Letters to the Editor: Lynbrook, East Rockaway

Plant funding a piecemeal approach

To the Editor:


 Your coverage last week of the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant, “Funding OK’d for sewage plant repairs,” failed to mention that our community is not receiving anywhere near the funding necessary for the complete rehabilitation of the plant that was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

The Nassau County Legislature’s Democratic minority purposefully and inexplicably blocked the complete $722 million funding request from County Executive Ed Mangano to fix the Bay Park and Cedar Creek sewage treatment plants. At the Bay Park plant alone, electrical components were estimated at $365 million — much more than the approved amount. Instead, the Democratic minority is insisting on a piecemeal approach to repairing the plant.

The Democrats are clearly playing politics with our community’s health, safety and well being by purposefully voting against funding the amount — and without giving a reason. While just one Democratic legislator, Dave Denenberg, joined the Republican majority to support the entire $722 million request, the other eight purposefully withheld the needed number of votes for the measure to pass.  

It’s shameful that, once again, critically needed repairs at the Bay Park plant have been put on hold to satisfy a partisan political agenda. Instead of supporting Mangano’s firm commitment to a complete and total overhaul of the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant, all but one of the Democratic legislators made it clear that politics is more important than our community’s well being.

I am reminded of a famous headline in the New York Daily News that neatly encapsulated President Gerald Ford’s refusal to support a federal bailout of New York City during the 1970s fiscal crisis: “Ford to City — Drop Dead!”

The Herald would have done a better job conveying the Democratic legislators’ actions with a similar headline.

Anthony J. Santino 

Councilman, Town of Hempstead