Guest Commentary: Greg Ball

To the Editor: 

I'm known for my independence, and I aggressively support capping property taxes and state spending, freezing school taxes for seniors, term limits, ethics and campaign finance reform, and cracking down on illegal alien employers and slumlords. 

Voting against over $300 billion dollars in bloated state budgets and against over 183 tax increases, I am a fiscal conservative. I support capping property taxes and state spending, freezing school taxes for seniors, and finally passing term limits. My independence has forced me to step on some very powerful toes, even in my own party, and every two years the powerful Albany insiders that I have taken on, the same ones who cannot pass a budget on time, unite to run a negative campaign against me. 

These Albany insiders fight against my grassroots efforts not by debating the issues that matter most to you or your family, but by running a vicious and negative campaign against my grassroots effort. 

Knowing that I have strong grassroots support, my well funded opponent is now going "nuclear" and throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, in my direction. Her backers, entrenched Albany insiders, are desperate. 

Those living in my Assembly district, who I have had the honor of serving, have been through this type of "scorched earth" campaign against me before. 

• When I first ran in 2006, the insiders sent slanderous letters, unsigned and untraceable. The voters were enraged and we won by 72 percent. 

• In 2008, they hired private investigators and spent over $500,000 in three different and illegal campaign accounts attacking me relentlessly and personally. They sent a horrific mailer about a restraining order that NEVER existed, and even the liberal Journal News exposed their slander. Again, the voters saw through those lies, and we won again, by nearly 75 percent. 

• Now, in 2010, they have created another unsubstantiated story, and they are desperately selling this slander, as well as trying to rehash the old lies, and selling these once again to you as fact. 

They are pushing these lies with unidentified push polls and mailers. They are harassing voters like you relentlessly. Sadly, as these entrenched and powerful Albany insiders continue to attack me, your taxes continue to skyrocket, Albany still hasn't passed a budget, and thousands of New Yorkers, just like you, are packing up and leaving. 

As the elections in September and November approach, these insiders are going to spend each day trying to discredit me personally and professionally. Whether they are successful, through lies and slander, is up to you.