Chronicle Publishes Letter By "Troubled Individual," Chester Supervisor Responds.

Town of Chester Supervisor, Brandon Holdridge, responds to Mr. Jay Westerveld's controversial op-ed published in the local newspaper.

There are a number of stories I'm currently working on.

Unfortunately, there is also a holiday coming up.

There's nothing unfortunate about this special holiday.

I fucking love the Fourth of July.

It's the day we can all celebrate our imperfect union while renewing our pledge to fix it until it's perfect for everyone equally.

However, the timing of the holiday is unfortunate because it is tough to finish those stories when people—especially your elected officials—are all on vacation.

So, first, as an FYI, your friendly neighborhood reporter will also be on vacation from Thursday, July 4th, until the morning of Monday, July 8th.

Before I go on break, I'd like to address a couple of things happening within the community.

We'll tackle one involving the Town of Chester today.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about the other in Monroe.

Let's start with the Town of Chester.

As some of you know, The Photo-News in Monroe is our imperfect local weekly newspaper. This year, we've covered some of the issues with The Photo-News, including:

• Not properly labeling an ad from The American Chemistry Council.

• Not fact-checking Woodbury Village Trustee Freiband's statements.

• Allowing Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone to dictate their editorial policy.

Today, I want to direct your attention to The Chronicle, the sister publication of The Photo-News at Straus.

Recently, The Chronicle published a letter from Mr. Jay Westerveld. In it, Mr. Westerveld made several accusations about Chester Town Supervisor Brandon Holdridge.

The Chronicle should have reached out to Mr. Holdridge to examine the claims made by Mr. Westerveld. They did not.

The Chronicle also did not ask the Supervisor if he'd like the opportunity to respond to Mr. Westerveld.

Since the newspaper is weekly and Southern Orange County has a significant elderly population, many Chronicle readers would have had to wait at least a week for the Supervisor's response.

I get that this is the old way of operating for some newspapers. You get a letter to an editor from a crank, publish the letter from that crank, and move on with your life.

But the old way is dead.

It died on August 1st, 2004, when Craigslist started to charge for classified ads in New York City and Los Angeles. This ushered in an alternative (less expensive) route for people looking to place classified ads.

Everything that followed August 1st, 2024, can and has been described by numerous authorities as an extinction-level event for America's media industry.

Since that day, we have also been increasingly inundated with misinformation and BS.

Especially online.

So, it's my opinion, and that of The Monroe Gazette, that this policy of running Letters to the Editor without any fact-checking is irresponsible for newspapers and dangerous for the people who read them.

Since The Chronicle didn't speak to Supervisor Holdridge, The Monroe Gazette did.

We also spoke with Mr. Tim Mitts, a New York State 42nd Senate District candidate, about Mr. Westerveld.

Mitts recently filed a complaint with the New York Division of Human Rights against Mr. Westerveld.

According to Mitts, Mr. Westerveld is a supporter of Monroe Town Councilwoman Dorey Houle and has undertaken a campaign of harassment against him. This is because Mr. Mitts successfully challenged Mrs. Houle for the Conservative Party Ballot Line, making the State Senate race this Fall a three-way dance between Skoufis, Houle, and Mitts.

In a statement provided to The Monroe Gazette, Mitts said:

I find the actions of Mr. Westerveld is very appalling. I personally think that the New York State AG's office should investigate and incarcerate him for his comments and the use of a false Facebook page to spread hate.

This harassment happened mainly on Facebook, with Westerveld being accused of setting up multiple Facebook accounts to harass Mitts.

(A source told The Monroe Gazette that Westerveld, unsolicited, had done something similar on their behalf: Setting up multiple fake Facebook accounts and posting disinformation in local groups on behalf of that person.)

People in local Facebook groups, of which Mr. Westerveld is a member or administrator, should be skeptical of comments made in these groups.

In speaking to The Monroe Gazette, Chester Town Supervisor Brandon Holdridge referred to Westerveld's comments about the Chairwoman of the Chester Conservation Advisory Council as an "utter fabrication" and Mr. Westerveld a "troubled individual."

Supervisor Holdrige told us, "It was recommended to the Town Board by an internal vote by the Conservation Advisory Council to appoint Martine. This is a regular process done by all our committees that I have created. Usually, they need a chair or Chairwoman, and it's always the committee's recommendation."

Holdridge added that, concerning the meeting when the vote took place by the Council, he was at the meeting but left before the vote took place. "I left so that the vote could happen and they could discuss it privately. I had nothing to do with the vote. I didn't know what had happened with it until multiple days after it occurred."

When we asked Supervisor Holdridge what Mr. Westervelt's intentions may be behind writing a misleading letter to the editor, the Supervisor said:

"He's unhappy with not being included on the committee, even though he was. He was originally one of the original members of the Council back in February or January. He also has a long track record of not working well with people. He continuously bashed people on the committee, either to their face or over email, and was very nasty. And I had to sit down. I had to sit him down and say, listen, like I told you about this committee when you asked about it, you know, I wanted you to be on it. I still would like you to be on it. I need you to address how you speak to people and, you know, figure out how to communicate better because you're just being blatantly disruptive and rude to other committee members, and we're all equal here. No one is better than anybody else, so you're not allowed to talk down to people. And he refused to, he refused to take any action on that. So I had to, I took that. I told him, if you cannot do that, I will need to ask for your resignation. And he didn't respond. So I took that as his, you know, adherence to resigning from the committee, and now he's just on; he's been on the warpath ever since."

In his letter to The Chronicle, Mr. Westerveld identified himself as the co-founder of the Chester Conservation Council.

One final point I’d like to add is that if you read Mr. Westerveld’s letter in The Chronicle, you can see the same veiled, dog-whistle antisemitism and scare tactics that has characterized Monroe Town Councilwoman Dorey Houle’s campaign for the State Senate.

As I said yesterday, if places like Woodbury and South Blooming Grove even have a prayer of dictating their own future in the courts and in the court of public opinion, they need to call out this antisemitic shit whenever they see it.

Preservation is not antisemitic.

But “preservation” sure looks and sounds antisemitic when it’s coming out of the mouth of a “troubled individual” airing what seems to be a personal grievance under the guise of a political one.