To the editor:

Read with interest the article on why John Katko is not holding town hall-type meetings. If I were him, neither would I. 

The article was very clear the meetings were going to be attended by “activist groups with a specific agenda and intended outcome. It would not matter what he tries to say (if he were allowed to speak), it would be the wrong response even if it were right.

If Ms. Curtin and company were to attend such a meeting and I also attended the meeting, I am quite confident I would not be allowed to speak or if I did, would suffer the same fate that they want to deliver Mr. Katko. 

I am befuddled by the fact that Ms. Curtin and company are so afraid of people who are not like them or think like them. That is how our country was founded with the give and take along with a good amount of civil decorum. All lacking now days. 

It was my understanding that Ms. Curtin and company were the very people who cherish diversity and inclusion, yet people like myself are now excluded and assigned various names because we do not conform to the philosophy and thinking of Ms. Curtin and company. If I behaved as Ms. Curtin and company do I would be assigned a bunch more not nice names and epitaphs.

To the author of this article, editor Sarah Hall, a question — when you went to journalism school, did they not teach you to present both sides of the argument? We heard from Ms. Curtin and company ad nauseam the article but not a word from what I would suspect would be the majority of Mr. Katko’s constituents who are more or less satisfied with his overall performance in Congress.

Thomas E. Smith

Baldwinsville