To the Editor:

Thank you for printing my letter, “Mr. Bashwinger has failed to comply with the law.” His responses are laughable. He will say absolutely anything to distract taxpayers from his unethical behavior. 

It is absolutely illegal for the town superintendent of highways to erect advertising signs for his job at Allen Roofing on the New York State highway right-of-way without a permit. Wrong again, Randy!  

The distinctive truck provided to him by the taxpayers for his pseudo Berne jobs (which he parks in front of his house) just happened to be at the same business where he was picking up his new Allen Roofing truck when Capital Graphics (also known as Adirondack Offroad) finished applying the graphics? Really? 

He says his town-provided truck was there because the town employee driving it was picking up parts at Dejana Truck and Utility Co. at 2090 Central Avenue. Really? Clearly Mr. Bashwinger took and posted the pictures of his new Allen Roofing truck at 1991 Central Ave. since the Adirondack Off road company sign on the building is in the background.  There is quite a distance between those businesses.

So it certainly still appears that Mr. Bashwinger is not only ignoring his town responsibilities as I have documented back to 2015, but he is using town resources and employees to the benefit of his job at Allen Roofing and himself. Isn’t that illegal? Then he goes around erecting Allen Roofing signs illegally? I have to agree with his response: “Unbelievable.” 

It’s also interesting that Mr. Bashwinger was the subject of this Enterprise article: “Berne highway super accused of meddling in out-of-town politics,” by Noah Zweifel, which begins, “Berne Highway Superintendent Randy Bashwinger is accused of politically threatening the highway superintendent of another town in order to help his friend get a job, which he denies.”

This is just the first paragraph. The story was also covered by The Daily Gazette. Mr. Bashwinger responded to their reporting with this: “I’m away from home, but I’m just helping them out because neither one of them have been in politics and they’re learning real fast how dirty it is.”

Who better to teach prospective politicians “real fast” about how nasty and unethical one can get away with being in Randy Bashwinger’s world of politics?   

He has time for his ridiculous dirty politics because, as I have well documented, he ignores his town responsibilities! 

I’ve also heard he was kicked to the curb by the Albany County Republican committee. Is that true? That would open up some time for his nasty politics too.

Robert Rhinehardt, who has overseen the highway department of Charleston for over a decade, better prepare himself! Mr. Bashwinger and his buddies had me under numerous investigations based on totally false allegations for five years at the federal, state, and town levels and turned me in under false pretenses to the New York State Police, the New York State Department of Environmental Police, and the Albany County Sheriff repeatedly.

How do I know it was him? He brags about everything on social media! And it has all been documented.

At one point, The Enterprise found through a Freedom of Information Law request that the Berne Republicans spent $15,000 on bogus investigations of elected Democrats in Berne, including me. Mr. Bashwinger was the GOP chairman at the time.

The amount of tax dollars wasted at the New York State Department of Transportation where I worked had to be astronomical. The mandated investigation took months. Everyone I had contact with was interviewed.

Technicians scrubbed my computer for evidence of Mr. Bashwinger’s false allegations. Every email I sent or received for a year was printed out, catalogued, and evaluated. All my time sheets for a year were just handed to Mr. Bashwinger by New York State. I was interrogated by a team of managers and investigators for hours. Imagine this happening at your workplace.

But the feds thought the allegations were nonsense after organizing and evaluating the case while spending that month setting up hearing and interrogation dates out of state that I would have to attend.  They dropped the investigation because the allegations were so stupid.

Like all of Mr. Bashwinger’s other initiatives, all of this dirty, nasty, and unethical nonsense was totally unproductive and wasted a lot of tax dollars.

So beware, Mr. Rhinehart, by virtue of your public position you are very vulnerable to Mr. Bashwinger’s outrageous allegations to investigative bodies and police at all levels of government. Be prepared to defend yourself because it is mandated that some allegations regarding public servants be investigated and Mr. Bashwinger knows that.

Joel Willsey

East Berne