To the Editor:
The abrupt closure of a Guilderland School Board meeting last week, and the subsequent virulent personal attacks hurled at school board members during and after the meeting were beyond reprehensible  [“Board under fire as mask rule draws ire,” The Altamont Enterprise, Aug. 12, 2021].

Don’t the people spewing out such unfiltered and unjustified hatred have any understanding at all of what living in a pluralistic democratic society is all about?

Shortly before the arrival of the COVID pandemic and attendant shutdowns, I was subjected to similar treatment in the Town Hall lobby outside a planning board hearing, where an individual I choose not to name attempted to give me a nativist, elitist, and probably racist piece of “literature” about a proposed apartment development that the board was considering that evening.

I had arrived merely to observe the proceeding, not to participate in any way, but when I saw what this person was handing out, I had no real choice but to inform him that I considered his “literature” to be nothing but bigoted idiocy.

His response was to literally threaten to kill me, although he did offer to avoid interrupting the planning board proceedings by dragging me outside before beating me to death. Thanks a bunch.

I have had a lot of disagreements with a lot of people in Guilderland on a lot of subjects over a lot of years, but I’ve never ever threatened anyone in that sort of manner, nor would I even think about it. I find it disgraceful and incomprehensible that people who are presumed to be rational and informed would engage in such behavior.

I suspect that much of it can be attributed to the legacy of our last president, who was forever ready to play the role of bully to people he thought he could get away with such behavior on. Whatever the source of this garbage, it needs to stop, and stop now.

If you have a point to make, make it. Make it forcefully — not an issue. Just leave the threats of violence in the gutter, exactly where they belong.

Donald Csaposs

Guilderland