To Le Roy, NY Village Residents - Vital Issues Before You For Your Consideration-Vote is Tomorrow, Tuesday, Village Hall

I see the first comment after Howard's was from a 'Barb King.' Where do I remember that name? Oh, I don't think I do. I'm thinking there was a Brenda King in my high school class. She was very smart, and she would have graduated from high school. Therefore it probaby is not you that I remember Barb.

I don't know who you refer to as the 'masses' Ms. King, but whether one is lablelled in a group as the 'masses' or labelled as 'elitest,' any citizen of the Village of Le Roy will read what I have written who wants to see Le Roy prosper.

What I have written to he Letter to the Editor about is an uncovering of deception on the part of one or two of our candiates for today's Village Board election where two Trustee seats will be decided. We have four candidates for two seats. This is a very important election for our Village and there are SERIOUS issues before us.

I cannot know if Bob Taylor and John Mangefrida entrusted a handler, a political operative to write their ad, but whether or not they did, it was Bob's and John's responsibility that it was accurate and was in keeping with their values. The voters will have to decide on what they presented us in their Le Roy Pennysaver ad 3/16/14. I don't think they give us much credit for brains.

Everyone is busy in our society today, whether it's going to work 9-5 if one is lucky to have a job, or working odd hours, or more than one job, but like you apparently Ms. King, may I call you Barb, people seemed to be drawn to the Internet for their news and hopefully they will read what I wrote before they vote. And, if any of us had thought to skip voting this time, I hope they won't. Clearly there are diffferences between the four candidates we have running.

I gave a detailed description of code enforcement in our Village, and made known the fact, for those too busy perhaps, to have read or heard, that we went from a full-time code enforcement officer we had for years to a part-time one (each shared between the Town/Village). We had just been endured years of hearing that full-time code enforcement coverage wasn't enough. If you Barb not a resident here, have the time to visit our Le Roy news site, than certaiinly Le Roy, NY Village residents check it, and that is a very good thing.

All of us would like our taxes reduced who pay taxes, and consolidating services may sound good on the face of it in local government, but I give readers who want to consider other viewpoints the opportunity to know mine. When our NYS government wants localities to consolidate services, and even reduce them, who do you think they want to do this for?

The State wants a bigger piece of our tax-pie to go to them to reduce the defiict at the State level, to allow the State to continue undisciplined spending as they have always done, and they want those taxes they collect from us at the State level to redistribute to places other than back to us. The usual beneficiaries of our tax dollars are cities, research parks, and universities, and anywhere that has a denser population than we do, who can use politcal leverage to rake in our money.

And, what Governor Cumo's proposing now, are tax free zones. Tax free zones are proposed to entice businesses to NYS, more high-tech. jobs, and for 10 years these companies who locate here in these zones won't pay ANY taxes, and their employees won't pay ANY taxes. At the same time the Governor says he is balancing the State budget. Do you think any of these tax-free zones will be in Genesee County? If you do, you're awfully niave. Genesee County is not a voting block for Governor Cuomo.

But, Governor Andrew Cumo has sat back in his easy chair a lot since he's been governor, and has come up with who will pay for all this. And, he has decided that rural communities such as Le Roy, Pavilion, Corfu, Pembroke, and your Elba will pay for it Barb.

And we won't be able to start tax-free companies here (unless they're illegal), and we won't cash-in on any of those tax-free jobs coming to our rural communities. And as result, we may not see any growth in our economy here and not even jobs for taxpayers. People here aren't necessary enough to New York State's economy, I hope you know, to be enticed to stay by a reduction in income tax to the State, let alone not income taxes for 10 years to keep us here.

But, the rural areas are going to pay these new companies' income tax in these tax-free zones, and the personal income tax of these priviledged workers in theses tax-free zones, and we're going to feel, happy, blessed and grateful that these folks have come to NYS for this handout on us.

Areas, such as college towns, and universities doing research such as in Ithaca, Binghamton, around RIT and the U of R, and Eastman Business Park, and SUNY Albany and SUNY Buffalo, and SUNY Binghamton, places already thriving in NYS, will benefit, and it will be on the backs of rural communities such as yours and mine.

