Letters to the Editor, Sept. 15, 2011

Time for a change
It’s almost been a year since we learned that Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency’s chief executive was fired after employees complained about bullying, sexual harassment, documents being falsified, improper storage of waste materials and unsafe work conditions.
Apparently, some of those concerns were investigated by the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office, which supposedly found no immediate evidence of criminal wrongdoing but said the state Attorney General’s Office should be brought in to investigate. The trail goes cold here. Am I the only one wondering what happened?
Add this to the non-investigation of the Ulster County Jail cost overrun debacle and you get a picture of a local District Attorney’s Office that is either distracted or dismissive of serious crimes that affect taxpayer pocketbooks in a big way. It’s time for a change.
There’s a candidate for District Attorney this fall who combines a strong track record of being tough on crime with non-membership in the good ol’ boys club. That’s why I’m voting for Jon Sennett for DA on Nov. 8. Jon has a 17-year track record of being tough on crime, and has overseen a staff of 20 in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. He’s made Ulster County his home. It’s time we give him a chance, and to put into office a fighter for taxpayers.
Linda R. Sakai
Town of Esopus

Expensive parking lot
It was good to see so many of our city’s taxpayers at this month’s Common Council meeting on Sept. 6. So many people spoke up about the amount of corruption that has totally taken over our small city in every department, including our public school district.
Many people were very upset about the copper capers at the King’s Inn and that the Common Council passed a bill to bond for another $143,000 to clean up the site after one of the mayor’s close friends went in and helped himself to all the copper piping and released the asbestos dust into the air, thus making the job twice as expensive as before.
My question for the mayor is when he made this verbal contract with his close friend did he realize he was going to go out and hire street people at $10 an hour, then proceed to not give them masks when cutting the pipes out of the walls, breathing in the asbestos dust and in 10 years time probably developing cancer of the lungs?