To the Editor:

I write in the hope that you’ll publish this immediately as a call to action — to galvanize overwhelming public support first to get Jesse S. Sommer onto November’s ballot and then ultimately elected president of the Albany Common Council. The Capital Region has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to exploit my closest friend’s mental illness for our collective benefit, and we need to seize this moment.

Let me explain.

Jesse Sommer has been one of my closest friends for over 26 years, dating back to our early days in high school. I can say with clinical precision — though I am not a clinician (my grandmother was, so believe me) — that Jesse is the very definition of an egomaniacal narcissist.

This should come as no surprise to you, Madam Editor, as you’ve been publishing his column for years. Further, I’d like to make it unequivocally clear that in writing this I’m in no way making light of mental illness in general — I would never do that.

I’m just highlighting my friend’s specific mental illness, which, at its foundational core, is hilarious. That stated, it’s time the broader public better understands the self-proclaimed “Sheriff of Lark Street,” who’s mounting a party-unaffiliated bid to lead the city of Albany’s legislative body.

Every move Jesse makes, every action he takes, is calculated to receive praise and adulation. Every perceived good deed he’s ever accomplished, every compliment he’s tossed at whomever happened to be in front of him, has all been in the service of public ingratiation

He became a lawyer to hear himself grandstand. He joined the military for the high-fives he gets in public. He became an Army paratrooper because he emotionally required accolades even from other soldiers, since evidently civilian “thanks for [his] service” wasn’t enough.

I’ve always said that he’s only capable of loving himself — and me, a little bit. This is typically the part of the letter where the writer says, “OK, but seriously….”

Not this time. The above is the point.

Jesse’s unquenchable thirst for public aggrandizement has driven him to set his sights on Albany’s most pressing challenges. Just watch his testimony to the New York State Senate on May 13, or his statement to the Albany Common Council on May 19.

In both fora, he surgically diagnosed the most persistent socioeconomic issue facing Albany over the last 30 years: the plight of the unhoused and impoverished. He presented his comprehensive action plan to aggressively address and reverse this crisis — a plan that would leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in state revitalization funding not to enrich the already wealthy and well-connected, but to actually benefit the people of Albany.

This is just one of many ideas Jesse has to turn Albany into a place where people once again want to live, work, and build thriving businesses.

I’m too tired to list the rest; being friends with a narcissist is exhausting. All you need to know is that Jesse has devoted himself to our capital city in a devastatingly calculated manner, believing that if he’s able to solve the city’s problems:

— 1. The people will appreciate him, thereby feeding his soul and neuroses; and

— 2. He’ll be able to live another day in service of repeating #1.

Jesse is fiercely intelligent and a gifted speaker. His message meets people where they are, not where they ought to be. His slogan — “Ending poverty is good for business” — resonates both with those who genuinely care about the well-being and humanity of the poor, and with those who want to lift them out of poverty so as to foster a more attractive commercial climate. Both sides of that coin serve the same purpose: ending poverty and empowering the citizenry.

And if that’s not enough, consider the added benefit of his coattails: me.

I’ll be there advising him, providing critical perspective on issues his ego cannot possibly allow him to fathom. And, if he doesn’t listen, I’ve got a team ready and willing to undermine him to ensure that righteous and honorable decisions get made — just as we’ve been doing for the better part of a decade as we’ve grown our company, New Scotland Spirits, in spite of Jesse’s worst impulses.

Jesse uses us for adulation. Let’s use him for good governance.

Get him on the ballot. Then elect him. It’s time we put his vainglorious self-absorption to work.

Bryan Kafka

New Scotland