Grafton

To the Editor:

I am writing in response to the attack made upon me by Mrs. Cathy Goyer in her letter to the editor published in last week’s Eastwick Press.

I wish to assure our residents that the allegations & statements made by Mrs. Goyer are false & self serving. She called me a liar & stated that I “con” people with my statements, anyone who knows me or has dealt with me knows this is very far from truthful. Friends have suggested that I file a defamation suit against Mrs. Goyer for these accusations, I want our residents to know that I am not going to do so, if I did I would have to file against the town as well because Mrs. Goyer is an appointed town official, I will not penalize the town for her poor repetitive actions. It was her actions as Deputy Town Supervisor that resulted in our former supervisor Mr. Sawyer suing the town & obtaining a lucrative settlement in Mr. Sawyer’s favor. I believe that the letter was written in an ongoing attempt by Mrs. Goyer to discredit me in any manner available to her. The actions of Mrs. Goyer & her husband during the past year bear this out, Mrs. Goyer went to the town bank & attempted to declare me a forger, her husband has verbally accosted me twice (once during a town board meeting) in the past few months using false accusations, Mrs. Goyer has filed a false report with PESH against me, again using false accusations & now last week’s letter to the editor. I believe the reasons for this to be twofold, first, upon appointment I had to replace one of her family members as town bookkeeper resulting in the vindictive actions she & her family have demonstrated.

The replacement was necessary to improve services to the town & make our vendor payments in a timely manner thus reducing late charges on invoices.

Secondly, I suspect she is party to a small clique of people in town who are attempting to influence our voters, their members are easily identified, just read their nonsense on facebook, watch their actions at the town board meetings & read the letters sent in by their “wives”.

The town clerk’s office issues are many, I listed them publicly during the December town board meeting, the Eastwick published several of them in their article covering that meeting, unfortunately Mrs. Goyer the acting deputy town clerk choose to omit them from the meeting’s minutes even though she was given a copy of them.

The reason for all these issues ? Mrs. Putnam our elected town clerk hasn’t performed her full duties for several years, many of our residents who have had need of the services usually provided by the clerk’s office can attest to this, additionally, sporting license’s are no longer available which places the town in violation of Environmental law.

Mrs. Putnam & Mrs. Goyer do not keep posted hours making it very difficult for resident’s to obtain services. Revenue’s generated by the clerk’s office are down as well resulting in an increased tax burden on our residents.

I have been asked by many residents why the town board hasn’t done something about the lack of service by our Town Clerk.

The answer is the town board cannot take action because the clerk is elected, to have the clerk removed a citizen / resident must file a petition with the State Supreme Court Appellate Division proving misconduct, malfeasance, malversion or maladministration. Unfortunately the law manual further states that the court is reluctant to reverse the will of the electorate so this becomes an expensive time consuming process. Mrs. Putnam is very aware of this, so she continues to fail to perform most of her duties yet she continues to draw her full salary every pay period, a truly sad way for such a beloved long tenured individual to end her lengthy career.

I sincerely hope that both of these women either come to their senses or get whatever help they may need in resolving their issues, our residents deserve much better.

In closing I wish to assure all our residents that I will continue to make the best decisions possible for the benefit of all our residents & I will not allow attacks by vindictive self serving people to sway my actions for our residents.

Frank Higgins

Grafton Town Supervisor

Editor’s Note: This letter is unedited at the request of the writer. It also marks the last time letters about the claims and counterclaims by the Grafton Deputy Town Clerk and the Grafton Town Supervisor will be published in this paper. The squabble is not determinative and serves no useful purpose.