Rockville Centre Letter to the Editor June 17, 2010

LIPA’s rates, and the village’s

To the Editor:

A letter in last week's Herald, "LIPA's doing it — why not the village?" asked when and by how much the village's electric power supply charges to customers would decline in parallel with the Long Island Power Authority's recently announced reduction.

The answer is that the Village Electric Department operates somewhat differently from LIPA, which residents should be glad of since it means that our service to customers is far more responsive and our rates far lower than LIPA's. In fact, the latest average residential bill comparison (for 750 kwh of general service during May) shows that village residents paid less than half of what LIPA customers paid ($70 vs. $152).

But because we operate differently from LIPA and because of the complications those differences entail, the fuel charges on our bills and on LIPA's bills are not easy to compare. We are required to make monthly fuel adjustment charges; LIPA is only required to do so annually, though it may decide to make additional adjustments, as it has recently.

We continue to incorporate monthly fuel cost adjustments into our charges to customers, all of which are regulated by and reported to the state Public Service Commission (LIPA's are not). The last 11 fuel adjustments, dating back to August 2009, have all been reductions.

We hope our residents are happy with our service and with paying half of what LIPA customers pay for electricity.

Frank Quigley

Village Administrator

Rockville Centre

Commends SSHS for Newsweek ranking

To the Editor:

Newsweek recently recognized what many of us have known all along: The quality of education in Rockville Centre public schools is unparalleled.

The magazine ranked South Side High School third in New York state and number 51 in the country. The rankings were based on the number of students enrolled in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses as well as the graduation rate among seniors.

I give my sincere thanks and congratulations to Dr. Carol Burris, Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, the fine faculty and the parents of each student. It's because of their perseverance that our community is shaping today's learners into tomorrow's leaders.

Anthony J. Santino

Councilman, Town of Hempstead

Says Tea Party is civic, not political

To the Editor:

I was disappointed to read Carol Ashley’s letter "Keep politics out of the parade" (June 10-16) regarding the Rockville Centre Tea Party Patriots participating in our Memorial Day Parade.

As co-organizer of our Tea Party group, I take offense to many of her allegations, especially that we marched in this parade in order to "seek publicity" and that we are only a political organization.

I can't speak for every Tea Party group in the nation, but I would like to set the record straight about ours. We were organized 18 months ago as a "patriotic, nonpartisan civic organization."

Our 400-plus members have protested self-serving Republican and Democratic politicians equally. We couldn't care less what their political affiliation is. If you're a dirty politician, you can expect a visit from us.

We are also an extremely patriotic group of people who many times have lined the streets holding flags honoring fallen heroes as their funeral processions drove by. We have attended street renaming ceremonies, flags in hand, tearfully honoring soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for us all. We have protested the installation of a garbage incinerator in the town of Freeport, which would have a negative ripple effect on the quality of life for residents here in our own village. And most recently, we joined 5,000 other people to protest the construction of a 15-story Muslim cultural center and mosque across the street from the World Trade Center site. This was designed to be a poke in the eye to all New Yorkers, especially the families of 9/11 victims.

All of those protests were civic, not political.

Of course, we are also mad as hell about high taxes. Yes, we are no longer accepting of politicians who don't listen to us. And no, we don't want government-run health care. This makes us political? No, it makes us an organized bunch of residents who want to improve the quality of life for all of us.

The bottom line here is that a contingent of about 50 of our patriotic members took the time to march, lay a wreath, and honor those heroes in uniform who served and those who lost their lives protecting us from harm. Nothing more, nothing less.

I respectfully invite everyone to come to one of our meetings to see what your friends and neighbors are doing to make our country a better place to live, instead of listening to the rantings of MSNBC and CNN, which make us look like a bunch of right-wing radicals every chance they can. Maybe then we can all come together with some mutual understanding.

Bryan Korman

Co-organizer

Rockville Centre Tea Party Patriots

Help with those dreams

To the Editor:

Athletes Helping Athletes of South Side High School recently collected gently used baseball and softball gear to donate to Hogar del Niño Padre Fantino orphanage in La Vega, Dominican Republic. The generosity of the school and Rockville Centre communities — we received more than 200 items — resulted in success equivalent to a game-winning home run.

We are especially grateful for the bulk donations made by the Rockville Centre Little League. In addition to equipment, the league also provided uniform jerseys and pants — enough to outfit several teams.

On behalf of South Side Athletic Director Carol Roseto and fellow members of Athletes Helping Athletes, we sincerely appreciate the many donations made anonymously as well. And we thank Monumental Shipping of Flushing for its gracious offer to ship the items to the D.R., and the Herald for running notice of this drive.

It is gratifying to know that as the children of Hogar del Niño Padre Fantino play ball on their fields of dreams, our community helped to make those dreams come true.

Megan McGrath

Thomas Kane

Rockville Centre