Letters to the Rockville Centre Editor Feb. 24, 2011

Fair warning to those who would disband P.D.

To the Editor:

I read with great interest “Village should consider county police protection” (Feb. 10-16) concerning the disbanding of the Rockville Centre Police Department in favor of having Nassau County Police Department coverage. I believe there are some issues that the writer is not aware of.

To begin, village police officers would be absorbed by the county, where they would work fewer hours, be better compensated and have more opportunities for advancement and diversified work than exists with the village.

That said, it would be business owners and residents who would suffer the ramifications. Residents would no longer have a service-oriented police force; they’d have a reactive department where maybe two patrol cars would work the village. These officers would be called out of Rockville Centre when a need arose in another part of the county, leaving no police protection in the village.

With its own force, Rockville Centre has a minimum of six officers plus a supervisor dedicated to the village 24/7/365. If you call us now, you have an officer at your door within one or two minutes. With a county force you’d wait 10 times as long. The cost to the village would be exorbitant, as officers choosing to retire would have to be paid their contractually guaranteed separation from service money. Plus, the village would have to compensate the county for that money to officers opting to transfer to the county.

On another note, to close the doors of a Police Department with over 118 years of service excellence and tradition would be a slap in the face to the retired and deceased members who gave so much of themselves to make this great department what it is today.

I give those who would disband our local force fair warning: Be careful what you wish for, for if you receive it, you may need an officer and he’ll be a half hour away.

James Carty

President, Rockville Centre

Police Benevolent Association

The LIRR snuck one past us

To the Editor:

As a senior who enjoys live theater in New York, I always purchase six round-trip tickets at a time from the machines at the Long Island Rail Road station in Rockville Centre. That way I always have a ticket in hand when I decide to go into the city.

My last purchase — on Jan. 11 — was at the newly increased rate, and I did not look for or notice another change. I discovered that new “difference” when, early this month, my wife and I headed into the city. (The storms in January and some time out of the country curtailed our theatergoing last month.) Our recently purchased tickets were no good — invalid — because they had missed their “not after Jan. 24” date! It seems tickets are now only good for a week or so — not a year, as previously. When did this change go into effect? When were we, the riders, told?

I think it is outrageous to make the tickets I purchased in good faith invalid and worthless. Secondly, it forces me to become the token nuisance. Taking advantage of my senior status, I will now buy my tickets on the train, causing the conductor to go through his endless ticket-punching/change-making ritual at the inconvenience of the other passengers. No more Mr. Nice Guy and good citizen buying tickets in advance — especially since I don’t know when a storm will keep me from traveling or keep the LIRR from moving on a schedule.

I checked with someone at the customer service desk in Penn Station and he sympathized with my case — he told me I might get something back if I pay a $10 service charge. He also suggested I might go on the “buy-as-you-go-on-the-train” route — but don’t quote him.

Isn’t it time to make a consumer stink about the LIRR’s underhanded ways?

Martin M. Pegler

Rockville Centre

We need to rein in school spending

To the Editor:

It is so refreshing to see that with the football season over, school Superintendent Dr. William Johnson is in midseason form, blaming the problems in the Rockville Centre school system on everyone but himself.

The budget crunch we face is attributable to a governor who has been in place less than two months, Johnson says, rather than a school administrator who has been in place for far too long. This, of course, is from a Democratic governor, no less, whose father was no stranger to tax hikes, and who says that taxes in New York are way too high and need to be cut.

These cuts should be equitable, Johnson says. Yeah, tell that to the people who live in the ultra-depressed economies upstate. We’ll have to figure out how to deal with this, says Johnson. There are costs that we have no control over, says Johnson. Then he turns to the bureaucracy that he controls to explain it.

What he fails to realize is that he controls costs, all costs. He should get rid of his two assistant superintendents, his car, the assistants upon assistants, trips and all of the other nonsense that has built up over the years. He should stand up to the unions and the bureaucracy that reports to him. The sense of entitlement that pervades this system amazes me. Two things occurred to me recently. The first is that if many of our residents left their houses unencumbered with mortgages or anything else to our young adult children, they would not be able to afford them. Why? School taxes.

The second is, why did I think that Johnson would in any way be motivated to change this system? Why change it? What he and his cohorts all around Long Island fail to realize is that like the dinosaurs, who failed to adapt to changing times, they will become extinct. We cannot afford all of these overpaid administrators anymore.

Brendan J. Cahalan

Rockville Centre

How not to get elected

To the Editor:

The Herald columnist Jerry Kremer “The truth is going to hurt” (Feb. 3-9) is a member of an old, disappearing club: “The No Free Lunch Politicians Club.” These are the kinds of men and women who can’t get elected now.

It started with Ronald Reagan, who embraced the Laffer Curve: if you lower taxes, the economy booms, everybody makes more money and you pull in more taxes with a lower tax rate. This works in an expanding economy. It doesn’t work in a recession.

Reagan wound up with the biggest deficits this nation ever had (George W. Bush, the great war leader, tried to do the same thing). George H.W. Bush called Reagan’s budget “voodoo economics.” He lost because too many Republicans were mad at him for raising taxes.

Bill Clinton, however, raised taxes on the rich. The economy boomed. For example, the gross national product rose at an annual rate of 4 percent for 116 months. That’s the longest stretch on record. We had surpluses in the budget for three years in a row, and the federal debt decreased by $363 million.

Those are facts, not opinions. But many folks don’t like facts these days. They think you can fight an unlimited war against terrorism, not raise taxes, and somehow the money will appear. They will tell you they want to cut spending. Look at the federal budget. The three biggest items are defense spending, Social Security and Medicare. If you aren’t willing to make massive cuts in all three, you won’t come close to balancing the budget. If you propose raising taxes on the rich, you’ll be accused of favoring “death taxes” and “class warfare.” Let me make this plain: Ninety-nine percent of the enlisted men who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan came from families that never had to pay the estate tax. Speaking as a combat veteran, I understand class warfare.

If you aren’t willing to end these wars, cut defense spending, cut Social Security and cut Medicare, you won’t come close to balancing the federal budget, unless you tax the rich. But if you do that, you can’t get elected, because too many people want a free lunch.

Ed Thorp

Rockville Centre

Thank you

for REACT

To the Editor:

Kudos to everyone at the Herald. Our community owes you a debt of gratitude. Your REACT (Richner Employees Assisting Communities Together) program is wonderfully generous, civic-minded and community-oriented, embodying all of the qualities we strive to achieve. As supervisor of SIBSPlace, a free community service program of South Nassau Communities Hospital, I fully recognize and applaud the contribution that Camp Sunrise makes to the population we serve.

Now in our 11th year, SIBS offers a prevention and support after-school program for the “well” children in families where a sibling or parent is struggling with cancer or another devastating illness.

We know firsthand how serious illness takes its toll on the bodies, minds and souls of families. The help and support families receive as they go through this life altering experience shapes future family dynamics and helps to develop a new “normal.”

I thank you for bringing attention to this vulnerable and needy population and hope that future articles will also include mention of other community resources available to those in need.

Suzanne Kornblatt

Supervisor, SIBSPlace