To the editor:

When on January 22, Sullivan County District 1 legislator, Robert Doherty, posted his defamatory remark against legislator Alvarez to the county's website, he made clear his reckless disregard for liability he exposed taxpayers to.

You'd think levying an unsupported accusation, using taxpayer resources to do so, and misrepresenting his personal grievance as the Legislature's, would have set off alarms for the County Attorney, Michael McGuire. How then did McGuire advise his clients: Alvarez, Doherty, and the entire legislature?

The lawsuit Alvarez has since filed places a finer point on whether our tax dollars going to pay McGuire deliver sound advice for his clients and, in turn, us.

It's inconceivable he'd been unaware of Doherty's defamatory remark, if only because he represented the county on February 18, where he heard witnesses to the record confirm no knowledge of where it came from. And we know Doherty's remark remained on the website six weeks, through some time on March 11, all of which circles back to my question.

In December, I discussed in these pages that the public record indicates McGuire misrepresented ownership status of our Adult Care Center on multiple occasions last year, and that doing so stymied the Legislature's work.

In May, I also discussed in these pages how the record indicated my legislator, Alan Sorensen, along with Doherty, Conklin, Brooks, and Salamone, circled their wagons to justify hiring him, despite the state Commission's decision last March to remove, then Judge McGuire, from the bench for cause.

“And if that's the kind of leadership we can expect from this group of mostly newbies … we could be in serious trouble”, I wrote in May. A shady appointment, misrepresenting status of the Care Center, and now the Doherty-Alvarez affair, says that's where we find ourselves.