It appears that our very own I-Bot (as in me, myself, and I), acting and disguised as our town supervisor, needs a reboot of his sound track, as apparently it is stuck repeating itself.

Once again two pillars of our community, Carol Fenton and David MacLennan, have been unceremoniously ejected from their volunteer community service as members of our Massena Memorial Hospital Board.

In his dismissal letters Steve O’Shaughnessy regurgitates the same tired mantra of “failure to improve financial conditions of MMH and failure to install a management team capable of leading MMH” that he used to previously dismiss Susan Bellor after her short tenure as chairperson.

In taking these dismissal actions, O’Shaughnessy is not restricting his considerations for taking action on the actual periods in which their appointments as Chairpersons have been in effect (Bellor – 5 days, Fenton – 8 days, and MacLennan – 0 days) but, the totality of their service as community volunteers.

If this is the case, then O’Shaughnessy is guilty of enforcing a double standard. Massena Memorial Hospital is owned by the Town of Massena. O’Shaughnessy has made that patently clear. Then, according to New York State law (https://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/townoff/ito.pdf) O’Shaughnessy serves as the treasure of the town and is tasked with conducting its financial affairs as Town Fiscal Officer.

Yet despite being Town Supervisor since January 2018 (400+ days), O’Shaughnessy has failed “to improve the financial conditions of MMH.”

Equally disturbing and contradictory is O’Shaughnessy continued insistence that these pillars of our community have somehow failed to ”install a management team capable of leading MMH.” This despite the fact that he is, and has been, a member of the Massena Memorial Hospital Board - first as a town board liaison and now as town supervisor.

Again we are faced with a double standard. Is O’Shaughnessy tasked with the sole responsibility, as he repeatedly claims, to appoint and dismiss members to the MMH Hospital Board at will. If so, then it would go to hold that he has ultimate responsibility as to whether a “management team capable of leading MMH” is installed. Something he claims others have failed to do.

Unfortunately for these fine volunteers, this town supervisor has held them to a set of double standards for which he has apparently declared self-immunity. Fortunately for us, we can still hold him accountable come Election Day.

Robert Elsner

Massena