Guest Commentary by H. Riley - ADE Mar 1

Unfortunately, there is no way to link to the guest commentary by Howard Riley in yesterdays ADE. The ADE website is a bit of a joke and they could learn alot from the Plattsburgh Press Republican and WNBZ radio.

The commentary was called "Shock and ah, ah, ah???"

Mr. Riley wrote:

There was shock and no awe, maybe outrage, when Mr. Donaldson said he had single handedly (with the blessing of the Essex County Board of Supervisors) successfully negotiated a deal over the past three years to bring Wal-Mart to town.

He went on to write:

The big revelation by Mr. Donaldson was that this educated, bright, articulate mayor and board of trustees had been left out of the loop, were never told by Mr. Donaldson what he was doing and did not know one thing about this deal until he appeared at the meeting.

Then, instead of the mayor and the trustees being outraged at this usurpment of their authority, and to add further to the embarrassing situation, not one of the trustees said a word - not one word of surprise, not one question of Mr. Donaldson about his actions and not one word of explanation of how they had no clue that the biggest piece of property needed for Wal-Mart was owned by the village.

and my favorite:

And no one knew anything about Wal-Mart for all those years? Sorry, boys, that dog won't hunt.

I wish everyone had the opportunity to read the whole commentary. First, because Mr. Riley is an extremely talented writer, second, because he has many excellent points to make, but mostly because the way this whole Wal-Mart 'situation' has been and is being handled has been screwed up from the get go.

As Mr. Riley says:

Everyone agrees that we need a retail department store in Saranac Lake, and maybe it will have to be Wal-Mart. But that ought to be decided by our village board and the Chamber of Commerce and the local merchants, which are the lifeblood of our economy, not by the Essex County manager and the Essex County Board of Supervisors.

NOTE: The Essex County Board of Supervisor better check on what else Mr. Donaldson has been working on over the last several years.