Oceanside Letters to the Editor

Fiamma, where everybody knows your name

To the Editor:

As a resident, I appreciate merchants who give back to the community, and I would encourage the community to reciprocate. When preparing for our upcoming holiday season, I would hope we as consumers remember these merchants and support them so together we can continue to make Oceanside a place where we are proud to live.

Recently, the long existing Lawson Pub was given a new look and menu and renamed Fiamma. The food is great and the staff helpful and friendly. I personally consider it Oceanside’s version of Cheers. A place where you can eat, socialize and everyone knows your name! The owner, Joe Bonacore, makes it a point to walk through the restaurant frequently to chat with his customers. He is not only a great chef but a generous and caring member of the community as well. On Veterans Day he opened his restaurant to any veteran who wanted to enjoy a meal free of cost.

Jaye DePalma

Oceanside

Merle Avenue eyesore

To the Editor:

As longtime residents — 38 years — of the Oceanside Terrace Community, we need help transforming an eyesore on Oceanside School District property at the Merle Avenue School, on Oceanside Road south of Foxhurst Road.

The former tennis courts have been repurposed into a parking lot for Dept. of Buildings and Grounds’ vans, trucks, snow plows and other vehicles. Besides the vehicles permanently parked there, piles of sand, topsoil and wooden pallets were dumped on site and abut the chain link fence. In an effort to hide the mounds of sand, the Buildings and Grounds Dept. constructed an unsightly jerrybuilt plywood fence. It would have been better had they contracted a commercial fence company to install conventional wood picket fencing or woven aluminum slats into the chain links as a blind.

The appearance of this area is deplorable. Since it is on a heavily traveled main street on entering Oceanside from the north, it does not show well to people visiting or looking to move here. Oceanside residents should be proud when showing their town and school properties, not feel ashamed or embarrassed each time people drive by because of its seedy, industrial look.

In May my longtime neighbor, Barbara, phoned the head of Buildings and Grounds to make him cognizant of this. He was agreeable to what was said. Unfortunately, he did nothing except have the grounds crew build a plywood fence blind to hide the sand piles from Oceanside Road. She then went to the Oceanside school district’s administration building and spoke to Ms. Marino. She was told it was not their area. I was under the belief that the Dept. of Buildings and Grounds was responsible to the Oceanside School District.

Barbara Epstein

Oceanside