I read with disdain the letter from Jack Wynne in the Nov. 25 edition of the paper and felt I had to respond.

Mr. Wynne claims that Mayor John Colbert has a conflict of interest serving as both clerk to the Nassau County Legislature and Mayor of Mineola and comes to the conclusion that Mayor Colbert's alleged conflict of interest cost the Mineola taxpayers $400,000 in lost sales tax revenue. I called Mayor Colbert to ask him what this all meant. It appears that Mr. Wynne was all wrong and misrepresented the facts of this sales tax issue. Mayor Colbert has no conflict of interest and I feel the people of Mineola have always come first in his administration. All you have to do is look around and see what Mayor Colbert and the sitting board of trustees have done for this community. We live in a newer, better Mineola because of them.

John Colbert supported the proposed sales tax revenue sharing proposal just like all the other mayors in Nassau County. Only six out of 64 mayors even attended the county meeting of which John Colbert was one. The one and only difference came when the Village Officials Association became adversarial. The mayors apparently started threatening the Nassau County Legislature. Our mayor's, John Colbert's, position was that you get more with honey than you get with vinegar. Mayor Colbert negotiated in good faith and tried to steer the other mayors away from being combative and destructive. In the end, Mayor Colbert could not convince the other mayors that his way was the best way and the other mayors lost control and lost the sales tax issue for every village in Nassau County. Mayor Colbert is now working behind the scenes to mend fences and fix this problem and because he has access will likely deliver what all the other mayors combined couldn't.

I recently attended a public hearing on the library referendum, and I wish more people of Mineola were there. At that meeting, Mr. Wynne sat in the back throwing constant negative remarks at the mayor and current board of trustees, for supporting the passage of the referendum which the people of Mineola voted for, overwhelmingly. Mr. Wynne was constantly speaking out of turn. I am not sure why, but it appears that Mr. Wynne has been against everything our current village board has done to improve our quality of life here in Mineola. His letter last week was another example of the mudslinging we have come to expect from Mr. Wynne and the Hometown party that Mr. Wynne so heavily endorses.

My family and I would like to thank the mayor and current board of trustees for the quality of life improvements made to this village.

Tommy Rudolph