Letters to the Rockville Centre editor Feb. 10, 2011

Village must be more inviting

To the Editor:

This letter is to voice concern over the increased parking enforcement in the Village of Rockville Centre. Consumers and village storefront owners are outraged as their businesses continue to be affected. We at Dodici Restaurant have had to resort to paying customers’ parking tickets to continue to provide customer satisfaction. In a tough economy, is it fair that a couple finally getting a night out away from their children, going out to dinner, finds a parking ticket on their car that was written at 10:30 p.m.? Not exactly a way to stimulate spending in our village.

Aren’t our village taxes high enough? How much is enough? What are we seeing for all the money that’s being collected? Many villages, such as Babylon and Lynbrook, beautify their downtown areas. Our downtown area is neglected. Our reputation alone is not enough anymore; we need to make the village inviting to people from surrounding areas. With all the vacant stores and roads in need of repair, the village should do something to encourage growth in our community. I think we’d all like to ask the question, Where is all the money going?

Christopher Santoro

Rockville Centre

Planning Board works to preserve RVC’s character

To the Editor:

In “RVC Planning Board proposes changes to village code” (Feb. 3-9), the Herald reported that the Planning Board had proposed changes to the village zoning code that would increase the permitted height of new homes from 30 to 32 feet. The Planning Board did not propose such an increase.

As the village zoning code is currently written, the permitted height of a home with a gable roof is measured at the midpoint between the eave (the lowest point) and the ridge (the highest point). While the current code limits the mean height (the midpoint) to 30 feet, the top of the roof may reach as high as 38 feet. The Planning Board’s proposal would limit the height of all new homes to 32 feet, measured at the highest point of the roof.

Thank you for informing the community about the efforts of Mayor Mary Bossart and the Board of Trustees to preserve the unique character of the Village of Rockville Centre.

Planning Board

Village of Rockville Centre

Village should consider county police protection

To the Editor:

On Feb. 3, the Rockville Centre Democratic Club was pleased to have our longtime county legislator, Joseph Scannell, address us regarding the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority takeover. Club members pressed Scannell on one particular issue: What would his and the Democrats’ alternative be to County Executive Ed Mangano’s budget, which was rejected by NIFA as a prerequisite to the takeover? Scannell offered no specific substantive changes, and fell back on the comfortable position that consolidation is the best solution to excessive taxation in Nassau County.

During the course of the discussion, Scannell confirmed that roughly half of the Nassau County police force receives annual compensation of $150,000 or more. This obviously implies that the county force has far too many experienced personnel, and further, has failed to properly manage its hierarchy over the past couple of decades. The towns and incorporated villages most likely have similar problems, and you can be sure they all have some well-paid chiefs. Taxpayers must find a way to put an end to this trend. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pitched the idea of a 2 percent annual cap on tax increases, but many are suggesting exempting health insurance increases and other mandates from the computation. These exemptions, if enacted, would water down the tax cap and render it ineffective. The real idea behind the cap is to force some hard decisions.

Many villages in Nassau County do not have their own police forces, and their residents receive additional tax assessments from the county for police protection. If Rockville Centre and other villages disbanded their forces and let the county take over police protection, the county could start to rectify its hierarchy problem by hiring less-experienced officers (at lower compensation packages), and have experienced personnel concentrate on higher-level functions. The cost savings could be spread among county taxpayers.

I believe this is the type of consolidation Scannell is talking about. Perhaps we’re incapable of making these kind of logical changes to our governing structures without a solid statutory tax increase cap to force the issue.

Steven Atlas

Rockville Centre