CANDIDATE’S LAMENT: Aaron Morse, Spring Valley

I feel like I let down a lot of people during my runs for office. My first time I learned a lot about running a campaign and met a lot of wonderful people.

My second time I had a plan to bring my message directly to the people but linked up with two people who believed slogans were more important than talking facts. In hindsight, walking around with now-Trustee Francois and his comments of unity and working together was a joke.

It was very telling when he decided not to show to his first workshop and abstain from just about everything because in my opinion he had no idea what they were talking about. He got on this board and spent more time worrying about Tony Mallia’s employment than what is actually happening in our community.

No after-school program, no functional Kurtz Center, no parks and rec programs.

We have community leaders claiming housing abuse on tenants but no trustees leading the fight. Even this latest issue with Hi-Tor. Why are 18 percent of the animals in Hi-Tor coming from Spring Valley? That is a huge issue in itself.

Today I drove past a young girl walking her dog with no leash. Is it that people do not know how to take care of their pets and turn them in when they are done as they would with an old toy?

They don’t know because they are so hung up on the expense. I wish Asher Grossman and Sherry McGill cared so much about expense-control before this issue emerged. It could have saved Fonvil from being arrested and saved the village millions in legal fees, but let’s fight a $75k bill that protects our community and its pets.

Let’s also not forget the pit bull that attacked a young Hasidic kid a few years ago. It’s a big issue and it is being ignored by our board. All this is very unfortunate because I believe we have a mayor who has the knowledge and staff to fix these issues, get services flowing again, handle the Hi-Tor issue and bring education to our community to promote homebuyer and financial health.

He is too busy dealing with other issues to bring true progress. A trustee should be asking what the mayor needs to get the job done rather than how to fight them when all it is doing is hurting you and I.

My message to the community at large – Pick an issue and fight for it.

Don’t get wrapped up in protection a politician because their feelings get hurt. If they are a public official they have to be ready to deal with what comes with the job. While the person I’m sure is nice, the politicians seem to only care about their power, their benefits and their paycheck.

I openly admit I supported the wrong cast of candidates in the past, but it doesn’t mean we cannot have a promising future. I’m not even saying you need to pack the board rooms. The members of this board live in our community and should be held accountable. They go to your churches, they eat at the same restaurants and they join at the same meetings.

If you do not bring your issues to them and demand their attention then you will not get improvement.

When I read comments and complaints about how we are losing our community it makes me angry. We have had leadership that in my opinion lacked the passion to improve our community. Financial education, home buyer education programs, job training programs were non existent for many years due to our leadership not thinking our residents should be taught this.

We have had educators on our board but no push for education programs. It is very confusing but is it really? It is quite possible the goal here is to keep our residents down so the wrong people can stay in power.

I did promise to stay more active and I will in the coming months. For now, I am working on bringing those financial educations programs to our residents because I feel that is the most important thing I can contribute.

  aaron morse, spring valley