Our schools have been shorted Constitutionally mandated funds for years by Governor Cuomo as has our local governments. When this occurs, our communites have to consolidate, merging Village with Towns, Village and Town services with our Counties, and schools have to cut back courses that will prepare our students for the jobs currently in demand, while ciities get our funding to offer that very coursework.

And, after the lobyists convinced our State lawmakers in the 1990s to tell local school districts that they had to conduct large building programs to increase the square footage in our school building, now they are cutting our funding to provide meet the Common Core standards they've told us to implement.

Also, a trend that was occurring while these lobbyists were advocating construction to aid the construction industry, fewer adults were having children, and more and more people were leaving NYS. Now, we're faced with more school building space than we need, and in some upstate regions, the discussions are underway of how to consolidate and even merge parts or all of school districts. This all will take away from local control.

And with Le Roy Village/Town, and likely your Elba Barb, some of our local politicians who wish to represent us, who before our Democrat Governor Cuomo came along, always thought the best government was limited government or no government at all, (Republicans, Conservative, and Libertarians), are advocating they do this Governor's bidding.

And the result will be that we have fewer services, or less coverage of services of code enforcement in our localities for just one example of what we'll be cutting for Governor Cuomo to fund his projects. It is we in rural areas who willl pay the price. It is rural governments who will go along with Governor Cuomo on everything (like lemmings marching into the sea), without any discernment, making succinct meaningless statements to our populace, selling them on lower taxes.

It is our own local politicians, many who consider themselves lifelong, and therefore trusted and wise residents of our communities, who will ultimately destroy our local governments and local communities. It's not just our local schools and local governmentst that will suffer, but when schools and local governments receive less State funding in rural areas, our civic organizations, and churches will go bankrupt as well. There's only so much money to go around, and what little rural communities have will go their schools, and local governments, and any civic or religious dimension to our communities will cease to exist for lack of funds.

The State is trying to suck the last ounce of blood out of rural communities, and these communities already have less population to begin with , less political clout than larger communities, and less of a poltical base. Rural communities will continue to experience a drain in population away from NYS, and with it will go our tax base, and our quality of life.

I hope this is succinct enough for you Barb, as my letter to the editor explaining important issues to Village of Le Roy residents is. I have been succint, and maybe you don't know it. Maybe most of your 'writings' are texting where 'LOL' is being succinct. Thanks for dropping in on Le Roy, NY news, and I'm confident that Le Royans will take to heart what I spent so much time conveying here at The Batavian.

Hopefully Le Roy Village residents will take the few minutes requied to vote tomorrow, with maybe more awareness, other ideas to consider, and be more hopeful, and in control, when they enter the voting booth. Oh, that's right, there aren't voting booths in Village elections thanks to people in Florida. We'll have to settle for black-tipped markers, a long paper ballot with large type and huge round circles to fill in, that can be seen by any one passing our 'stattion,' and the lack of privacy provided by 1 3/4' high dividers that anyone walking by can peer into and see how we are exercising our right, and hopefully our duty to vote in privacy.

With a little more discussion at the State and Federal levels, and maybe with more letters to the editor, Barb of Elba and Barbs like you everywhere, and discernment (not something entered into lightly and not something that can be accomplished in the time it takes to comunicate with everyone on our Facebook lists, and post comments everywhere), maybe we'll have a better system for voting. Maybe we'll reinvent the voting machine, with a curtain that can be drawn once we enter,private, as our U. S. Constitution ensures, and efficient, and YES cost effective!

We spend so much on the silliest things in government, and we now need several electronic gadgets in our pockets or pursees just to leave the house in the morning. Yet we cannot afford to have our local governments adequately protect our interests for health/safety/our investments in our property/infracstructure/vitality of our local communities. Because of our pesonal 'needs' and those of distant central governments, we are quickly forking over our hard-earned income and our quality of life to corportaions, advertisers and less personal, less accessible government at the State and Federal levels.

Thanks Barb King for reading my succinct writings. Newspapers and now even online ones, and books with chapters, were always meant for thoughtful discourse. Anything worth reading always took writing in complete sentences and paragraphs, and from people often more learned thano ourselves.

