Submitted by Donald Weyer
Hey, Matt Landers, Genesee County Manager, I respected you, but I'm starting to wonder!
You're whining about "the homeless" in your realm, in reference to the illegal immigrants being potentially bussed into, and housed in our area; and your subsequent declaration of a "state of emergency", (shades of Alexander Haig, "I'm in charge here", and I think, Watergate), as our introduction to not the "Summer of Love" (1968), but rather to the Summer of 2023. Where are these "homeless", please tell me, do. I want to see them. I certainly hope that you're not referring to homeowners who are barely making their payments to retain their homes, the nearly-borderline "homeless". (Actually, I think they are called home or housing "poor"). Are you? Because you have resources at your disposal, windfalls from sales-tax revenues, mortgage taxes, all the gambling revenues pouring out of Batavia Downs, to directly assist the nearly-drowning property-tax payers, don't you?
In fact, aren't all your most recent "crying wolf" press releases just political grand-standing? Please, Mr. Landers, instead of ballyhooing the new jail out there by County Building 2, which is just more agitprop about crime and criminals, ditto with your immigration stand, pay attention to the genuine needs and priorities of us Genesee County tax-payers who finance your programs! You know, us middle-class people,go-to-work-everyday, no questions asked, no problems made, individuals and families, who find ourselves strangely neglected, in this age of "victims", the "under-served", the "put-upon" ,the "under-belly", of American society! And anyway, isn't crime, jails, prisons, and criminals, principally an N.Y.State function; immigration primarily a U.S. government function? Leave these issues, and pontifications about them, to the big boys and girls in Albany and Washington, and talk to my neighbors and me right here in Batavia, N.Y., the seat of Genesee County, and the base of your management and governance,in association with the Genesee County Legislature.
You're not elected, sir, but if you were, right at this time in your dedicated, and I'm sure, sincere service and tenure, I would vote against you.
I don't know whether I'm "pro" or "anti" immigration. But maybe a little "pro," only within legal means. But, man, oh man, Matt, my good man, I think you've "stepped into it" this time. Stay closer to home, do what you do and know best, talk up the "good bones" that we have out at the Genesee County Park; the incredibly outstanding employees and programs you have over at the Genesee County Office for the Aging, the Senior Center, on Bank Street; the Sheriff's Department sheriff and deputies and prison officers who keep us safe and secure; your guys who do the snow-plowing and land-scaping; the offices that ably serve our veterans and provide social services; the ones who exactingly and perspicaciously keep and record our vital and transactional business records in the County Clerk office. These are all tangible programs and people that you can point to, not the lofty and abstract policy ruminations and philosophizing that you are currently faltering on! Jettison the politicking over the state and national affairs to the state and national players, no matter if they are buffoons and jokes and rummies!
