For a long time, the definition of the word chutzpah was a child who killed both his parents and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan. 

In a recent newspaper article, Robert “You gotta break some eggs” Doherty has given new meaning to the word chutzpah when he claims that he and colleagues, by exercising “financial prudence,” have put the county and its residents back on the path to prosperity. 

Really? 

Let’s just take one glaring example of the havoc wrought by “Break-Eggs Bob” and his boys. Back around 2019, Chairman Doherty and his cohorts took over the county legislature, and immediately set about trying to cash in by selling the Care Center at Sunset Lake, copying scurrilous attempts made in Orange County to sell off the Valley View Nursing Home. 

Much of the money Doherty claims to have saved Sullivan County was made at the expense of the health, care and support of seniors at the Care Center at Sunset Lake. 

At the time Mr. Doherty and his crew seized control of the legislature, the care center had a five-star rating, with excellent resident health care, adequate staffing, decent food, adult day care and other socialization programs.

When it became apparent that they would not be allowed to sell it, Mr. Doherty and crew arranged to lease the facility to Infinite Care, a group whose care turned out to be less than infinite, and in one case proved to be fatal to one of the dwindling number of residents forced to live under increasingly deteriorating conditions. 

Staffing was slashed, socialization and health care programs eliminated, and the facility’s ranking by the NYS Department of Health fell from five stars to one, with a “red hand” symbol cautioning that the facility had been “cited for abuse.” 

Mr. Doherty and his crew have broken not the proverbial eggs but their pledges to care for and help the residents of Sullivan County. Nothing good comes from backroom scheming and bullying people to gain one’s own nefarious ends. 

It is long past time for county residents to rise up and reign in Rob Doherty and his disreputable cohorts for their mishandling and mismanagement of the Care Center at Sunset Lake and county affairs in general. 

If they won’t mend their ways, starting with restoring the Care Center at Sunset Lake to its former vital and vibrant self, then we need to throw the rascals out come November. The residents of the care center and Sullivan County deserve nothing less. 

Star D. Hesse lives in Narrowsburg, NY.