Writer challenges candidate about questionnaire

I have been a lifelong, traditional Republican and had the honor to serve my community for seven years before leaving Vernon’s Town Council to attend to a terminally ill parent. In the past several weeks I have been reading with great interest letters to the editor. One that piqued my interest was from Harry J Shortway, a “Regular Republican” candidate for Town Council and the apparent spokesperson for the “Shortway, Pier and Benda Regular Republican” team. By now many of you have had the opportunity to read the letter. I feel compelled now to tell you, to quote the late Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story.” But, what is most alarming is how Mr. Shortway has chosen to respond to the Vernon Taxpayer Association questionnaire to the candidates for Vernon Town Council. The group apparently invited all the candidates to respond to a questionnaire. Mr. Shortway was the only one who responded from the Shortway, Pier and Benda “Regular Republican” team. What is amazing is, evidence I have seen suggests Mr. Shortway, a teacher in the Jefferson Township High School, plagiarized his responses from works on Internet Web sites to at least five of the questions, with some of the plagiarized responses verbatim from those sites. In fact, one of his plagiarized responses was verbatim from a work done by a UNC Chapel Hill Master of Public Administration student. In high school, plagiarism is graded with a zero with the trust of the student questioned from that point forward. Mr. Shortway, you and your team apparently have scored a zero with Vernon voters and broken the public trust without ever serving a day in office. I strongly suspect Republicans in Vernon are looking for more in their elected leaders. Vernon residents are looking for people like Sally Rinker, the Independent candidate with real Republican values, who has a long history of business in our community and participation in Vernon’s various boards and commissions. Neil Desmond Vernon