To the Editor:

I wasn't sure if I should respond to the comments by Vasilios Lefkaditis about a letter I had sent to The Enterprise, which ran on Oct. 30, 2015.

Apparently, The Enterprise had spoken to Mr Lefkaditis before another letter ran on April 21, 2016.

I want to state emphatically that Vas had not "cleaned up" the Oct. 30 letter at my request.

In fact, the original letter was under 100 words, while the letter that Vas "cleaned up" was about 450 words, and I actually had to take out a rather sophomoric reference Vas had made to Nick Viscio as Nick “Vicious.”

Then, there is the comment [made by Lefkaditis in an editor’s note at the bottom of Virano’s April 21, 2016 letter] that “a town can't force a private citizen to buy out their neighbor.”

That's true, but that is what the neighbor has wanted to do going back as far as 1998 or 1999, and in my utter frustration with the town of Knox's unwillingness to deal properly with the zoning violations at the neighbor's property, I thought it would be better to just give them what they want and sell out to them.

The problem with that is the neighbors want to use their zoning violations as a way of getting my property at a devalued price. (See The Altamont Enterprise, July 11, 2013, article and editorial, online at www.AltamontEnterprise.com.)

Also, there are serious questions surrounding the issuance of the variances at the neighbors' property, some of which involve the "process,” and some of which had not come to light until late 2013, and into 2014 at trial.

There have also been certificates of compliance and a building permit issued retroactively, which I can't find any justification for in the Knox zoning ordinances.

At the present time, I'm in contact with the proper authorities to see about this.

So, a statement that "everything is legal" is presumptive at best.  

I also believe that the statement that this is "ancient history" is an old trick used many times in the political theater, where, if something can be put off long enough, it becomes "ancient history" and needn't be dealt with.

I'd like to note that this isn't a "10-year-old problem,” but is multiple problems extending back to the late 1990s and is as current as today.

Vince Virano

Albany

Editor’s note: We have reviewed the original election letter sent to the The Enterprise by Vince Virano last fall and compared it with the one that was actually printed; the printed letter was more than double the length of the original (over 500 words as compared to fewer than 200) and introduced much new material. The original letter focused on the town’s attorney speaking for the board; the rewritten letter was also critical of town board members at the time, particularly Nicholas Viscio’s comments in an Enterprise interview, and Amy Pokorny’s letter to the Enterprise editor.