This Letter to the Editor in the Scranton Times Tribune points out that democracy should come first for our elected representatives, but in this case four Dunmore Council members betrayed our trust.
Neighbors sold out
Editor: Keystone Sanitary Landfill and its owner’s politics are present every day.
We saw evidence of that on Sept. 19 when Dunmore Borough Council ruled that the landfill is not a structure.
That’s meant to be assumed. That’s why the yearslong fight by Friends of Lackawanna seems newer than it is to Jeffrey Belardi, the landfill’s attorney, along with council members Thomas Ehnot, Michael McHale, Michael Hayes and Carol Scrimalli, in particular.
The precursors to the nation’s founders believed it necessary for society to act in the eye of the people and to develop a higher moral authority, to be a “city upon a hill.”
Puritan leader John Winthrop, who often is credited with making that original reference in public, is long removed.
But what we should assume and believe is that our leaders are willing to be scrutinized, aware that the will of their electors ought to be recognized, and sacrifice for their constituents. We ought to expect democracy to come first.
Ehnot, Hayes, Scrimalli and McHale did the opposite for their community on Sept. 19. It’s not new. Some reportedly chose to take dinners with a once-indicted business owner. Some chose to make purposefully misleading public statements. All thought they wouldn’t feel the heat from the people who mattered.
Say their names again: Thomas Ehnot, Michael Hayes, Carol Scrimalli and Michael McHale all chose to sell out their neighbors. Those four people chose to betray our trust. They chose the interests of one businessman over the public will.
The “hill” isn’t ours, and neither are our representatives. Vote them out. Live in a borough on a real hill.
SEAN CUFF
PITTSBURGH