MANVILLE: Councilman Szabo responds to letter on health benefits

Letter to the editor

To the editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to respond to a letter that was recently submitted to this newspaper by Manville resident Gary Skirkanish, and his misleading and inaccurate accusations he made towards me and my service to our community.
In his letter, Mr. Skirkanish stated that, "I have a history of voting no for everything in town." And to a few items he stands correct. I did vote no to raising Manville residents’ taxes, while the Democratic leadership voted yes to raising your taxes. I did vote against the out of control spending that has occurred by this same leadership, while the Democrats voted yes. I also voted no towards closing the police station, while the Democrats voted yes towards closing it and putting resident’s safety at risk. And recently I voted no on a resolution that threatens the future of our rescue squad, the same volunteers who have spent many years sacrificing their time to ensure Manville’s residents had a source to emergency services without having to rely on outside sources. And once again, the Democratic leadership voted yes to basically begin the path to closing our rescue squad down.
Regarding the statement Mr. Skirkanish made in reference towards health benefits that the Mayor and Council receive for their service, he should once again check his facts instead of making his own untruthful story up about this issue. The health benefit plan was adopted under Resolution 2003-45 on Feb. 24, 2003, and re-adopted under Resolution 2004-91 on April 26, 2004. And during this time frame, I was not even an elected member of this governing body.
Regarding my running mate for council, Dayna Camacho, I would like to say this; there is no other person that I would rather have to serve with us on the Council than Mrs. Camacho. Dayna is a very strong person, who uses common sense decision-making, with every taxpayer and resident’s interests in mind at all times. She is an honest hard working mother of two children, and is not afraid to stand up for the citizens in Manville, never intimidated, and will make the right decisions that will only benefit everyone in our town, not just a handful of friends.
In closing, I would like to urge all of Manville’s residents to support myself and Dayna Camacho on Nov. 4, and help us to help you, the residents of Manville, have leadership you can trust and count on to ensure our town moves forward with everyone’s best interests in mind and accounted for.
Steve Szabo 
Manville 