Letters

My partner and I have lived in North Haven Village for the past 17 years. We have always known it to be a tranquil community, from its unparalleled natural beauty, to its neighborly respect, to its frictionless government.

Now, an undercurrent runs throughout our village, a discordant movement propelling distrust, pettiness, gossip and divide, mainly due to the actions of one North Haven resident: mayoral candidate Terie Diat.

I was the only resident present at the March Board of Trustees meeting, when Mayor Jeff Sander formally announced his retirement. From the beginning of that meeting, Terie Diat displayed signs of destroying the good character of her soon-to-be opponent, Chris Fiore.

I watched her rolling her eyes throughout the meeting, in frustration of Fiore’s adamant dispatches about the issues in which he is most passionate. Imagine, in front of a resident, at a public meeting all residents are urged to attend, I had to witness Diat, a trustee, execute cruelly blatant and puerile behavior? I was appalled.

She then formally announced her candidacy the very next morning, not giving Sander any time to spread the word.

Days later, she claimed she could eradicate ticks in North Haven. Hmmm, her “know-how” should win her the Nobel Prize.

All this time, Fiore and Dianne Skilbred sat on the sidelines, giving our community the chance to absorb Sander’s retirement, while Diat machinated her schemes and strategies to bash and discredit her opponents rather than try to win on her own merits.

Fiore never self-promoted on his innocuous rock-and-roll radio program, yet, as of today, Diat has been awarded free “campaigning airtime,” while Fiore must pay for his.

Skilbred’s 26-year devotion to the government of North Haven was defamed with accusatory addresses that she (along with Fiore) missed the deadline for filing their financial disclosure reports.

Are we living in Washington, D.C.? Is this the atmosphere you are trying to evoke, Ms. Diat? Is this how you are going to spend your time governing North Haven? Attacking Dianne Skilbred, who (among her vast accomplishments) has kept posterity, history and progressiveness in the Village of North Haven by redoing our beautiful playground? By restoring our 100-year-old schoolhouse and turning it into a children’s museum?

What are your aesthetic contributions to this community, Ms. Diat? The urge to erect a 130-foot cell tower on the preserve right behind Village Hall and move the playground to the Fiore and committee’s envisioned bucolic Lovelady Park?

On June 21, I am imploring all North Haven voters to contemplate the course of actions by mayoral candidate Terie Diat.

I hope you will see, like my partner and me, that the integrity lies in Chris Fiore and Dianne Skilbred.

Camille Petrillo

Leon Esker

North Haven