Letter to the editor: Thursday, June 12, 2025

Criticizing Kent Hollow Mine coverage

I was disappointed by the newspaper’s superficial and one-sided account of the public comment on the Amenia Town Board’s settlement of their ten-year litigation with Kent Hollow Mine on May 15, 2025. The reporter, the editor and the publisher are all at fault. The reporter failed on three counts. She provided no details of the settlement itself; she relied almost entirely on the defense of the Town Board (delivered via their attorney and published verbatim for readers) at the expense of the comments of the public; she neglected completely the history of the dispute that led to the litigation. The editor failed by permitting this slanted version of the issue to reach publication. At the least, the editor should have required the reporter to indicate why there had been ten years of official and principled opposition to mining operations by this company at the South Amenia Road location. The “record” cited by the Town Attorney and the judge in the case was contested from the outset. The publishers LJMN Media, Inc. failed to honor their promise to supporters of this non-profit paper. They vowed that they would “dig deeper into local issues and take a closer look at the local controversies” involving town government. This article was an Amenia Town Board press release.
As a reader and supporter, I request considerably more spade work.

Laurie Nussdorfer

Amenia