Highway superintendent is void of integrity

Dear Editor, Re “Hurley resolution to extend supervisor term fails in 2-2 vote,” July 24, 2017: Correspondent William Kemble makes it sound like I have a vendetta against Highway Superintendent Michael Shultis for eliminating my position as an assistant assessor in 2007. I explained that during the Town Board meeting, when I said I approved of that move by Shultis and I agreed with him for eliminating the position.

I also said during the meeting that Shultis (when he was town supervisor) then took the two assistant assessor’s salary lines and added them to the supervisor budget line and increased his salary. His wife, Marie, was also working as his secretary during his time as supervisor.

Kemble then interviewed Shultis after the meeting in the Town Hall parking lot and the article infers that Councilman John Gill and I are out to “obscure my authority” as highway superintendent. Shultis makes the story sound like it’s two Republican councilmen ganging up on Democrat Shultis. If Gill and I operated along those lines, we would have voted for current town Supervisor John Perry’s request for lengthened terms, as Perry is also a Republican. As the article states, Shultis was only a one-term town supervisor, and, hopefully, will be only a one-term town highway superintendent, as in only six months in office, he has destroyed morale in that department from top to bottom.

I suggest Kemble do some investigating reporting at our Highway Department and conduct interviews with the fine men employed there. He might also check with the Freeman’s library and source the story he wrote on April 25, 2007, “Wireless mikes may have been tossed, supervisor says” and also the letter I wrote as a private citizen to the editor back in 2007.

Shultis has not changed his “M.O” since 2007 and is void of trust, integrity, truthfulness, and any signs of leadership.

Councilman John H. Dittus III

Hurley, N.Y.