To the editor:

Have you noticed? Our Supreme Leader, Justin Katz, doesn’t like to be criticized. He never responds to the substance of the criticism.He just attacks the person or persons who criticize him using half-truths, creative distortions, and misrepresentations about them. He reminds me of a small time Joe McCarthy, the disgraced senator from Wisconsin who carried mudslinging to a new level. 

In the most recent example, Katz was trying to distract attention away from his improper actions regarding the Carpionato proposal that I referred to in my prior letter. The impropriety of his actions was also called out by the group Don’t Mall Tiverton and by the real-estate advisor to the landowner whose property Carpionato would buy - noteworthy because they take opposing views on the huge 64-acre proposal.

Rather than drawing the logical conclusion that if opponents on an issue both agree that an elected official’s actions are improper, then the most reasonable conclusion is that the actions are indeed improper, Katz invented a conspiracy theory in which Don’t Mall Tiverton and the realtor are now in bed together.

But neither mudslinging nor far-fetched conspiracy theories will distract Tiverton residents from this plain hard truth: Mr. Katz, our Supreme Leader, needs to be recalled on October 10.

Louise Durfee

Tiverton