To the Editor:

I read with great interest the May 19 editorial on the Knox Town Board, “Let the sunshine in and work for the public good”.

In a previous letter to The Enterprise (April 21, 2016), I wrote that I thought Vas Lefkaditis seemed like a “take charge” kind of guy.

Perhaps that is why not everyone finds it easy to deal with him, because as the old saw goes, “Politics is the art of compromise.”

Councilman Eric Kuck called Vas’s style “chest-thumping,” and Deputy Supervisor Amy Pokorny is quoted as saying that Vas “flies into rages sometimes,” and, “It’s hard to have a reasonable and temperate conversation.”

I’d found that to be the case myself, in that Vas Lefkaditis basically decreed that issues I’ve been having with the town were in his words, “ancient history.”

So yes, it may have seemed like a good idea to have a meeting with the board members outside of Vas Lefkaditis’s presence, and “to sort through and prepare for the public meeting,” in Amy Pokorny’s words.

The problem here, in my opinion, is that John Dorfman, as town attorney, had told the board members that such a meeting would be legal.

I have reason to believe that Mr. Dorfman is a man who likes to deal with things “behind the scenes” and, if Vas Lefkaditis hadn’t found out about this “by accident,” there would not have been any controversy.

For years, I’ve had numerous dealings with Mr. Dorfman over problems I’ve been having with a piece of property on Singer Road, where someone had built next to me, and gotten a number of zoning violations. One of these involved a house that was built way inside the 50-foot setback. The town has been aware of this since late 2006.

As a way out of this, I had offered the owners of the house (in a letter dated Jan. 4, 2008, and in a meeting with their lawyer on Oct 23, 2009) enough of my property to get their house out of the setback, if they applied for a variance and the town turned them down, but that was rejected.

From Oct. 23, 2009, until June 8, 2010, I’d gone back and forth with the owners’ lawyer, and, in June of 2010, I’d had enough and had to go back to the town to have this dealt with.  

I had a meeting with John Dorfman in August 2010, at Starbucks in Stuyvesant Plaza. At Starbucks, Mr. Dorfman asked if I would still consider some form of land exchange to resolve this, and I said, “No.”

I asked him what would happen if the owners of the house couldn’t get property from me, and couldn’t get a variance, and Mr. Dorfman replied, “Tear the house down.” Later on, Mr. Dorfman called me and I wound up meeting with him and the late Robert Delaney, the Knox building and zoning administrator, at Town Hall, and the subject of variances was discussed.

During this meeting, Mr. Dorfman looks at me and says, “We may do something and you may not like it, but you can register your displeasure with the town board.”

At the time, I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask what he meant by that. Due to a number of things that have happened since that time, it seems to me that there may have been an arrangement made behind the scenes to get the neighbors a variance.

Over and over, I’ve asked Mr. Dorfman via emails what he meant by, “We may do something,” etc., but he will not respond.

Vince Virano

Albany