In a letter to MyRye.com, former GOP city council candidate Jana Seitz discloses what it was like running versus current then city council candidate and now Democratic mayoral candidate Josh Nathan.
The letter:
Dem Ol’ October Surprises
The October Surprise thrown at me when I ran for city council in 2021 broke my heart. Not so much because it was a lie, but because my opponent (and friend) Josh Nathan had made a promise with me to run a clean and fair campaign. Then he broke it. When I asked why, he looked me right in the eye and said, “Because I wanted to win.”
His surprise had been to paint me as a not-to-be-trusted Trumper, flooding Rye Moms with messages such as “Jana Seitz Is Not Right For Rye” and basically lambasting my character. I remember it well because I was scrubbing the toilets at Edith Read in preparation for our Annual Meeting when my phone started blowing up in my pocket. And all because he “wanted to win.”
Another October Surprise was delivered Friday to the city council and mayoral candidates against whom Josh is now running. But this time he has an arsenal on his side: the town newspaper. He still “wants to win.” I suspect he and his friend (and mine) Jon Elsen, current editor of the Rye Record, have been scheming for months, planning a full throttle attack for the eleventh hour. They played nice until the moment their opponents could no longer defend themselves against a stacked deck, flagrantly including in their assault “this is our last print edition before the November 4 election.”
My hope is their scheme will backfire. It’s so blatantly biased, unfair and unethical as to be an embarrassment for a paper of record. People say no one reads the Record anymore. I certainly don’t know. But I ask that you read the latest edition (October 24) and see the surprise for yourself. Then vote your conscience. I’m proud to be on the team that chooses to fight clean.
Jana B. Seitz
