Letters To The Editor 06.17.21

Never Let a Plague go to Waste

Victor Davis Hanson I thoroughly enjoyed your article. Mostly because unlike the article next to it “Prosecuting Trump” your article is filled with the truth and anyone could see you did your research. Thank-you for including facts and not a lot of Trump hate. God bless you and God bless America.

Susan DiNova, Troy

Cui Bono in Sand Lake Appeal

As someone who prevailed in frivolous appeal filed by the New York State Attorney General in Lascari et al. v. NYSDEC et al., 229 AD2d 650 (3d Dept. 1996), I find myself interested in this Barnes Road matter in Sand Lake where the Planning Board appears to be asking the Appellate Court to essentially rule that the Supreme Court justice who issued the ruling appealed from was stupid, ignorant and clearly didn’t know the law and should be overturned, essentially proving that the planning board attorney who lost at the Supreme Court level was really the smarter lawyer of the two, and should be vindicated of what on the surface right now, given the loss at the Supreme Court level, appears to be shoddy legal counsel to the Planning Board in making the decision to grant the permit in question, which should result in some great theater of the absurd when this goes up for oral arguments, and the town’s appeal attorney, who gets paid, win or lose, don’t make a difference, tries to convince the Appellate Court judges there is a stupid Supreme Court Justice on the loose in Rensselaer County.

Which raises the question of who are these haughty people on these planning boards who set themselves above and apart from the citizen body?

And no, we didn’t always have planning board.

They came into being in the 1970s, around here and at p. 8 of a 15 March 1989 Report of Investigation of the RCHD by then-State Health Commission Dr. David Axelrod, we get a good look into their political nature which is based on power supposedly unassailable by the general public, to wit:

There is a question of conflict of interest.

The Public Health Director is also the Chairman of the Town of Sand Lake Planning Board.

The Sand Lake Town Planning Board reviews plans for proposed realty subdivisions for compliance with the Town Code.

So one man wearing two hats with tremendous power was able to dispense favors with pretty much impunity, because who could challenge him?

Paul Plante, Poestenkill