To the editor:

I must rebut Dan Reilly’s guest commentary (“The new politics do not help Saranac Lake”) of July 24. Too many errors of fact and misstatements.

He refers to my “erroneous understanding of the state election law residency requirement.” In my letter I never referred to state election law. If he had actually read my letter, I referred to New York State Village Law Section 3-300 (https://tinyurl.com/Exhibet1) that states that to be eligible to serve as an elected official of a village, one must be a resident of that village.

I agree with him, to run for office you do not need to be a resident. But, to hold the office you need to be a resident. That is state law. Period.

Reilly calls me an election denier. I do not deny that Mr. Williams won the election. I accept the results of the election. But, to serve as the mayor he needs to live in the village. By his own sworn statement, he does not.

The question of actual place of residence is often in dispute. In this case we have Mr. Williams’ sworn affidavit (https://tinyurl.com/Exhibet5) that his primary residence is outside the village. By 1.5 miles. There is no dispute about that fact. He has sworn to this to save himself thousands of dollars a year in property taxes.

Mr. Reilly says that if we use this interpretation we would lose valuable employees. But, Mr. Reilly, there is no state law saying these other employees you named must live within the village. New York state law only requires elected officials to live within the village.

So please Mr. Reilly, get your facts straight before spewing erroneous allegations.

Mr. Williams does not live in the village, by his own sworn statement. New York state law requires elected officials to live in the village to assume and hold the elected office. These are two irrefutable statements of fact.

Rich Shapiro

Saranac Lake