Vote No On ObamaCare

To the Editor:

I implore all constituents of the 4th Congressional District to demand our Representative(?) Carolyn “Pelosi’s Pet” McCarthy vote against ObamaCare. She never read the House version and voted for it! Now she’ll be voting for a Senate version she hasn’t read. Will she ever hold a Town Hall meeting? Doubtful.

Do you really want the Government taking over one-sixth of the economy? The same government that bought us the Post Office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! You want the government coming between you and your physician, a Federal bureaucrat making decisions regarding your healthcare. If ObamaCare was so great, why does it take effect after the 2012 election, while the tax increases take effect immediately? Do you know they are taking $500 BILLION from Medicare to fund Obama’s boondoggle? Contact McCarthy and tell her to vote with her constituency for a change by voting NO on ObamaCare!

McCarthy’s Contact Info:

GARDEN CITY OFFICE

300 Garden City Plaza, Suite 200

Garden City, N.Y. 11530

Phone: (516) 739-3008

Fax: (516) 739-2973

An Overtaxed 4th District Constituent

Thomas P. Brosnan

Residents Deserve Commitments

To the Editor:

Next Tuesday, March 16, is the Village election during which we will vote to fill four of the eight Village (not school) Trustee positions. Roughly 35% of our property taxes go to the Village, and as of the last public budget meeting the 2010-11 Village tax levy was projected up 8.6% versus last year.

This is an important election because, unlike our school, only the Trustees have to vote to pass the village budget and take on new village debt. So, why haven’t the candidates made public their positions on taxes and debt?

It is our money. And, why are there only four candidates?

Given the environment, we believe Trustee candidates should commit to keeping tax increases below 3%, vote down new debt proposals, demand operating efficiency gains before further deferring infrastructure maintenance (like roads), and be accessible to residents. Simple commitments like these, that respect residents and protect the beauty of the Village of Garden City, are not a lot to ask of our Village Trustees. It is our money. If we do not demand more of our local officials, how could we ever demand more of our national representatives?

Ron Tadross

Ray Rudolph

Access Denied

To the Editor:

On the morning of February 11, two representatives of the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) braved through blizzard conditions for a pre-arranged visit to St. Paul’s. At the urging of The Garden City Historical Society, aided by several trustees, the tour had been scheduled a week earlier. Their visit was supposed to give them a first-hand look inside the building. They intended to use the viewing to provide advisory input that might help to support preservation. Trustee John Watras arranged for the tour, with the support of Trustee Don Brudie and Trustee Andrew Cavanaugh, who also met the SHPO reps and Historical Society members when they arrived at St. Paul’s.

Village administrators cited insurance and liability concerns for not following through with the St. Paul’s tour, even though the SHPO representatives wrote to the Village saying that they were willing to sign a waiver and wear protective gear. After years of neglect and mismanagement, Village officials now claim the historic main building is no longer safe for visiting. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth saving. Now more than ever, The Garden City Historical Society and The Committee to Save St. Paul’s call upon the Village to work with preservationists to save our Village Treasure.

Preservation groups throughout the region have promised to work together with us toward a sound, fiscally responsible alternative plan to demolition. Spending millions to crush the main building into rubble is not the answer.

In the coming months, the debate over the main building’s future will be reaching a new crescendo. The Village will soon be releasing an environmental impact report on demolition for public response and comment. Notwithstanding the Village’s recent reticence to allow interested groups into the building, the public has the right to know what they will be losing if the main building is demolished. The Historical Society and The Committee to Save St. Paul’s will be sharing photographic and video evidence of this irreplaceable monument to Alexander Stewart. A free DVD, “Save St. Paul’s Now: Protect Garden City’s DNA,” is available to Garden City residents through the Historical Society; please request a copy at thegardencityhistoricalsociety@

verizon.net. The video is available for viewing online at:

The CSSP “News” page (www.savestpauls.org) and on the home page of the Historical Society (www.gardencityhistoricalsociety.org).

The Executive Committee

Of The Committee

to Save St. Paul’s:

Peter Negri

Ed Keating

Frank McDonough

Maureen Traxler

Playing Field Fees

Printed By Request:

Dear Village Board of Trustees:

Proposal to Charges of Fees for Use of Village Owned Playing Fields I understand that there has been recent discussion of imposing fees for use of the village athletic fields and the Saint Paul’s Field House. If fees were imposed, it would have extreme negative effect on our young people, on Garden City Schools, and the non-profit organizations that are already stretched to the limit.

