Letters to the Rockville Centre Herald Oct. 27, 2011

Kearns has chutzpah

To the Editor:

Some things you just can’t make up! At the last village board meeting, Marybeth Kearns, a former chairwoman of the Planning Board, attempted unsuccessfully to smear the reputation of Tony Cancellieri, the village’s management consultant, despite his 40-plus years of stellar government service.

Mrs. Kearns cited a lawsuit of a former Nassau County employee as a reason why Mr. Cancellieri may not be a good choice. Nonsense! While serving as chief deputy county executive, Cancellieri was largely responsible for turning what was labeled the worst-run county in the U.S. to an award-winning government model. A $400 million deficit was erased, eight Wall Street bond upgrades were given to Nassau County and the list goes on. This success followed a 15-year run as village administrator of Rockville Centre during which it was voted the premier village in New York.

Shame on Mrs. Kearns for being so political in attacking the mayor’s very wise selection. Kudos to Mayor Francis Murray for being such a progressive thinker.

  By the way, if I’m not mistaken, while serving as chair of the Planning Board, Mrs. Kearns unsuccessfully delayed and held up the Chase Partners/AvalonBay project, resulting in a lawsuit against her and the village that caused taxpayers $1.1 million.

What nerve! What chutzpah!

Jeff Greenfield

Rockville Centre

Mayor’s consultant squanders taxpayer dollars

To the Editor:

What is so critical about the next 90 days that our new mayor sees fit to call on his office-cleaning work experience to sweep away the current village administrator (with a salary of $12,000 per month) and sweep in a consultant to supposedly perform the same tasks at $20,000 per month — an increase of 67 percent?

Why would our office-cleaning mayor, acting independently of the board, sweep in this 67 percent higher cost, three-month consultant when the village comptroller will perform the administrator’s tasks during the transition period? The comptroller has done this for the last two transitions!

What will be the delineation of responsibilities between these two? To whom will the village department heads be responsive? Who will actually run the village during this 90-day transition?

Why does our mayor even need to add a $60,000 consultant (who may be bearing a Marley ball of chains) expense to village taxpayers to “successfully navigate the next 90 days,” which includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s — a period when business, especially the public/government sector, slows down?

Why doesn’t our mayor get that adding this expense doesn’t save taxpayers money, but rather squanders it on needless and duplicate efforts?

Is this arbitrary action an indication of his capricious ways, or the first of a series of calculated moves and the village taxpayer be damned? I for one do not place any trust, faith or confidence in someone who was swept into office based solely on nepotism!

Russ Grogan

Rockville Centre

USPS provides professional service

To the Editor:

Postal employees are just like you: We don’t like to wait in line anywhere, either. That’s why we put great emphasis on prompt, professional service that minimizes wait time in line while providing the skilled, personal attention needed for complex transactions.

At the Rockville Centre post office and elsewhere, we are making a concerted effort to match our staffing with the known peaks of customer traffic.

Our intent is to serve every customer quickly and courteously, every time.

Yet even neutral observers recognize that the Postal Service shares the problem of occasional long lines with banks, supermarkets and other retail outlets. We know your time is valuable, and that’s why we’re working to make your access to postal products easier, inside our facilities and out.

In addition to 32,000 traditional post offices, access to postal products and services is available at an additional 70,000 retail locations. Postage stamps are available within one mile of the post office, at CVS and Walgreen’s pharmacies, at TD Bank, and beyond that at supermarkets and Costco stores. Stamps by Mail envelopes are available, and rural letter carriers who serve parts of Long Island are truly post offices on wheels, capable of stamp sales on the route.

Postal customers who don’t like to wait in line may prefer to be online. Our website, www.usps.com, is a post office at your fingertips, averaging more than 1.3 million visitors each day. We’re also as handy as your smartphone: More than 1 million iPhone, iPod touch and iPad customers have downloaded the U.S. Postal Service mobile app since it launched in December 2009. The application shows the closest post offices, automated postal centers and blue collection boxes. Maps and directions to the closest location — driving, walking or mass transit — are available.

As we continue to work through many changes in today’s Postal Service, we appreciate feedback from customers — by phone, in person or in the mail — because it helps us focus on areas that don’t meet your expectations. We also actively solicit feedback with point-of-purchase surveys on customer receipts and with independent polls conducted by Maritz Research. That research helps us to improve and adapt the Postal Service to changing customer needs.

Today’s postal customers have many choices. That’s why we value your business and work hard, every day, to provide the level of professional service you expect and deserve.

 Lorraine Castellano

District manager

Long Island District, U.S. Postal Service

How he’d handle village code offenders

To the Editor:

Thank you for publishing “Increase fines for public urination” (Sept. 29- Oct. 5) regarding public urination violations in Rockville Centre and my recommendations for curbing the ubiquitous crass act. I’ve read with interest other letters on the subject, which indicate substantial public awareness of the matter.

I’ve also received many calls and have been stopped on the streets in town by like-minded residents. They also commented on other pertinent issues that affect the ambiance of our community, which reflects greatly on our attractiveness to both local and out-of-town patrons of village restaurants, the theater and other fine shops. They expect at least a modicum of a welcoming appearance as well as cleanliness. But if left neglected, the much-needed patrons will seek other places in Nassau County to take their families.

There appears to be another issue: smokers who, now forbidden to smoke in restaurants and stores, step outside, and leave in their wake at closing time a mound of cigarette butts that would make anyone wretch at the smell. Somehow interspersed with the discarded nicotine nubs are thousands of spit-out wads of gum that, over time, have become stuck in the cement in and around the rear entrances of a number of establishments on North Park Avenue near Sunrise Highway. Simple, suitably sized cans filled with sand and placed outside those establishments, would be a perfect location for discarded butts. Another can for gum could also be used, with, of course, suitable signs (in a number of languages) instructing people on how to use them.

I’ve been asked by many people what fine I’d impose on violators of the public urination law. I would say $300 for a first violation, $500 for the second and $1,000 for a “three-peat” offender. I will practically guarantee compliance with the ordinance after the first few fines are imposed. But to be fair, it would require that businesses install signs in their restrooms, notifying patrons of the new law and the fines. (The signs can be printed by the village and sold to the businesses as a source of revenue. Not much, but every penny counts these days.) The cigarette and gum fines both could be $150 for the first offense, $200 for the second and $300 after that.

I happen to love this village and those who make it tick, including the mayor and trustees, the police who keep the peace, firefighters who protect us and our homes, the office workers and various department personnel, the people who live here and the store owners who have chosen to earn their livelihood in this fair town. We are all one large, diverse and proud people. We cannot afford to allow our village to decline into a morass of decadence.

While the issues may seem trite to some, they are the first signs of a loss of dignity. If we lose personal dignity, public dignity isn’t far behind. Many an empire has fallen for the lack of moral dignity. We are Americans, and we are better than that.

Mickey Clark

Rockville Centre