New Baltimore Town Supervisor & Town Board’s

Response to Resident’s Open Letter: Hide, Delay and Deny.

New Baltimore Town Supervisor Jeff Ruso.

First of all, the Town of New Baltimore, Supervisor Jeff Ruso’s and the Town Board’s response to the Open Letter we published which lambasted Ruso and the Town Board about Columbia Greene Media’s report on the so-called “retirement” of controversial Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan. The response, if it can be called a response in any sense of the word, is taken directly from the July 9, 2018, minutes of the regular meeting of the New Baltimore Town Board.

If you happen to have missed our article, “Open Letter Blasts New Baltimore Supervisor, Town Board over Jordan Affair,” you can read it here.

After adjourning to go into executive session on the motion made by Supervisor Ruso and seconded by Councilwoman vanEtten, the Board returned to public session with the following statement:

Supervisor Ruso: We discussed a couple matters that were about employees and we did not come to a resolution so there is no factual data to present or take Minutes of. The last thing I want to do is I really want to make mention of one item. I received correspondence on Saturday from one of our Town residents outlining a lot of issues that the person has with the Highway Superintendent or the former Highway Superintendent. I’m just going to reference it here; I’m certainly not going to read it, but I wanted to acknowledge it’s receipt and that’s all I think we should do at this particular moment. Do you agree with that?

Tal Rappleyea, Esq.: You received correspondence and you announced it. [Editor’s Note: In other words, “Screw the residents.” And for that statement Ruso and the Town Board pay him $800.00?!?]

Supervisor Ruso: That’s all we have for tonight. (Editor’s Note: Translation: “Thank you, Tal, dear, for covering my ass on this one. I can safely hide and deny now.”)

And so, that was the New Baltimore Town Board’s response to the scathing letter addressing not only former Town Supervisor Nick Dellisanti’s and current Town Supervisor Jeff Ruso’s  and the New Baltimore Town Board’s cowardice and lack of integrity in the matter of the Denis Jordan resignation and investigations in process, but also other matters concerning other departments in the Town’s administration. (See our companion articles in this mini-series. Use the links below.)

What we’d like to call our readers’ attention to is the short shrift Mr. Ruso gives to a very disturbing state of affairs in the Town’s administration and to the now very public controversys surrounding the former Dellisanti board and the current Ruso board. Nothing was said to defend himself or the New Baltimore Town Board. Nothing was said to put the public’s mind at ease about what’s going on in the Town of New Baltimore. Ruso’s remarks and his lacky’s, town attorney Tal Rappelea’s response says it all:

“I’ve received correspondence…from one of our Town residents outlining a lot of issues … I’m just going to reference it here; I’m certainly not going to read it, but I wanted to acknowledge it’s [sic] receipt and that’s all.”

Thank you Mr. Ruso for letting Town residents and the general public know what’s happening on your watch. Apparently, you don’t give a damn about keeping the residents and taxpayers of New Baltimore on the up-and-up on the top-secret scandals in the Town.

We understand that you may not want to read the letter, Mr. Ruso. That would violate your current policies of Hide and Deny. And we certainly didn’t think you’d have the gonads to do anything about it now or at any time. You’ll just follow your town shyster’s advice and mention you received a letter, “you received correspondence and you announced it,” that’s all. We pay town attorney Tal Rappelea over $800 a month to provide that kind of anti-resident advice.

But we published it in its entirety as well as excerpts in our article, which we hope everyone will read and take the time to appreciate your public remarks for what they are. Continuing cowardice! (Click here to read the article.)

We are watching the situation very closely and we’ll report and analyze the responses of the Office of the New York State Comptroller and the Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione’s investigations of  former New Baltimore Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan’s activities and malconduct, as well as the complicity of past supervisors and town board members. Denis Jordan didn’t act alone and if the Office of the New York State Comptroller and the Greene County District Attroney are investigating only Jordan, they’re doing a half-assed job of it. They need to connect the dots and get all the rats in the one sweep of the net.

Read the other installment to this mini-series of articles on New Baltimore’s hidden scandals.

Anyone with any sense for history will remember the Nazi’s famous phrase: “We were only following orders.” Well, that little pea-brain excuse didn’t save them from the hangman’s noose. We shouldn’t let it work for the Highway Department employees like Jordan’s Deputy Superintendent of Highways (now acting Superintendent) Scott van Wormer and Scott van Wormer’s brother, now running again for the elected office of Highway Super,  Alan van Wormer, now Jeff Ruso’s little pets, nor for the members of the Town Board, especially Shelly van Etten, who was and continues to be on the New Baltimore Highways Committee, or past supervisors like David Louis (Dem), Susan O’Rorke (Dem), Nick Dellisanti (Rep), or Jeff Ruso (Rep), nor for County Legislator Patrick “Pat” Linger, who seems to be spending more time doing espionage on the Dem’s candidates for this November’s  elections than legislation or keeping tabs on New Baltimore, the Town and residents he’s supposed to be representing. Same goes for George Amedore, New Baltimore’s state senator, who kept feeding Jordan big bucks for “highway improvements,” which were scandalously wasted right under Amedore’s snotty nose and the noses of New Baltimore Town Board, Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione, and others who should have been protecting the citizens and taxpayers of New Baltimore, but didn’t.

We say bring the standards of the Nuremburg Trials to New Baltimore and Greene County and hang those who think that the current policies of Hide and Deny and the pitiful excuse, “We were only doing our jobs, following orders,” just won’t work.

Just doing my job. Just following orders.

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Go to other articles in this mini-series on New Baltimore:

Open Letter Blasts New Baltimore Supervisor, Town Board over Jordan Affair

New Baltimore Sends “Acting Superintendent” to Highway School. Why?

New Baltimore Property Taxes: Absolutely No Rhyme, Reason, or Answers!!!

The New Baltimore In-Justice Court and Kangaroo Judges: Thomas Meacham, A Case Study.

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