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To the Editor:
On the night of the infamous 20-minute meeting of the Rochester Town Board (Feb. 1, 2007) one man was positioning himself within one feet of me every time I was talking to a reporter; he behaved as a man with a mission, and I let him know that his presence made me uncomfortable.
When he introduced himself at the March 1 Town Board meeting as "Don the Magician" I remembered him providing entertainment at the Rochester Democratic Committee's events. He is Don Dunn, author of the letter "Rochester scandal leaves more questions" published in Ulster County Press (Feb. 21) and Blue Stone Press (March 2).
Reading Mr. Dunn's contorted copy I couldn't stop asking myself: why didn't he introduce himself, as many others did, and talk to me that night? I would have been able to clarify some points for him... Why fabricate "Law and Order" scenarios instead of getting the facts from the source?
I could have saved him some time and effort stressing that during the "interview" I said much more than his suggested "No, it's not me." I felt that I was condemned even before getting a chance to give an answer, and I told the Board that too. The feeling was that of a rape; emotional, psychological, mental, but nevertheless a rape. That's why the shock made me have a car accident minutes after escaping the
"interview" in the torture room.
Mr. Dunn's statement that "Evidently, nothing showed up..." following his Internet searches is — to say the least — puzzling, considering the way he continues to ramble on.
Mr. Dunn didn't fully understand my reasons for not signing the waiver. The night of the March 1 meeting I handed him a copy of the statement I gave to the Town Clerk and to the reporters on February 1, but he was not interested. He chose to insult me instead.
Speaking about the waiver, the Daily Freeman story (February 10) clearly states that "There is nothing in the Open Meetings Law or any other law that forbids the Town Board from discussing it. What they're really saying is 'We don't want to talk about it.'"
On March 1, here we went again. What sense does it make to suppose, imply, assume, etc. if the Town Board continues to refuse to come clean? The rumor was created and spread to keep me off the Historic Preservation Commission — the collateral damage be damned — because I'm a Republican and the wife of the Republican Club's webmaster, himself rejected as volunteer on the Business Development Committee.
Mr. Dunn wrongly writes that I and the Republican Club hoped "to politicize the matter... to protest Democratic rule in Rochester." Since when is a volunteer application to join a town commission a form of protest? All I did was apply for a position on the Historic Preservation Commission where active members are badly needed.
As stressed at the March 1 meeting, the division was NOT caused by this case. The division created this case, and the first time Democratic-majority Town Board knows this fully well.
Manuela Mihailescu
Kerhonkson
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