To the Editor:

Aidan O’Connor Jr., Christopher Tague, and Wesley Laraway have been nominated to the special election ballot to replace Pete Lopez as our representative to the New York State Assembly’s District 102.

Unfortunately, we have allowed vitriol to take over our political discourse so that the electorate has come to distrust all politicians, and for good reason. I am not looking forward to another election where each side vilifies the others.

I’m not knocking either O’Connor or Tague, and hope that these three men can set an example for turning this situation around.

I have interacted with Wes Laraway for about 16 years. I first heard of him as a teacher of New York State history at the high school level. When an unusually large number of students wanted to take this elective course, Wes split the course in two to better teach the students.

His students gave final oral reports on selective aspects of local history, but Wes initiated an additional option — written versions of their oral presentations that were subsequently published would earn extra credit. The Gilboa Historical Society Quarterly, the Cobleskill Times Journal, and the Mountain Eagle benefited from this option, and students were able to list those publications on their college applications.

Wes is a volunteer animal rehabilitator, and his Wildlife Rescue Center Inc. is licensed to rehabilitate nearly all types of animals in New York State. This interest and his magnetism has drawn a number of high school students as volunteers to the center, teaching them about ecology while also developing work ethic and a sense of responsibility.

The rescue center is just above the Middleburgh Cemetery, past a non-maintained section of the cemetery. That section became a project for Wes and his students, resulting in the restoration of the cemetery where slaves and servants had been buried in the 18th Century.

When I was in school, Wes’s course would have been called Civics.

I will be glad to see the wheel come around and civics revitalized. I hope that Aiden O’Connor and Christopher Tague will contest this election based on civics rather than the two-party system that has so badly failed our country.

Gerry Stoner

Stamford, New York