Letters to the Rockville Centre Herald Nov. 4, 2010

About Mangano’s tax plan …

To the Editor:

Let’s get something straight. Nassau County has never had to cover payments by school districts for assessment challenges when those adjustments were made on time. In fact, in 2002, the county received a 12-month extension on these assessment challenges, increasing the total time to 15 months. Why was that extension granted? It was expected that by granting it, the assessment rolls could be made less vulnerable to potential challenges. All the county had to do was use those 15 months to make timely settlements. If it had, we wouldn’t be arguing about the issue of responsibility for the tax certiorari payments now.

What is at issue here is that legal challenges to assessments have been permitted by the county to languish for years and years, accruing high rates of interest, only to eventually be settled anyway.

Faced with the enormity of these accumulated back payments, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano is now seeking to off-load the county’s obligations onto Nassau’s school districts. That way, he can make the claim that he has crafted a “no property tax increase” budget.

This isn’t the first time that Nassau County has tried this little bit of voodoo to make its financial problems disappear. In not one, but two recent court decisions, the county has been told that it has sole legal and financial responsibility for the flaws, errors and delays in its property assessment practices.

School districts play no role whatsoever in the assessment process and never have. Mr. Mangano’s new plan would now require each of Nassau’s school districts to hire more lawyers and support personnel to defend against any and all assessment challenges. Schools’ legal costs would assuredly soar, thereby shifting another county responsibility on to the local school property tax.

Any assertion that abandonment of the county’s lawful responsibility will result in “no property tax increase” is false and misleading. The money the county would keep for itself under this deception would grow exponentially in local property tax impact when transferred to the schools’ far narrower revenue base.

Message to Nassau County Legislature: Don’t rob the schoolhouse to fix your house!

 Jay L.T. Breakstone

President, Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association

Skelos urged to support marriage equality

The following is an open letter to Sen. Dean Skelos signed by many congregants of Central Synagogue of Nassau County.

Dear Senator Skelos:

I urge you to reconsider your position on marriage equality in New York state. Your vote against S. 4401 was deeply disappointing to me as your constituent and as a committed Reform Jew. The Senate’s failure to pass the legislation was a detrimental backward step on the road to equality. I urge you to help bring this legislation to the floor of the Senate and support marriage equality for same-sex couples when it is introduced in 2011.

Men and women who marry automatically receive more than 1,100 legal protections, benefits and responsibilities from the federal government and more than 1,300 from New York state, while same-sex couples in committed relationships are systemically denied access to fundamental family and financial protections such as medical decision-making authority, inheritance rights, tax rights (especially regarding the transfer of property), the right to make end-of-life decisions, the ability to adopt children as a couple, and the presumption of parenthood. Simply stated, this is not right.

Our tradition teaches that all people are created b’tselem Elohim, in the image of God, and should be treated accordingly. The Reform movement has long held that civil marriage between two adults, regardless of gender or sexuality, should be permitted under the law. This is a fight for civil rights. This is also a struggle for religious freedom: the freedom of communities to choose who they bless with the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

It is important to note that recognition of civil marriage equality would have no effect on religious marriage. Any clergy member who objects to marrying same-sex couples could continue to refuse to officiate at a wedding. Legalization would, however, allow couples to have a legal civil marriage and provide access to the thousands of federal and state rights and responsibilities given to heterosexual married couples today.

On Oct. 15, thousands of Reform Jews from around the state took part in the second annual “And Justice For All – A Reform Jewish Voice Shabbat,” engaging congregations as advocates for progressive social and economic policies at the state level.

Two years ago, after a yearlong formal process, our congregation changed our by-laws to include same-sex couples and their families in our definition of family. Our congregation voted overwhelmingly in support of this change. The time has come for our state to affirm the civil rights of all its citizens. I respectfully request that you reconsider your position and support marriage equality for same-sex couples. 

