LETTERS

Letters to the Editor

Posted

Tax repackaged as a ticket?

To the Editor:

The title of your article in last week’s Herald should have been “County implements street tax on middle class Long Islanders,” instead of “Slow down in school zones.”

While the director of the Nassau County Traffic and Parking Violations Agency can claim that its goal is to make our roadways safer, it really is quite laughable. He, and folks like him, along with some of those who supported this legislation, love to hide behind the safety of our children. It’s a great tactic and they know few would argue against it, but to use our children as a shield to protect themselves from their inability to get the county’s fiscal condition in order is reprehensible.

While they can quote all the statistics they want, the facts are pretty simple: The county needs the money, so they hired an outside, for-profit company to do one thing, and that is to collect taxes for a piece of the action, while the county makes out like a bandit with their shooting fish-in-a-barrel revenue scheme.

What about the Village of Lynbrook? What do we get or not get? For starters, the village is set to lose a sizable amount of ticket revenue because we don’t share in the county’s booty, and we no longer have the ability to ticket speeders in these zones. We do get an increase in traffic on our side streets from folks driving around the speed zones to avoid them — and that certainly will not improved safety. Oh, and we do get yet another tax, repackaged as a ticket, all in the name of safety.

Honestly, as a resident I felt a lot safer seeing a Lynbrook village police cruiser at North Middle School, catching the real traffic offenders.

Paul Celentano, Lynbrook resident