Editor’s Note: The following is a letter to the editor by Jeremy Wendt in response to reporting in October centering around workplace hostility claims made by former town employee and current Highway Superintendent Candidate Ed Thurston involving Town Supervisor Mike Ferrara.
Mr. Thurston’s claims of workplace hostility that led him to resign are complete blatant lies. I FOILED Mr. Thurston’s discipline records a few months ago and I can assure you that all of Mr. Thurston’s problems, when he was employed by the town of Seneca Falls, were self-inflicted.
He was disciplined for cheating on an exam that he was required to take after a week of classes at a regional 2-year college. He admitted to his co-workers that he cheated and even offered them money for the answers to the next test he was going to take. This class was one of many that Trainees are required to complete to get their Water Treatment license. He cheated! And, we the Town taxpayers paid for this class!
He was also disciplined for falsifying records at the Water Treatment Plant. The safety of OUR drinking water is monitored by a computer system. The treatment worker needs to test the water twice a day the old-fashioned way, in a lab. The testing takes about two hours. This testing is required in case the computer system malfunfunctions. He was too lazy to do the test and just wrote down the same numbers that were off the computer. In other words, he was jeopardizing the safety of OUR drinking water. He was again disciplined. After an independent investigation and hearing, he was found guilty of the charges by an independent hearing officer.
A few months later, he was again caught falsifying records in the Water Treatment Plant, doing the same exact thing that he was found guilty of doing previously. This time he resigned before he could be disciplined. My guess, this time he was going to be fired. He didn’t want to be fired from the Town of Seneca Falls because he was running for the Town…
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