Rabbi Marc Gruber

Central Synagogue of Nassau County

Time to get our priorities straight

To the Editor:

I have been reading with some interest the letters to the editor and what their authors consider the major issues of the election. Almost without exception, they write about the economy and taxes. They don’t write about the wars.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, one half of 1 percent of the population of this nation has served in the U.S. military. If you include their families, parents, siblings, wives, husbands and children, less than 3 percent of the population has suffered the agonies of the wars.

After 9/11, President Bush declared war on terror — a war without limits, without exits — in the name of liberty. He told us to take a vacation, get on a plane and take a trip to Disney World. I couldn’t believe it. And to make sure we had the money to do it, he gave us a tax cut, 90 percent of which went to the wealthiest top 10 percent of Americans.

I did two tours with the First Infantry Division. But I was an artillery mechanic. Compared to the infantry, I had a vacation and I know it. But I was there.

Vietnam was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. But by thunder, those who fought it were the right people. They were my people, and still are. The men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan are my people, too. They’re just like the guys back in ’Nam: 99 percent of enlisted men come from families that will never have to worry about the estate tax.

I would suggest that a nation that declares an unlimited war for liberty and doesn’t want to pay for it is a nation that is doomed to failure.

Today, in the barren deserts of Iraq and the bitter hills of Afghanistan, there are men and women whose only prayer is, “Give me a tomorrow.” It’s time for the rest of us to get our priorities straight.

Ed Thorp

Rockville Centre

Thanks for your service

The following is an open letter to Bob Tolan, the outgoing president of the Rockville Centre Little League.

Dear Bob:

On behalf of the children of our community, we want to express our admiration and appreciation for your dedicated and distinguished service these past three years as president of the Little League.

During your time in the league, which included stints as a coach, manager, umpire coordinator, commissioner, member of the board and executive committee, you consistently pursued only the highest standards of sportsmanship, fair play and love of the game — both on and off the field. The thousands of children who passed through the program during your tenure are the beneficiaries of your tireless efforts, and their lives have been greatly enriched because of your generosity. It has been our pleasure to serve under your leadership.

We wish you and Kristine the best of health and happiness in your Little League retirement, and we hope that you join us for our functions for many years to come (although you will have to continue to purchase your own ticket to these functions — love and appreciation go only so far, Bobby). You’re the best!

The Rockville Centre Little League

Executive Committee and Board of Directors

Stop the scare tactics, Randi

To the Editor:

Randi Kreiss was in rare form last week (“The Halloweening of American politics”), doing what every limousine liberal elitist always seems to do: When they cannot win their argument on any merit whatsoever, they immediately engage in character assassination.

Kreiss wants us to fear anyone and everyone espousing anything other than what our self-proclaimed ruling class in Washington have for the last two decades. According to Kreiss, it is better that we elect progressives, bought and paid for by fat-cat public sector unions hell bent on turning this country into Greece, who will continue to drive us over the cliff of insolvency, than someone she happens to think of as spooky.

Someone should inform Kreiss that Christine O’Donnell, the woman she considers so uninformed, who somehow managed to win a Senate primary in Maryland, actually won that primary in Delaware!

While I do disagree with O’Donnell, who thinks evolution is a myth, Kreiss seems to think evolution is a fact rather than a theory. Charles Darwin himself indicated that if one wanted to believe in his theory, they shouldn’t consult the fossil record. Indeed, the fossil record established subsequent to Darwin, which showed a sudden explosive growth of life forms, completely contradicts his original thought that life forms appeared more gradually.

Randi went on to claim that the Tea Party was “once a national joke;” however, the only ones ever laughing were her and her far left ilk, who seem to be making up an ever-decreasing percentage of our nation’s population with every passing day.

What I find so disturbing about her column is that Kreiss really seems to believe that anyone who thinks differently from the way she does is stupid, if not downright evil. At what point will her vilification of all on the opposite side of the political aisle be considered hate speech? What she doesn’t seem to grasp is that with every passing column of this sort, her opponents’ base becomes increasingly energized.

Noah Newman

Oceanside