Letters to the Editor

Medical insurance costly for local volunteers

To the Editor:
It was announced on Monday that Obamacare will require local municipalities to pay medical insurance for volunteer firefighters because the IRS has ruled that these volunteer firefighters are employees of that municipality.
There are approximately 870,000 volunteer firefighters in the U.S. — 10,000 of those in Nassau County alone. Can you imagine what it would cost the residents of the Village of Lynbrook in taxes to pay for our 225 volunteers?

Objects to press conference photo

To the Editor:
 
It’s truly wonderful that, thanks to our South Shore community’s loud and consistent voice and the vocal leadership of County Executive Ed Mangano, Legislators Howard Kopel and Denise Ford and town officials, that the Nassau County Legislature has finally authorized $722 million to fund a complete overhaul of the Sandy-damaged Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant.
  Unfortunately, the Herald must have missed the memo. In the Nov. 28-Dec. 4 edition, the headline “Funding OK’d for sewage plant” was next to a picture of Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams and members of the Legislative Democrat minority — the very same people who consistently voted against funding the plant until after the most recent election.
  For the Herald to write that Mr. Abrahams and his Legislative Democrat Minority “announced the approval of the funding” that will be used for the repairs is nothing short of outrageous. Mr. Abrahams and his Democrat caucus members, save one, consistently voted against doing this. They were the impediment of making the plant and our quality of life better at a quicker pace post-Sandy.
  Mr. Abrahams’ politically motivated press conference you featured in a photograph will never erase the scars to our communities and environment he and his caucus needlessly caused by their repeated failure to support repairs and upgrades to the plant.
  There has been no change to County Executive Mangano’s original proposal to make the necessary repairs. It only leads me to ask the question: Doesn’t Legislator Abrahams’ body ache from all the flip-flopping he’s done on this issue?

Anthony J. Santino
Councilman, Town of Hempstead