Le Roy Village voters, I have taken the time to write about things I have found that are important to the Village and Town where I grew up much of my life, and have returned as an adult. By my example, and examples of things I have done to try to improve the community of Le Roy, NY, I call home, I trust in your caring about Le Roy enough to read, to skim, or to skip along, whatever you have the time for, and consider what I have to say, and to vote and very soon. It's already Tuesday morning. This is Village Board election day at our Village Hall. This is what it means to be an American.

I don't aspire to hold some lofty local office or title. I seek to inspire you, and if you think about one of my most obvious accomplishments over the 20 years I have lived here in Le Roy, NY, as an adult, to clean up Church Street, I know that you'll give me the time of day, and read what I have to say.

Thank you. Douglas Hill, Le Roy Village Resident

Sorry, TRUSTEE Jennifer 'KEYS.' Your name is always spelled 'KEYS,' and while people will recognize you as Jennifer 'KEYES,' I do apologize for interchanging the spelling of your last name at whim.

But, voters, TRUSTEE JENNIFER KEYS (and John Mange), IT'S CANDIDATE for you, and BILL KETTLE, ANOTHER FINE MEMBER OF THE RECHARGE LE ROY Campaign COMMITTEE, CANDIDATE BILL KETTLE. And, Bill Kettle, he was a football player as you and Jim and Porp were, and he knows he is CANDIDATE BILL KETTLE.

I trust that soon, very soon, after today, Tuesday is over, it'll continue to be TRUSTEE JENNIFER KEYS, AND it WILL BECOME TRUSTEE BILL KETTLE.

We do best in Le Roy, NY, or any community when we allow people will new ideas, not just our friends, and only friends out of the dusty pages of our Le Roy High School yearbooks, to lead us. We also need and have people who have moved to Le Roy, NY, as adults, as Jennifer has.

Jennifer moved here from where she grew up all the way west on Route 5 from Canandaigua, and her husband Terry, a Vice-President at MCC, grew up in one of the Bloomfields, east of Le Roy, and both Candaigua and E. and W. Bloomfield are old towns as Le Roy is. We may be kin. And, we have Bill and Jennifer from a generation younger than Jim, and Porp, Jim a Trustee, and Porp, our Mayor. And then we have Trustee Mike, who may be the youngest. Wouldn't this group make a great Village Board to take us into the future?

I met Bill recently and I believe he shared with me that he is a second generation American. His father and mother emigrated from England to Le Roy (no we're not a country, not an isle or an island, even though we sometimes we act if we are one or the other unto ourselves). But, rest assured Bill, who grew up in Le Roy was a football player here. But, it is quite obvious he didn't take too many blows to the head, as he is a bright and shining star business leader in Le Roy as his father was when he came to Le Roy to work at Lapp.

Le Roy has always welcomed newcomers, and that's why any of us in Le Roy are here, and Le Roy once was a rival of Rochester for industrial power and wealth. If Le Roy is going to maintain the natural and the manmade beauty it has, and to maintain and draw many fine families and individuals that make up what is Le Roy, NY, its people, we are going to continually need to invite to our tables of local governement, the most qualifed, most innovative, and people of the highest integrity to be elected to serve Le Roy in public office. Le Roy, NY, deserves nothing less than the best. Go Knights, Go Good Knights, and Go Nightingales!

Thank you, Douglas Hill, Le Roy Village Resident

This, in reply to my letter, is what you wrote, Barb is it? "Suddenly glad I don't live in Le Roy. Need to be succinct for the masses."

I took time to attend our 'Meet the Candidates Night,' in Le Roy, to hear each candidate, to ask questions, and hear what others had to say. Maybe 20-25 Le Royans came to the forum. It probably ran 1 1/2 hours, not succinct, what apparently you find important, but informative. I took the time to read everyone's political ads our candidates paid to have printed, and I took the time to vote for Village Board members, something few Le Royans took the time to do compared to the population of the Village of Le Roy. These are all things apart from the usual things that makes up any two weeks of my time.

Succinct, no. Important yes. And, I took the time to reflect and think about what I heard from the candidates, what I read and hear of the news, and what conclusions I have drawn from being an informed citizen, and I wrote a thoughtful, informative letter to the editor.

I submitted it to The Batavian, this letters to the editor here, and any letters to the editor of The Batavian, I understand are rare. You might ask yourself why that is. Maybe, people think that their articles will receive comments that miss the point of why they wrote in the first place. Possible?

