To the Editor:

At the May 9 meeting of the Knox Town Board, all in attendance became a captive audience entertained by an orator reading a well-written rant, chastising and demonizing the members of our town council.

The prevalent gist of that rant took them to task for having the audacity to vote against proposals, presented by the current town supervisor, 20 times during the last 16 months and for never once voting against proposals put forth by his predecessor.

When his predecessor, Mike Hammond, was elected to his first term, and for several terms after that, he had to contend with a Republican-controlled town board. But guess what?  Mike had the common sense and tactfulness to politely interact with those town boards.

He did not require his backers to show up at board meetings to badger and attempt to intimidate the members of those town boards. He never publicly attempted to deride or embarrass them when they presented ideas contrary to his own.

And then when Mike neared the end of his tenure as town supervisor, he again had to contend with Republican members on the town board. His method of dealing with them was similar to that witnessed during his early years as supervisor. I’m sure that those recent Republican council members were not bashful about voting against Mike at times and most certainly did not act as a rubber stamp for him.

The last year Mike served as supervisor, he was frequently met with vocal opposition at town board meetings, quite often from the same complainants now crying foul about the current town council.

Our current supervisor could have taken a lesson from Mike on how to interact with the town council but instead seems to have opted for a “my way or the highway” approach to the job.  His own actions have created potholes instead of smooth going.

I have voted in 26 or 27 town elections. I have never seen an asterisk next to the heading for the town councilman column on an election ballot nor a corresponding footnote indicating that, if elected, a member of the town council must be subservient to the town supervisor.

Perhaps the reasoning for this is that we do live in a democracy, wherein government is generally based on the principle of majority rule rather than having one individual call all the shots.

Ed Nicholson

Knox

Editor’s note: Ed Nicholson works as an assistant to the Knox assessor, Russell Pokorny. Russell Pokorny is married to Councilwoman Amy Pokorny who has announced she will run in the fall against Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis for his post.