Letters To The Editor
Email: editor@ gcnews.com

Help Sponsor An Orphan

To the Editor:

As parents, we take seriously our responsibility of instilling the value of love, compassion, generosity, service and charity in our children. The Lent season provides a wonderful opportunity to learn and to practice these values. We want our children to be grateful for the many blessings that that they receive daily. My friend Kathy Billanti and I are coordinating a "spiritual adoption" project whereby our children "adopt" an orphan child from Kenya, Africa that is currently sponsored by the St. John's Kenyan Children's Foundation. These children range in ages from 4 to 17 years old. During Lent, our children will pray daily for their adopted child. Our children will also have the opportunity to exchange pen pal letters with the Kenyan children. The letters will be mailed through my home address in order to protect the privacy of our children (except when the family chooses to correspond directly with them). The participating children and their families can also make some sacrifices during lent (e.g., give up pizza night, movies or other treats) and donate the money to purchase an Easter gift for the orphan child. It should be noted that the Kenyan children are in need of the most basic things. Last Christmas, they wished for a blanket!

Our main goal is to get our children to think about the meaning of Lent and to commit to performing certain acts of love, prayer and sacrifice. I have gotten involved in this project because it teaches our children to appreciate their many blessings and it gives them an opportunity to become personally involved with children in need. Kathy Billanti has traveled to Kenya and has witnessed first hand the many needs in that country. Kathy, along with a group of local Garden City residents, has been instrumental in setting the recently established St. John's Kenyan Children's Foundation, which mission is to provide education and to promote the welfare of Kenyan orphan children.

Families wishing to participate in this project, please feel free to EMAIL me at marta.waters@att.net or call me at 739-0842. You may also contact Kathy Billanti at kob322@optonline.net or at 742-2991.

Marta Waters

Unfair Ticket

Printed by Request

Justice Court - Village of Garden City

To whom it may concern:

I live and work in Garden City. My work office is located on the west side of Franklin Avenue, 1100 Franklin Avenue to be exact. There is a story behind a parking summons that I just received, and I need to vent.

As you are no doubt aware, our area was severely affected by the Nor'easter on February 14 th. Our cars were frozen solid, our streets were poorly plowed and the parking lot behind my building resembled an ice rink. That day, I arrived for work and I parked in a spot in the back of the building facing a tree. It turned out to be a poor decision. That night, the snow and ice prevented me from successfully backing out of the space, and because I parked facing a tree, I could not pull ahead.

The next day, I arrived for work at about 7:45 a.m. The parking lot was empty but because of the ice and snow, it was impossible to identify the parking spaces. To avoid the problem I was confronted with the night before, I did not park facing a tree. Instead I parked in an open area, leaving myself an alternative plan to get out of the space that night. When I left the office that night, I found a parking ticket stuck in the crack of my driver side door. The summons is for "Not Parking Head In".

Am I the only one who fails to see the humor in this? How could I possibly park "head in" when there is no way to determine where the parking space begins and ends? It happens that there was a Garden City Auxiliary Police SUV parked in the corner of the lot with its lights on. I drove up to the truck in an attempt to reason with the officer, but I was unsuccessful. Why? the officer was sound asleep and did not hear my voice. The truck number was #379 (the evening of 2/15 at approximately 5:30 p.m. I don't even know if he is the same person who wrote the summons.

So, first I'm ticketed for parking the wrong way in a parking space that was impossible to identify. Then, in an attempt to reason with an auxiliary officer, I find him asleep in a Village vehicle.

On days like these, auxiliary officers should be driving around town trying to help people cross the street, climb stairs without breaking their necks, scrape their car windows, start their cars, pull out of parking spaces or doing whatever it takes to help people overcome any obstacles they face. Instead, they are napping in warm trucks in the back of parking lots and ticketing cars because of the way they parked on the heals of a winter storm! What is wrong with this picture?

It's not about the $15.00 fine. Here's the check for $15.00. It is about doing what's right. And there is nothing right about this. It's good to know that our Village taxes are hard at work.

Carl J. Garraffo

Snow Removal

Printed By Request:

Honorable Mayor and Board of Trustees

Village of Garden City

Dear Mr. Mayor and Trustees:

Wednesday, February 14th was a difficult day for all residents in the Village and the region. Snow, ice and freezing winds tied up all manners of transportation, but even Jet Blue rebounded by today.

Walking to the shops on the south side of Seventh Street, between Franklin and Hilton today, one can observe the "good neighbor" commercial businesses, and the not-so-goods. Most retail stores and offices have cleared their sidewalks of the snow and ice, but other have left their walks treacherous, with little or no attempt to lessen the risk of serious injury to the shopper who opts to "Shop Garden City." We are aware that the Village requires snow removal from sidewalks within a reasonable time after the event, but six days later, and counting, is inexcusable.

By the way, just west at the Garden City Library, conditions are as bad as the worst above, and driving along many of the Village's main streets reveals that a great many homeowners also have not shoveled their walks to date.

Snow is an act of God, but shoveling one's walk is the law and fundamental citizenship. Please see to it that our law governing sidewalk snow removal is rigidly enforced.

Robert N. Nouryan

Editor's Note: The above letter originally contained a list of stores who either did or did not do a good job clearing ice and snow from their property. We encourage readers to bring the problem to the attention of the owners and managers of such stores directly so that they can address the problem promptly.