Pat Evon, Hamburg Treasurer

ENOUGH,

Learning any new job can be a challenge and that goes double if your place of employment is Hamburg Township. With, a highly polarized workforce, and Board meetings that are right up there in entertainment value with the “Gong Show”. The problem is – this is not what the voters wanted.


WHAT ISN’T GOING ON

All the Board squabbles have nothing to do with the qualifications of the Deputy Clerk or Deputy Treasurer. Those are political appointees whose performance is the responsibility of the elected official who appointed them.
The squabbles also have nothing to do with the appropriate salaries for those positions. The salaries for all township positions were established by the prior Board based on competitive studies by HR professionals. That’s the way major businesses and governments handle salaries.


WHAT IS GOING ON

There is a clear pattern to the behavior. The attacks on Matt Skiba began the day he took over from Joanna Hardesty. The attacks on Mike Zeglevski began as soon as he replaced Joanna Hardesty’s friend as Deputy Clerk. The attacks on Patrick Evon began as soon as he removed Joanna Hardesty’s daughter-in-law as Deputy Treasurer. I personally feel that these attacks have all been orchestrated by Phil Semprevivo, a close personal friend of Joanna Hardesty, and supported by Pat Hohl our Township Supervisor.
Joanna Hardesty has not gone away. She attends every Board meeting sitting just off camera. She keeps things stirred up thinking she will eventually get back into office. She even has someone ready to launch a recall campaign for that very purpose. This is not flattering for Joanna and it certainly is not healthy for the township. The Livingston Press & Argus must love all the mud-slinging since it sells papers.
I have talked with numerous residents of Livingston County, who read the P&A and they all express weariness when they open the paper to find more articles on the antics of the Hamburg Township Board.


WHAT IS THERE TO DO

You could respond to a mud-slinging campaign by joining in, but there is an old political adage that says you should be careful about playing in the mud with pigs -- they like it, and you just get dirty. Besides, two wrongs do not make a right.
You could just ignore the mud-slinging. This works well for short campaigns, but if the mud-slinging goes on long enough, some of the mud will stick whether deserved or not.
Finally, you could expose the campaign. Abraham Lincoln was right. You can fool all the people some of the time and fool some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. It’s time for the residents of Hamburg to stop being fooled by a well-orchestrated campaign of personal attacks against those who have displaced the friends and family of Joanna Hardesty in the Hamburg Township office.


Sincerely,

John H. and Denise Nalepa