Reader says the Sendon Email was interference with the election process and someone tried to sabotage his job and or his candidacy
I think if the Mayor had even ONCE voiced any outrage over this, and if he had pushed for an investigation, and pursued follow-up, then we would all feel more trusting of him. Yes, it was sent to the Prosecutor’s office, only after certain citizens expressed their anger. Molinelli determined it was not a prosecutable crime, and then it was eventually sent to the Board of Elections (not sure I have the correct name of the agency). Then we heard nothing. Nothing. I am quite certain that if the action had been taken against Mr. Aronsohn, he would have called out all the militia to cross state lines and subpoena the editor at the Staten Island newspaper. This is not such sensitive information that it would be so difficult to obtain. It is disgraceful that this has not been pursued with all possible resources.
The anonymous contact with Mr. Sedon’s employer (a newspaper in Staten Island) informed them that he was a candidate for public office. As such, it was indicated that this was a conflict of interest and I think Mr. Sedon’s employer told him to quit his candidacy or quit his job. The reason the anonymous caller did this was to get Mr. Sedon to quit his candidacy. Instead, he quit his job, and went on to win by a wide margin over the third candidate. If Mr. Sedon had been working for, let’s say The Ridgewood News, then this would have presented a big problem because he could not report on meetings and deliberations of which he was a part. But, this newspaper was in another state, where there could not even be a conceivable problem with him serving on a council in Ridgewood.
You choose to say that it was not such a terrible crime. Well, maybe not. It wasn’t murder or violence. But it most definitely was interference with the election process and someone tried to sabotage his job or his candidacy. Public information that was being relayed – yes, with the express purpose of putting this man off the ballot. It was disgusting.
This business stinks to high heaven. And It DOES seem of a piece with the Mayor’s bat-phone style interactions with The Ridgewood News to squelch political opposition. It has done brutal damage to our local political culture, so frustration that no culprit has been tracked down and held to account is perfectly understandable. The fact that this seamy event is seemingly being swept under the rug, or thrown down some kind of 1984-type George Orwell ‘memory hole’, tempts ordinary residents who had nothing to do with any of it to pretend that it never happened, or that the related civic damage is either not real or not lasting. In the end, though, we know this is just a convenient charade, and we are appalled at the absence of forthright leadership at the Village Council level.
