Letters to the Editor

Do something about Long Beach Road

To the Editor:

A horrible accident occurred on North Long Beach Road, just south of Westminster Road, in South Hempstead on Dec. 8: A car headed south, carrying three South Side High School teens, ran off the road. The car jumped the curb, tore across a front lawn, flattened a fence, crashed through a backyard play structure and damaged a second fence. It ended up on its roof, but fortunately no one was seriously injured or killed. Neighbors have heard that sun glare was listed as the official cause of the accident — and no citations were issued by the county police officers who responded.

I was eager to learn more about the cause of the accident. I checked the Herald that week, and the next week, and have been checking it ever since. It is now eight weeks later and still no mention of this accident.

It’s a sad day when it requires a letter from a concerned parent and citizen for such a serious accident to be mentioned. But my letter should only begin the conversation. Does the overcrowded South Side High School campus foster students rushing around town during lunch periods? When will hands-free driving laws truly be enforced? Whose child has to be killed by a driver speeding down Long Beach Road before the municipalities take measures to motivate (or force) drivers to observe the 30 mph speed limit?

I live off North Long Beach Road and drive it daily. I observe the speed limit but usually have drivers on my tail, passing me or appearing out of nowhere in my rearview mirror. Many children walk to and from school along this road or ride their bikes to friends’ houses. I suggest that local government paint a double yellow line down the full length of the road (like Hempstead Avenue has), erect a digital speed display and regularly patrol the road for speeders and hands-free driving violators.

I’m not willing to sacrifice anyone’s life in order to have drivers chat absentmindedly on their cell phones, text while driving or arrive a few minutes sooner at their destination.

Speak up and let your voice be heard if you agree with me; for line painting, contact the Nassau County Department of Public Works, Traffic Engineering Unit, Attn: Ray Stefanowicz, P.E. 1194 Prospect Ave., Westbury, N.Y. 11590. For increased patrols and to erect a digital speed display, call the 1st Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department at (516) 573-6100.

Jean Harris

Rockville Centre

Start digging for dollars

To the Editor:

I was very impressed by the solution Scott Brinton offered in his column "How the county exec can beat high property taxes" (Nov. 19-25), on how we can raise money to pay for the outdated and very expensive school system we have on Long Island. Brinton suggested that we should be allowed to rent our basements.

If you don't have a basement, you can always go to Home Depot and buy a shovel and start digging. And then you can spend anywhere from $25,000 and up to make it rentable.

If this school system produced people with such smart ideas, then for sure it has to be changed.

Frank Prochilo

Rockville Centre

Where's our bacon?

To the Editor:

Everyone in Rockville Centre needs to visit the stimulus funds recovery map found on Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s Web site. The only icon illustrating any allocation of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act “stimulus” funds to the village is for $65,000 for the Housing Authority.

ARRA was certainly nowhere to be found to assist in funding even a fraction of our now rejected and forlorn high school improvements.

The allocated funding for the Housing Authority, which equates to less than $3 of federal largesse for each man, woman and child in Rockville Centre, will primarily benefit a specific population of the village that already receives subsidized rent, heat, electricity, water, food, health care and education.

All of the rest of us, and our subsequent generations of offspring, will suffer with paying back the $800 billion ARRA tab without ever seeing a thin dime come back our way.

Juxtapose that with the 17 empty storefronts on Sunrise Highway between North Centre Avenue and Long Beach Road — a stark manifestation of a failed stimulus policy that has done little to save or create any private-sector jobs, especially in Rockville Centre.

A reduction in federal income taxes, on the other hand, would have certainly distributed stimulus more equitably throughout the village, and perhaps actually saved or created some jobs in those stores on Sunrise Highway.

Representative McCarthy, who voted for ARRA, has done too little to bring home our share of it.

Jean-Pierre Hourani

Rockville Centre

Are we listening?

To the Editor:

It was very comforting to read the High School View column "The Consequences" (Jan. 21-27) by Cathy Mackey, and to see that there are kids in our village with good heads on their shoulders, as those are the ones you never see or hear about.

Cathy’s parents should be very proud, and I hope my daughter and my friends’ kids — indeed, all the little ones — grow to young adulthood in the same fashion she has. My question to the village at large is, are we listening?

Marc Zeloof

Rockville Centre