I'm writing this on Veteran's Day, and you'll read it a few days later. To start with a personal chuckle. my granddaughter Serenity (AKA Zen) said today was 'Veteran's Day Observed' as if the 'observed' was not in parentheses on the calendar, but as a normal part of its title. Smart kid; funny and smart, sometimes she not knowing why she's funny.

But in keeping with my curmudgeon outlook (and wishing nothing would change) I really feel we should go back to the name Armistice Day. The day we 'ended' war for all time, the Great War, the war to end all wars. The war memorialized by more monuments in the United States and the free world than any other conflict. The war that gave us F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and the 'lost generation'. The war that gave us even more death and destruction twenty years later.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all who voted for me and aided in my campaign for Lansing Town Justice. A special thanks to Mike Sigler, Ed Lavigne and my wife Sharyn.

Also another congratulations to Maura Kennedy-Smith for her win. Maura will do an excellent job for our town. I support her 100%.

Dick Costello
Lansing, NY

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An Open Letter to Members of the Lansing Gun Club:

Two years ago your gun club agreed to a consent order with the EPA to stop shooting lead shot into the Salmon Creek corridor at your club in Ludlowville by March 31, 2018. Based on your written estimate of 100,000 rounds per year, we calculate that you have been dumping around 3.5 tons of lead into our community every single year for decades. Lead is a potent toxin and there is no truly safe level of lead in our water, air, or soil.

Dear Lansing Gun Club Members,

Why would you choose to willfully harm our community's health by expanding your gun ranges to both sides of Salmon Creek?

You have chosen to continue to use lead shot which leaves a powerful neurotoxin in our environment.