To the Editor:

This year's race for County Clerk is shaping up to be quite the contest. In many ways it is as heated of an underdog story as when Patty Ritchie first ran for County Clerk over a decade ago. One can only hope that the outcomes will be similar, as well. Let us look at this objectively for a moment.

Mrs. Rupp, long time public servant, has more than just a record to stand on. She was effectively the co-pilot during the undisputed, most successfully run clerk administration this county (and likely all others in NY) has ever seen.

She was in on the ground floor, launching such extremely popular, profitable and beneficial programs as the downstate DMV processing, "traveling" passport registrations, and a turn around in customer service that took what was the epitome of civil service jokes in the '90s to what has become the leading (and probably only?) county department producing multi-million dollar surpluses consistently.

What other politician in the area can say that? What other politician in the COUNTRY can say that?

The fact that this election is even considered a race at all begs us to review the opponent's qualifications with distinct scrutiny.

Gavin Regan, despite a seemingly unassuming nature, has proven to be quite "the Decider" on many issues. In his first public address upon being appointed clerk, he is quoted in the Watertown Daily Times (March 14, 2011) referring to Mrs. Rupp as follows, "I'm not going to make any rash judgements on anybody". He then proceeded to fire Mrs. Rupp the next day, citing 'budgetary reasons'.

The firing in and of itself was Bush-ian enough, but then to cite 'budgetary reasons' makes him really appear to be going for a "Decider" streak. This would imply that Mr. Regan, whose 'extensive financial background' subsists of being a former finance committee member of a small country church, in less than a day, could first admit that he didn't know enough about the state of affairs to make a decision, slept, then through the powers of dream and quickbooks diffusion - absorbed all the financial intricacies of the ONLY department keeping the county out of bankruptcy, and by morning had deduced that it was fiscally responsible to fire his electoral opponent (who happened to be the senior person involved in the most profitable program keeping the county out of bankruptcy).

This sounds like solid "strategery" to me.

I can honestly say that I would love to use Mr. Regan's words to assess his candidacy, but he doesn't even have a bio of himself on his electoral Web site (www.reganforcountyclerk.com- please, visit it). His actions to date don't do him any better credit.

He has reduced the processing of downstate DMV paperwork (because less volume will somehow equate to more revenue - I'm guessing this was through the same dream/quickbooks diffusion logic that led to other "deciserons"), renamed programs that Patty Ritchie and Mrs. Rupp launched, in an attempt to pass them off as his own ("Office on the Move" - it's been around for years, yet Gavin's been Clerk for only months - again, dream/quickbooks diffusion logic) and when all is said and done, the only savings he will be able to present come election day are the wages that would have rightfully been paid to the project leader of what has made this particular office, and this particular election, the prize that it is.

The choice is simple. Give credit where credit is due, and go with someone who both helped to create and build what could be again the most successfully run clerk administration in the state, or go with someone whose reckless policies have endangered the cornerstone of the county budget, and "stay the course"...right into bankruptcy. The "decisory" is yours.

Zachary Skelly

Ogdensburg