Letters

Candidates Jesse Warren, Greg Centeno and Palmer Hudson have pledged to eliminate post-retirement health care benefits for the mayor and trustee positions. Will the other candidates make the same pledge? (After age 65, health care benefits should be eliminated for all village employees. They should use Medicare, the way all the rest of us do.)

All candidates supposedly agree to transparency. Yet candidates Bill Manger, Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown refuse to tell village residents how assessed values are determined. Assessed values affect every resident of the village. Why won’t Manger, Stevenson or Brown have the village provide a written explanation of the village’s approach to determining assessed values?

The present village approach to determining assessed values produces absurd and unfair results. Residents of Windward Way, Dale Street and Breese Lane pay three times the village taxes, in relation to value, as residents of Ox Pasture Road and Gin Lane. Yet Trustees Manger, Stevenson, Brown and Gina Arresta refuse to even consider updating the village’s method of determining assessed values. Is it because these trustees have sold their souls to their Ox Pasture Road and Gin Lane financial backers?

In the grievance process, my wife and I submitted the facts of six of our immediate neighbors to prove that our property was substantially over-assessed. Bill Manger and Gina Arresta, this year, and Roy Stevenson, last year, entirely ignored the truth of these comparables and applied an irrational, unsupportable approach to continue the over-assessment of our property.

These trustees’ vindictive actions use the power of their office to punish select residents, to incur unnecessary village legal expenses and expose the village to financial costs, and these actions result in their own financial gain and are done to appease their financial backers. How can these trustees justify these despicable actions?

Recently, the Miami Herald published an expose on Bill Manger [“Bill Manger Responds to Miami Herald Article Alleging Work Done for PPP Client That Was Banned,” 27east.com, May 16]. The Miami Herald article stated that after working for the Small Business Administration on the PPP loan program under President Donald Trump, Manger worked for one of the PPP’s biggest offenders. Manger, in his village ethics financial disclosure statement, stated that he was a consultant for Oto Analytics Inc., the corporate name for Womply, a technology firm, which allegedly was supplying numerous PPP loans — including loans to a supposed gang in Orlando. This company Manger worked for has not only been suspended by the Small Business Administration but also was identified by congressional investigators to be one of the PPP loan program’s worst offenders. How does Manger justify these actions? What do they tell voters about his character?

Candidates, answer the questions. The voters want to know.

David Rung

Southampton Village