by Joseph Adams

Everyone should read carefully the endorsement of Richard Kavesh by Vince Monte, the County Democratic chair, who of necessity is required to endorse the Democratic candidate.  It is true that Monte endorsed Kavesh as he must do as County Democratic chair; it is not true that Monte effusively praised Kavesh with all those brightly colored quotations attributed to him in that article.  You may recall that Monte supported Denise Hogan in the democratic primary; he actually wrote his endorsement for her.

None of the quotations in that article came from Monte, but somebody did draft them.

Do you remember in high school or college when the teacher couldn’t be bothered to do those letters of recommendation, so he (or she) let you write your own.  Inevitably, the letters portrayed you as close cousin to Einstein, on the family side with the best genes. Usually (at least the one time I did it), the letter proved to be transparently self-made.

Does anyone seriously believe that just after the Nyack primary election in which he vigorously endorsed Denise Hogan, a hard-working Democrat and a Nyack trustee against Kavesh, that Vince Monte said of Kavesh today, as he runs again against Hogan:

“Kavesh is one of the most innovative and hard-working public officials I know…He is the only candidate to promote streaming Nyack’s meetings on the internet, to improve Nyack’s website, and to call for eco-friendly, green building codes.  Most  importantly of all, I  know from personal experience that Richard will listen closely, act fairly, and work  with the people of Nyack for the people of Nyack.

I call on all Nyack voters ‘€“ and all Democrats in Rockland County ‘€“ to rally behind Richard’s candidacy’€¦”

Of course, he did not say those things.  But someone wrote those things to exploit the fact Monte had an obligation to support the Democratic candidate, and to put words in his mouth.  I think the next thing we need to do is hear from Richard Kavesh, and from Mr. Weathers, to find out which one of them drafted those ‘€œquotes’€.  Then we should ask them why they need to mislead Nyack voters to run in the Nyack election.  It is a little short of amazing that Nyack voters actually get SOME choice in this election, because in this one-party town, that is as rare as an illegal secret vote by the local Democratic committee to designate Kavesh as their primary candidate.

What is the problem here.  Mr. Kavesh won the Nyack primary (true), the County chair has to support the Democratic candidate (true), and Mr. Kavesh was elected by an illegal secret ballot vote of the local committee to make him the preferred candidate (true), where ‘€œillegal’€ means that the county, state and national rules of the Democratic party REQUIRE OPEN VOTE for the candidates being selected (true).

What is it about Mr. Kavesh, that even the tiny handful of the members of the local Democratic committee who voted for him, dare not do so in public to be accountable. Nyack has about 6000 votes, about 2300 democrats; the local democratic committee consists of 100 to 125 individuals; about fourteen  of them showed up for the vote to endorse the primary candidate, about 5 members abstained, so a split secret vote of about  9  individuals put Mr. Kavesh in the favored position in the primary, which he won because so many people ran that the vote was split up into lots of bits and pieces.

What is it about  Mr. Kavesh, who has ‘€œserved the people of Nyack with distinction’€ for so many years and apparently (or single-handedly) ‘€œled’€ nearly all the very, very few and far between things that the Village has actually accomplished in those years that he needs to make up quotations to put in the mouth of the County chair to endorse him.

Folks in the Democratic party rely on their party to make up their minds and put the right people on Row A, but how was that done here.  How did Mr. Kavesh get the boost of being the selected, endorsed candidate entitled to reap the benefits of one-party votes in a one-party town.  He got selected in an illegal vote by a tiny cohort of the voters. It looks a little weak doesn’t it.  About 9  people split in a secret and illegal committee vote.  A wide-open split among multiple candidates in the primary with the ‘€œmachine’€ vote of the party making all the difference in the final outcome, and now, for the main election, a necessary but pro forma endorsement by a party chairman that is beefed up with fictitious, self-inflating quotations drafted it seems by the candidate himself, but never uttered from the mouth of the Democratic committee chairman, Vince Monte.

Ask Mr. Kavesh; ask Mr. Weathers: why do you guys have to do that?

Let’s see if they come back and tell us these are the verbatim quotes from Vince Monte.

If they do, then you know you have a real integrity problem coming into clear focus.