Letters to the Editor

Feb. 21 Edition

Letter in Support of Tony Hanson

To the editor,

We are very happy to endorse Tony Hanson for one of the 2 open seats for the Trumansburg Village Board. Tony brings strong interests that include promoting and preserving our unique historic as well as natural resources.

He recognizes the value of our cultural organizations, in addition to the efficient running of the Village services. And as important, he believes in open, community based decisions and will provide leadership in this process.

Please join us in voting for Tony Hanson on March 19th in the Village of Trumansburg Democratic primary!

Sarah Adams & Victoria Romanoff

Trumansburg

Letter in Support of Marcia Horn 

Last month, village Democrats selected 2 candidates for 2 open Village Trustee positions. Neither won more than 40 votes; both would run unopposed. Put another way, less than 40 village voters would choose 2 Trustees to represent village residents in the important decisions facing Trumansburg in the next 4 years. 

Returning to Ulysses after trying to move back to my home state, so overdeveloped that I couldn’t afford to live there and neighbors don’t speak to neighbors, I chose Trumansburg so I could walk to most needs and meet people as I went. In my first month as a village resident, at a sparsely attended community meeting for the Village Comprehensive Plan, I asked village trustees to protect places where conversations and impromptu gatherings happen. 

I also chose New York, a state where citizenship rights are protected by legal structures and laws my childhood home lacks. As one of 13 colonies that became the United States of America, New York has laws regulating the formation, officers, duties and operations of municipalities and spelling out rights Trumansburg voters have used in the past, including the right of registered voters to run as independent candidates on their own party line in village elections. 

As local historian Lydia Sears described in A History of Trumansburg, 1797-1967 (privately published, 1968), for decades the Citizen’s Party ran candidates for village elected office, with caucus and election results reported in the Trumansburg Free Press. In the 1960s, the Pioneer Party formed to challenge some of those candidates.

In that tradition, Tompkins County Board of Elections confirmed that the Community Party’s nominating petition, with 77 village voter signatures, places Marcia Horn on the ballot for Village Trustee for the term ending 2028. Horn’s candidacy provides village voters with real choice; her qualifications (https://electmarciahorn.com) deserve serious consideration. 

An independent candidate, Horn refuses financial support for her campaign. An experienced Village Trustee, she concerns herself with the limitations of public resources. A former business owner, Horn understands pressures facing Trumansburg businesses. A 60 year village resident and 6^th generation Ulysses resident, she takes a long view on what endures and what needs protection. A grandmother, mother, daughter and childcare worker, she seeks the needs of all generations. Most importantly, as a lover of Trumansburg, Horn will work to pass it on to the next generation unimpaired.

I support Marcia Horn for re-election as Village Trustee. 

Vivien E. Rose 

Trumansburg 

Contested race for village mayor  

Oh my gosh! Just when I felt politics had lost its luster, I’m afforded this opportunity to meet a 2nd generation Cayuga Heights Family candidate, running for Mayor of our Village on March 19th, 2024. Meloney McMurry is a just plain wonderful new option for us to vote in as our NEW Mayor for The Village of Cayuga Heights. She’s exuberant, knowledgeable, kind, energetic, driven, intelligent, funny, responsible and full of practical ideas that will strengthen community and fellowship, right here, where we call it home.

Meloney married our neighbor’s son after they met during successful careers in New York City, then having largely achieved their professional goals, moved just down the street to raise their kids. Meloney’s In Laws drove my kids to school, two days a week and we drove their kids to school the other two days, and I recall they walked together on Fridays. Thirty years later we get to see these same kids grow into adults, now in the throws of their own parenting. Meloney is a Mom, a Wife, an Attorney, a Neighbor, a very worthwhile human being, and she will renew what’s important to Cayuga Heights, like caring, like kindness, like noticing, like helping out where and when. I’m absolutely convinced the strengths of our Village will be refreshed and protected, even improved with this new–I’m now convinced, obvious–choice for Mayor.

Well, I just wanted to get the word out; there’s a CONTESTED RACE for MAYOR in Cayuga Heights, and we are so very lucky Meloney McMurry has thrown her hat in the ring. This Village has tremendous unrealized potential in environmental activism for our beloved lake just below us. Amazing Police and Fire Protection resources that can be a model for our larger city just down the road. The Road Maintenance Crew can be like family and Meloney will treat them that way. I don’t know about you, but I salute the garbage collection team, when they pick up my road-side refuse. I get a honk and a wave back, and you can bet they’ll be smiling under Meloney as Mayor’s oversight. We clean our waste at our wastewater treatment plant. We get our water from Cayuga Lake, refine its purity and then send it all over the county. I’m sure Meloney will not only be a good steward for our Sewage Treatment and Bolton Point Water System but be innovative on its efficiency and financial soundness taking us wisely into the future. She will get along with everyone, but equally so, be confidently driven to courteously get things done. If you don’t believe me, just meet her and you’ll immediately see what I do.

I wholeheartedly endorse Meloney McMurry as The Village of Cayuga Heights’ NEW MAYOR. Please vote March 19, 2024! We should not miss this exciting chance,to get an interesting, motivated, kind new Mayor to manage our village. Meet Meloney at Neds Pizza 2/8, 2/15, 2/29 from 5-7pm where she’s meeting village residents.

Sincerely,

Jim Gilmore, 

Village of Cayuga Heights

P.S. Check her out at www.mcmurry-for-mayor.com

Marginalized again 

To the editor,

NY’s Republican and Democratic Parties, those two hierarchical mediators of the people’s power, have worked together against their common enemy, free-thinking people, in designing the new Congressional district lines around Tompkins County.  The map offends the eye.  We will be gerrymandered into an appendix, isolated from all our neighboring counties, and dangled by a skinny strip of land. Both Parties don’t want our neighbors to hear us or work with us.

    The Democratic Party itself does all it can to marginalize those who hearken back to when revolutionary Massachusetts defended its democratic ways against British cancellation; or are inspired by the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble of the Constitution that followed, and by that other shining democratic era, ancient Athens.  Party hacks are as good as Tories.

    People, not secretive partisans who issue the orders to our elected officials, are supposed to govern the country.  We are free to organize ourselves apart from the Parties, apart from ambitious, amoral, greedy self-serving persons, and invite all to join a network of small neighborly circles with no bosses and with democratic protocols.  There, we can hear each other and be heard, help set legislative agendas, and bring forth slews of honorable candidates for every open seat, instead of being stuck with incumbents until they die in office, party puppets never making headway against our most serious problems, and working people every year getting a smaller share of the fruits of their labors.

Tim Lillard

Newfield