Town of Amherst

FOR MOHAN, A MYSTERIOUS 5 GRAND:

How popular is Amherst Supervisor Satish B. Mohan? Apparently $5,000 worth.

That's how much an anonymous admirer mailed to Mohan on Friday - in $100 bills.

The money, enclosed in a plain brown envelope, was wrapped in a note to Mohan saying: "We like what you are doing," officials said Tuesday.

"We were told that's never happened before," Mohan said.

"I never heard of anybody sending 50 $100 bills in an envelope. That's unbelievable," said Town Clerk Susan K. Jaros, who was summoned to the supervisor's office when the money was discovered.

"They wanted to know if this had ever happened before," Jaros said. "We went and got rubber gloves. Nobody wanted to touch any of it."

The envelope and the note were addressed to Mohan, but he was in a meeting when the mail arrived, so he was not present when it was opened.
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The note also directed that the bills be deposited in the Highway Department's account, a fact that Highway Superintendent Robert Anderson took as a vote of confidence. "It makes me feel great," Anderson said.
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Since his upset election victory last November, Mohan has attracted widespread support both inside and outside Amherst. A soft-spoken University at Buffalo engineering professor, Mohan, 70, is a native of India who came to this country about 30 years ago to attend graduate school.

In announcing his first run for public office, Mohan explained that he was entering the campaign to give something back to the town where he reared and educated his family.

Mohan's office receives dozens of messages daily, most of them from well-wishers. He said he was pleased with the cash gift because "people are supporting us in any way they can."