Recently, you may have received in the mail correspondence from "The Friends of Westbury Party" inferring that your village government has not been responsive to your concerns, and questioning our openness and responsiveness to you, our residents.

The correspondence identified "The Friends of Westbury Party" as being the party responsible for the previously anonymous "R.A.T.S." correspondence that you may have received last year in connection with the Village's study of the feasibility of developing a solid waste transfer station in the Village. That study was concluded a year ago, after a series of public input meetings conducted by the board, with the village board unanimously deciding to cease all further review of that proposal.

In any event, it is now clear that "The Friends of Westbury Party" was the source of the erroneous information and distortions of fact distributed to residents last year. At that time, these individuals did not have the courage of their convictions to identify themselves and be a part of the dialogue. Instead, they chose to disseminate false information for their own at-that-time unknown reasons. The correspondence that you have received from them this past week, purportedly seeking your input through the participation in an opinion poll, now makes clear that they are no friends of the residents at all, but apparently simply motivated by attempting to create a false issue for their own purposes.

The "poll" is the worst kind of political "push poll," designed to reinforce the false negative impressions that "Friends of Westbury" is attempting to create. This ploy is unethical and dishonest. There is absolutely no basis for objectivity or for an impartial tabulation of the results.

The mayor and members of the board of trustees endeavor at all times to be as open and responsive to our residents as we possibly can be. We are proud of our record of openness, responsiveness and transparency. In fact, in the case cited by "Friends of Westbury" (the transfer station study), the village board went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that the residents would be heard on that issue: we held two public meetings (which were not required by law) specifically because we wanted to obtain public input in our review process; the village disseminated at least two fliers to all village residents to keep you up-to-date about the study and the public meetings that we held; and several notices and articles were published in The Westbury Times to alert our residents of the study and all developments. The communication between the village and our residents in that case was in fact a model of how we keep our residents informed on significant projects and developments. It was not an example, as "Friends of Westbury" would have you believe, of the village attempting to ignore resident concerns.

The members of your village board are readily available to each and every resident in the event that you need us. In fact, each of us regularly receives phone calls at out homes on matters that are important and need to be addressed. Unlike "Friends of Westbury" we do not hide behind anonymous misstatements of fact and falsehoods. Each of us regularly attends public functions, civic association meetings and other community events, and we regularly answer questions and solicit input on matters large and small. If the members of "Friends of Westbury" were truly interested in being a part of village dialogue, there are many legitimate opportunities for them to do so.

We expect to be held accountable for decisions that we make. We will not, however, stand idly by and allow anyone to question our dedication and responsiveness to our residents, least of all someone or persons who are not sincerely interested in engaging themselves in the process of making Westbury a better place. We won't allow anyone to use dishonest tactics to paint a picture of our administration that is simply not true.

You can call any one of us in the event that you have any questions. Mayor Strada can be reached at 333-1233; Deputy Mayor Joan Boes can be reached at 997-8355; Trustee Peter Cavallaro can be reached at 997-2096; Trustee William Wise can be reached at 997-5639; and Trustee Steve Corte can be reached at 99-7-1174.

We wish all of our residents a Merry Christmas and very happy holiday season.

Mayor Ernest Strada
Deputy Mayor Joan Boes
Trustee Peter Cavallaro
Trustee Steven Corte
Trustee William Wise