job, and that the current lawyer of 25 years is no longer capable of properly representing Knox. The town board, of course, voted the idea down, 4 to 1, stating that the current lawyer’s institutional memory of Knox is priceless.

The irony, of course, is that less than a week later those in attendance at the Jan. 10 board meeting were told that, because of mistakes the longtime town attorney made on financial instruments associated with the town-hall building project, we now need to beg the State Legislatures to excuse the mistakes and allow us to bond $480,000 to pay back KeyBank.

Those mistakes will cost the taxpayer roughly $6,000 in legal fees and interest. The additional interest expense is due to the mistakes making us now incapable of taking advantage of a ridiculously low rate of 0.88 percent that was single-handedly negotiated by Supervisor Vas Lefkaditis.  

There’s more irony. When the town attorney explained his mistake to the audience, he claimed he shouldn’t have relied on his memory as to when the original loans were taken out. This is the same memory that the board touted as the reason for keeping him.

Even more irony.  When an upset member of the audience asked who made the mistake that will cost the taxpayers money, the town attorney fessed up to it but it was the supervisor who came to his defense and said, “It doesn't matter; what matters is that we fix it.” The supervisor is a much classier man than I am because I would have let the attorney have it publicly.

And yet another twist. The cost to fix this little mishap is roughly $6,000. Add that to the $4,000 in savings the board passed up on a week ago and we the taxpayers are out 10,000 bucks.

However if the State Legislature doesn’t grant us permission to bond the money owed for the building project, we will have two options: Option one, find someone who will lend us the money to pay KeyBank or option 2, pay KeyBank out of our reserves.  And, if that happens, the total cost of this mistake can be nearly half-a-million dollars and put a huge dent in our rainy-day money.

It’s time for the board to recognize the supervisor’s business acumen and to start listening to what he has to say rather than politicizing everything. They’ve spent an entire year arguing with him and attempting to make him look bad and somehow he’s still managed to save us tens of thousands of dollars, increase programs, and make the right judgment calls.

In fact, I read with interest Councilman’s Earl Barcomb’s letter last week where he attempted to give himself and the board credit for a walk-through and repairs to the town’s facilities. I was one of only two people who went on that walk-through in the freezing cold last winter.  It was the supervisor’s idea to do the walk-through and take inventory when first elected.

And it was the supervisor who identified repairs throughout the town and in the new town hall as a result of the walk-through. And it was the supervisor who negotiated the savings to be able to fund the repairs Mr. Barcomb tried to lay claim to.  It was the supervisor who found the leftover monies from the building project that were sitting there for years that will also be used to make repairs.

It’s funny how board members like Earl Barcomb who have spent an entire year demonizing the supervisor and based on my observations has not brought a single original idea to the table write letters touting and attempting to take claim for the efforts of the very man they fought and demonized for the past 12 months. But then again, it’s an election year and one thing people like Mr. Barcomb are good at is elections.

Ed Ackroyd

Knox

Editor’s note: See related story.