Letters To The Editor

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Compassionate Court

To The Editor:

Below is a letter that I wrote, not long ago, to the Justice Court of the Village of Garden City. I believe it is self explanatory. A few days later I received a letter from the Justice Court returning my $50 check and informing me that my case had been dismissed. I would like citizens of Garden City to know that a check for $50 has been sent to the Memorials Committee of the Merrick United Methodist Church in memory of Debbi Schieffer, in behalf of the Village of Garden City, (where the virtues of compassion, reason and sanity, still prevail).

Dear Fairminded Citizens of Garden City:

February 26th of this year was a traumatic climax to ten days of an agonizing vigil at the bedside of my daughter-in-law, Debbi, who was in intensive care in Winthrop Hospital. She was recovering from leukemia and then, since chemo treatments had suppressed her immune system, a mild infection ravaged her body and made it necessary to place her on life support. On the 26th, after consultation with the attending physicians, we removed her from life support and allowed her to die. Parking at Winthrop Hospital is problematical. Since I am handicapped, we would sometimes park in a handicapped section. When no such parking was available, my daughter dropped me off, drove to the parking lot behind Lord & Taylor and walked back to the hospital. On the 26th, this was the case. When my daughter returned to the parking lot, there was a parking ticket on the windshield of the car – just what we needed to top off this horrific day. The ticket was for driving an unregistered vehicle since there was only a temporary sticker on the windshield. Somehow I had put the permanent registration in my glove compartment instead of affixing the sticker to the windshield. This does not seem to be the crime of the century. We put the correct sticker on the windshield and busied ourselves with funeral preparations.

A personal note, I am an 80 year old handicapped widow. I purchased a year old Honda last June and gave my ’98 Honda to a granddaughter who had just graduated from high school. After the funeral, my daughter, an expat who lives with her husband in the Netherlands, had to return home, I became ill with a viral infection and forgot about the ticket. Since I don’t drive at night and can’t walk long distances, it would have been impossible to appear in court in any case. I received a second notice recently and the fine was now $100. This seems usurious and exorbitant, so, in good conscious, I cannot pay $100 for having my registration in the glove compartment instead of on the windshield. If the Village of Garden City really needs my ‘widows mite’ to balance the budget, I will gift you $50.00 although I would have preferred to give the money to Debbi’s church as a memorial. She was a loving and giving person, beloved by all. I am sending you a copy of my birth certificate, Debbi’s death certificate and the permanent registration to verify what I have written in this letter.

Helen Schieffer

Need To

Strengthen DEIS

Mr. Robert L. Schoelle, Jr.

Village Administrator

Dear Mr. Schoelle:

According to the SEQRA regulations, as Lead Agency, the Village Board is required to specify “the extent and quality of information needed for the preparer” to adequately address each of the “impacts” to be covered in the Draft Environmental Impact Study. The Draft Scope presented to the community on May 7 is drawn with a broad stroke, and The Committee to Save St. Paul’s believes that the Village Board needs to strengthen the document in order to adequately protect the Garden City community and truly reflect the people’s wishes.

The Scoping document is particularly weak in the section entitled, “Impact on Historic Resources.” The Village Board must clarify that the Historic St. Paul’s Main Building is the only building of historic significance under discussion at the site. Ellis Hall, Cluett Hall and the gymnasium are not original commissions by Cornelia Stewart in memory of her husband, Alexander Turney Stewart, our Village founder. In addition, this community must be told what considerations will be addressed by the DEIS preparer with regard to the St. Paul’s Main Building’s listing on the National and State Registers of Historic Places.

It is equally imperative that this community is informed about the method the Village Board will use to select a “qualified” historic resource consultant. We expect our Village Board to hire an independent historic consultant with proven historic preservation and adaptive reuse background, who will clearly provide an objective analysis of the significance of the St. Paul’s Building. Interested members of the public must be allowed to comment on and critique the qualifications of any companies or individuals under consideration to serve as the consultant. We will not stand by if a consultant is hired who merely tells the Board what it wants to hear.

The Committee to Save St. Paul’s respectfully requests that the Village Board remove the term “mothballing” under the section addressing “Reasonable Alternatives,” because this term holds a view that the building will be draped in a tarp and left indefinitely to become an eyesore in this community. Rather, we implore you to rephrase this “alternative” as “Stabilization of the historic St. Paul’s structure and preservation for a yet-to-be-determined future use.”

Additionally, under this section, The Committee to Save St. Paul’s believes that the Village Board should be aware that elements within the Garden City community are currently gathering new information, from historic and development standpoints. Therefore, the Draft Scope should include a procedure for obtaining new information, and the means by which local groups and individuals can forward information in progress to the consultant for study, review and reporting.

While little community involvement in the process has been sought over the past 15 years, we expect this Board to include extensive public comment and input to ensure that the environmental decision-making process fully complies with SEQRA regulations. Indeed, the Village Board does not have a track record of transparency on the issue of St. Paul’s, and needs to communicate with the community in a clear and direct fashion. Garden City residents must be well informed this time around and given adequate and timely information on what is taking place.

Once again, we call on this Board to fulfill its legal obligations and to give the consultant a clear pathway to prepare a DEIS that is worthy of this community’s consideration. St. Paul’s has been with us for 125 years. Many residents are not ready to reduce our historic treasure, St. Paul’s, to a cloud of dust and a heap of rubble.

Sincerely,

Peter Negri, Ed Keating, Frank McDonough and

Maureen Traxler

Members of the Executive Committee of The Committee To Save St. Paul’s




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