Dishonest behavior by anti-wind group

I'm a Republican, and I'm proud my fellow Cape Vincent Republicans Marty Mason and Bob Chapman endorsed Tom Rienbeck. Former Cape Republican Committee Chairman John DeFrancesco never mentioned to us his intention of putting Urban Hirschey's name on the ballot. He didn't allow us to caucus. He avoided us altogether and went straight to the county Board of Election with his nomination.

And to me, it's dishonest that John Byrne had to make up his own political party to get on the ballot, and then had his campaign signs made up so they're identical to the signs for the Republican candidates.

I hope Cape Vincent voters see the three anti-wind candidates for what they are. Urban Hirschey, John Byrne and Brooks Bragdon belong to a group that has engaged in the sneakiest and most dishonest behavior this small town has ever seen.

How can we trust Hirschey? Before appointing himself chair of the anti-wind group, he called the Maple Ridge windmills "majestic." And don't forget he had a 200-foot high windmill on his property. Also, it's odd the anti-wind chairman recently bought 33.79 acres of land in the middle of a proposed wind farm.

Last summer, Byrne brought a video camera to Cape board meetings, claiming he wanted to record the entirety of each meeting and make it available online for his seasonal out-of-state associates. If Byrne is telling the truth, how come the complete meetings were never made available online?

Instead, only certain parts from Byrne's recordings were put online, and they were only intended to humiliate our town officials. Notice how Byrne never positioned the camera so that all five board members were visible. Each meeting, he'd focus on certain individuals while members of his anti-wind group antagonized these individuals, calling them names like "rotten human being."

Also, Byrne admitted to paying sound consultants to come with biased results, because he didn't like the results of the town's acoustics experts. His exact quote was, "He who pays the piper picks the tune."

Harvey White

Cape Vincent