The immediate effect of this would to throttle and ration the use of athletic fields, reduce schedules, reduced the number of games and practices, reduce our competiveness in sports like Lacrosse and Baseball, higher fees to program participants, and families having to make cutbacks in participation for financial reasons.

a. Charges fees will reduce the amount of time our best athletes get on the fields. Many of our Garden City young people go onto to get sports scholarships to college; I have personally coached many. Without the financial support of these scholarships, these young people would have reduced educational opportunities. Today nearly every sports scholarship recipient plays his or her sport year round, and on multiple travel teams. If you charge fees, the number of games they can play will go down, and the number of scholarships will go down.

b. Garden City Public Schools sports teams will be impacted severely in the medium term. In the past years, our teams have won championships in football, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, and many other sports. Our high school and middle school feeder systems will be disrupted and young kids teams will have to cut back and throttle their schedules to compensate for the high costs of program participation.

c. Fees being charged to participants are already reaching the tipping point. Seven Year old Thunder football now costs a minimum of $350 to play (fee and equipment charges alone). On many travel teams, it already costs $1,000 or more per year to play, and going up.

d. Our anti-substance abuse efforts in our community rely on providing after school activities to keep our kids busy. Increasingly we are seeing use of pot, cocaine, and more recently a heroin threat. About the dumbest thing we could do now is to cut back on the programs that keep kids busy, particularly teenage boys who have a propensity to find trouble when there is nothing else to do. Charging fees to the sports non-profits will result in a material reduction of program hours offered by local non-profits.

e. Imposing fees will encourage users to circumvent the permit process, which our Recreation Department needs to properly manage its resources.

My own experience gives me special insights. A lifelong village resident, I am a former Recreation Commissioner, former employee of the village of Garden City, graduate of St. Anne’s and St. Paul’s Schools, GCAA Baseball and Softball coach for two decades, former scheduler for all GCAA baseball and softball schedules, founder of the Garden City Bombers Baseball 501-C non-profit, former president of the Central Property Owners Association, former Chairman of the Joint Conference Committee, Long Island Administrator of Major League Baseball RBI youth sports programs, and former liaison between the POA’s and substance abuse prevention programs. I also played myself in our local sports leagues as a kid, and my own children and more than thirty members of my own extended family have played in almost every athletic program conceivable at Garden City public schools, St. Paul’s, St. Anne’s, St. Joseph’s.

I understand the idea is well intentioned, but this one is so bad that it should be killed, now.

Joe Mohen

In The Cause Of Freedom

To the Editor:

While recently walking past the September 11th memorial here in Garden City, I was reminded of that fateful day where so many lives of our friends were taken from us, as well as that sense of security that was ‘a given’ for all of us who lived and were born in this country. It was an international crime manifested locally here in the greater metropolitan area, and was an event that literally changed our D.N.A as a people.

What we must be vigilant in protecting are our essential values that separate us as a people. America was founded and has persevered, in part, because of its optimism, and we must never allow that innocence to evaporate. The U.S. was a nation created to ensure that the energy of freedom and opportunity might exist, the potential of human creativity and natural, unforced individual initiative would drive men and women to dream and break the bounds that limited humanity in other lands, civilization would flourish, it was believed, in our democratic system. This was not a blind idealism, but a measured practical understanding of reality that worked to strengthen our society.

We won the second world war largely because these ideals were ingrained in our sensibilities. Our communities pooled their resources because we knew that we were unbeatable only when we were united. Whether liberal or conservative, rich or poor, left or right, we knew our enemy sought to ruin our optimism before destroying our unity.

We did not, as some would lead you to believe, as the result of any ‘patriot act’ or through technology. Nor did we win the war through political intrigue, scheming or trickery although such games may have been played on both sides for various reasons. It was substance that led to the eventual result of Hitler in that bunker in Berlin, simple human willpower, hard work and initiative and featured the labor of both the weakest and strongest amongst us. In short we won by being the people we have always been, fair and generous. That war proved that ideology will lose to reality as it will in this fight we now find ourselves.

We owe it to all those who lost their lives in the cause of freedom, during our great history, to not only return to our values that made us great and we must also remember September 11th, 2001, throughout the year, not just for one day every September.

Louis A Bevilacqua