Sheila Finan's Letter to the Ulster County Press

To The Editor:

The vitriol in Jon Dogar-Marinesco's recent letter attacking a reader for criticizing a one-sided cartoon in the paper raises the question of where so much venom comes from. I, too, was at the famous Feb. 1 town meeting, and thought the cartoon in this paper's Feb 18 issue one-sided and superficial enough to promote false understanding.

I felt that Mrs. Marinescu [sic] was unfortunately being traumatized by publicity she herself had unleashed, and was being used by Carl Chipman's and Imre Beke's desire to trash the town board in order to regain power in the upcoming election. These two men did everything they could to move the ungrounded emotions of the public - ungrounded because they were not fully acquainted with the facts - behind their undemocratic goals, i.e. into a mob.

Perhaps it would have helped to respond by moving to a larger space, but nonetheless what was happening was ugly and scary. Dogar-Marinesco feels that he is back under the communist boot that crushed him for 33 years. But the Town of Rochester is not a playground for him to unleash his rage and hatred stemming from those years. He is patronizing and contemptuous about the government we have voted in, and of us, the voters. Doesn't he realize that we, the people of this town, have voted it in, not through being manipulated, as he would attempt to do through his Web site and slime and scare tactics, but after years of working in a highly democratic process with these people to determine the best future for this town.

I also want to say the anonymous, ominous road signs that have gone up in the Town of Rochester, full of lies purporting to know the town supervisor is skimming taxes, getting rich off her job, scamming residents are also scary. They bring up the feeling there are bullies with a lust for power hiding in the trees, too cowardly to give their names. I am reminded of who it was who always hated the communists most. It was the fascists: Hitler's Nazis and the followers of Mussolini.

Shelia Finan
Accord