The old village site can still be viewed via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Monticello website back on-line

MONTICELLO - Drawing attention to allegations of fraud in the March 16 Monticello village election was the reason webmaster Tom Rue gave for deleting material from the municipal website on which he held the copyright. Upon restoring his files to the website, Rue donated the copyright to the material to his friend, the outgoing Mayor of Monticello to do with as he felt appropriate.

The site returned to the World Wide Web on March 24 in the condition which Rue left off maintaining it. He turned his copyright to text and photos on the site to the outgoing Mayor.

Rue quit maintaining the site in a March 17 letter to members of the village board and manager Richard Sush. That letter and others are publicly posted on Rue's website at tomrue.tripod.com.

The following “Public Notice” dated March 24 appeared at the bottom of the base page of the restored village site at www.village.monticello.ny.us:

"This website went dark for a period of seven days from March 17 to 24, 2004 in protest of election fraud during the March 16, 2004 village election, alleged by ordinary voters who were not involved in any campaign and whose only desire was to participate in democracy. The essential point about which this writer felt strongly enough convinced to dramatize by the act of temporarily removing his privately owned copy and images from this public site has been made. The fate of the persons who are said to have engaged in the aforementioned acts is out of his hands. But it remains his duty as a matter of conscience, as for citizens of any free nation, not to stand silent in the face of injustice.

"Now, out of respect for Mayor Gary P. Sommers' true and honorable campaign that he and his friends ran, the Monticello website has been restored to the World Wide Web. All copyright and ownership of original content, photographs, and images on the Village of Monticello website that were prior to this date the property of TSR Graphics are hereby transferred at no cost or fee whatever to the Hon. Gary P. Sommers individually, to do with as he sees fit from this date forward in his sole discretion."

The notice is initialed by Rue as "former website maintainer and consultant for the Village of Monticello (and former copyright holder to original material residing herein.)" The notice includes hyperlinks to a different website where documents and articles regarding election fraud allegations may be read in their entirety, at tomrue.tripod.com.

Rue urged regular users of the village website to call or e-mail Sush and demand that someone be found to take over the site quickly. “Tell him you want a new website, and among other things it should include an archive of minutes of all Village Board meetings. The public has a right to know what its government is up to, and there's no excuse in this day and age for a municipality not to have an up-to-date, meaningful website,” Rue wrote.