To the Editor:

I began attending the town meetings in Knox last January after reading in The Enterprise about some of the disturbing things going on in our town.

During those early 2019 meetings, town Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis was still stridently insisting that he had filed the town’s financial statements with the State of New York Comptroller’s Office when in fact he had not filed any financial statements from the time he was elected a couple years earlier.

Later, he would admit that he had been untruthful all along and join the rest of the board with a vote to censure himself for lying.

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but honesty and integrity are very important to me, particularly with regards to a public official who has control of all of the town’s finances. In my opinion, even a single lie destroys trust, and without trust government can’t function effectively. Note: The town of Knox is being audited by the State of New York.

Untruthfulness is not the only reason that Vas does not deserve another term. He also has a bad habit of not treating people with respect and I was soon to have my own negative experience with him. 

Immediately following the February 2019 town board meeting, a group of concerned citizens gathered in the lobby to discuss issues that had come up during the meeting. We could hear Vas heatedly sparring with another townsperson in the hallway, and shortly thereafter the supervisor joined our group.

He answered people’s questions and concerns with belittling /bullying responses. For example, what he said to me was: “Most of the meeting went right over your head.”

We had never met before so he had absolutely no basis for this insulting judgement. This is unfortunately a default behavior for Mr. Lefkaditis. Community members who attended the October town board meeting heard him speaking in a similarly arrogant way to those with whom he did not agree.

In the upcoming election, we have a choice to leave behind the drama and the distrust and get back to a town government that we can count on to work effectively for us. The town of Knox deserves a town supervisor who is respectful, responsible, and honest with both staff and constituents.

These are long-held core values of our community, and in my opinion these are values that are absolutely necessary in order to have a town government that functions effectively.

Russ Pokorny is such a person. He is both thoughtful and a good listener. He is the right person to be town supervisor for Knox and so I endorse Russ for Knox!

Carly Wright

Knox

Editor’s note: Carly Wright’s husband, Paul Scilipoti, is a member of the Knox Democratic Committee. Vasilios Lefkaditis responds, “When she questioned facts, I explained to her that maybe she couldn’t hear in the back of the room and that some of the facts may have gone over her head during the meeting.”