I submitted my letter and it was published to inform my Le Roy neighbors about our code enforcement issue, and its importance. It also informed Le Royans about falsehoods in a political ad related to our Village election that was imminent.

Again, this is what you wrote "Suddenly glad that I don't live in Le Roy. Need to be succinct for the masses." And, yes this Jeff Allen gave us a definition of the word 'succinct' and a video about it. Your reply Barb showed to me, that you for one, are glad you don't live in Le Roy, and two you think who you call the 'masses' cannot apparently read a comprehensive article on the subject of code enforcement and its importance to the vitality of their community of Le Roy.

And, if like you, apparently from Elba, or anyone from any community read it and thus have the opportunity to consider my viewpoint and experience, and possibly apply it to your thinking about where you live, you apparently don't think who you refer to the 'masses' anywhere wouldn't avail themselves of what I wrote, and wouldn't gain from reading it.

You have insulted Le Roy, you have insulted people by labelling some 'the masses.' and you tried to insult me about my writing. In fact, you did insult Le Roy, and you think you have insulted me (even though I made no claim of wanting to be or being succinct in an online 'newspaper,' known for covering issues in depth, rather than sound bites.

The Batavian could be compared in their willingness to publish my letter, to The PBS News Hour. There issues are covered in depth, as opposed to network television. The PBS News Hour is not 'succinct,' but it is thorough and informative, as my letter here is.

You Barb have the choice to read or not to read anything you encounter anywhere, and especially not something you encounter meant for an audience where you don't live, and where you cannot vote. Given your mindset that what you read needs to be succinct, if I were in your shoes, I'd skip what you don't have the patience to read. And, yes I question your intelligence for the ridiculous reply you made to what I wrote. If you want to be considered intelligent, than either refrain from replying at all, or write a thoughtful reply that has anything to do with the issues your replying to.

If, however, as your comments of late seem to indicate, you did find what I have written and my reply informative and something you can apply to your own community that's all for the good. I'm sure it would apply to what is it, Elba, where you live? But, of course, I can only glean that you may have gotten anything out of what I have written, by my having read your second sarcastic reply. Maybe you or Jeff Allen would like to look up 'sarcastic' in the dictionary. You out to Barb, and then you would learn why I replied to you as I originally did.

It is you who have entirely used your opportunities in response to what I took a lot of thought and a lot of time to write when submitting this letter to the editor, and for whom the election ad I made reference to could matter, to Le Royans, and you have shown yourself in a bad light. What I wrote made a difference and was appreciated by several people I spoke to who read it all.

These type of insipid responses you have made here, is why people on the 25th anniversary of the Internet, question how easily people who wouldn't say what you have written if you had say it to my face, or if you had submitted your response to be published as a printed letter in the newspaper, your response would not have even have shown in that paper. What you write has no relevance to any reader.

The Internet has emboldened you to respond impersonally to someone you don't even know, a response that has nothing to do with the issues I write about, and about a community where you don't live, and don't want to live! You are bold when it is only you writing from your computer. The people who read this, that spoke to me, found what I read informative, and they appreciated my humor over the insults you flung. Your comments obvious to several of us in Le Roy, are completely irreverent and are therefore silly.

If I were to trove The Batavian, and probably The Daily News, online sites, that you apparently trove, I probably would see numerous comments made all the time from you, and possibly Jeff as well, he who would share his ability to cut and past from an online dictionary, and you, well I covered that thoroughly didn't I?

You won't, however, see me taking my time, or changing the subject from what people post to inform, to take part in the discussion, serious issues anyone else presents that have a bearing on western, NY communities, and make light of them as you have with what I have written. I don't have the time to be wasting on comments made by people such as yourself, and I only do so now, as I am a charitable person.

The several Le Royans who spoke to me about my letter, did not post on The Batavian site. They probably have people to say things to whom they know, and people for which what they say has some relevance. I have taken the time to be thorough in replying to your insulting sound bites, something you probably get away with all the time, because it is only by being thorough that anyone could possibly reach you for you to understand how your comments are taken. Expletives sent your way, may tell you whether your comments are taken negatively, and they'd be succinct, but they'd offer you no constructive way to change.