Rockville Centre Letters to the Editor April 15, 2010

Stick to the facts, let public interpret

To the Editor:

I'm writing in regard to "IDA accepts AvalonBay application" (April 1-7). In it, Dr. William Johnson, the superintendent of Rockville Centre schools, was described as being late for a meeting in which he was going to express his opposition to the amount of the payment in lieu of taxes that the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency granted.

Dr. Johnson's lateness to an important meeting that impacted the taxpayers of his district deserved to be reported. However, that is not what the story did. It went beyond facts and editorialized. For example: "Johnson was nowhere to be found." This is not an objective statement and is overly theatric. Further: "as if waiting for his cue to make the most dramatic entrance, Johnson entered the room." Really? Is this another fact? Does the author know this to be the case? "As if" is an opinion!

Both of these statements were inflammatory and perhaps inaccurate. I believe the Herald has two other sections where opinions are appropriately printed.

Dr. Johnson might deserve criticism for being late to this meeting, and I am sure he will receive it. But this would have been the case without the paper's help.

I ask you to avoid the path taken by Newsday and the majority of our national media and report the facts. Do not lose faith in the public's ability to understand and interpret facts on their own.

David Ajello

Rockville Centre

Neighborhood pharmacies take it on the chin

To the Editor:

I'm a small businessman on Long Island. I own two community pharmacies, the Rockville Centre Pharmacy and the West Hempstead Pharmacy, and I employ 24 people of all ages, sizes, shapes and colors, some full- and some part-time.

We all live and pay taxes here. In spite of shrinking reimbursements and escalating overhead expenses, we still provide personalized attention to our patients, such as face-to-face consultation and same-day home delivery. We also specialize in fertility drug prescriptions, oncology prescriptions and compounding of dosage forms not commercially available.

A large part of my clientele is New York state employees covered by the Empire Plan. The drug plan portion of the coverage is administered by Medco Health Solutions, a company that paid millions of dollars in fines in 2004 for fraudulent business practices.

As of April 1, all of my Empire Plan patients who obtain their specialty injectable drugs from my pharmacies have to get them from the mail-order pharmacy Accredo Health Group, located in Warrendale, Pa. This change in the Empire Plan drug benefit will force me to lay off almost half of my employees. Some of these folks have worked for me for 16 years. They do not deserve this, and neither do I.

My state and local pharmacists' associations have lobbied long and hard for anti-mandatory mail-order prescription legislation, to no avail. We are willing to accept the same contractual terms as the mail-order companies. At a time when all I hear on the news is advocates calling for the creation of jobs on Long Island in order to escape the current recession, why is it OK to give jobs to another state?

I don't know who made this decision. I don't think this individual knows the negative impact this change will have on both patients' health and our local economy. Community pharmacies have been taking it on the chin for many years, with many mom-and-pop drugstores closing in our communities. I don't want to become part of that statistic.

Howard Jacobson

Jericho

Proud to be a Patriot

To the Editor:

In her reply to Randi Kreiss's column "Sarah Palin, can you ever, ever forgive me?" (April 1-7), Pearl Cawley’s letter to the editor, "Randi sure fooled me" (April 8-14), contained the following line: "Randi's logic captured those narrow-minded, no-intelligence, nonsensical Tea Party ralliers to a T (or a tea)."

As a member and organizer of the Nassau County Tea Party Patriots and co-founder of the Rockville Centre Tea Party Patriots, I would like to set Ms. Cawley straight about her assertions and about our mission.

First, our Tea Party Patriot organization is an ever-growing, nationwide movement whose members represent every nationality, religion, ethnic background, sexual preference, political affiliation (with the exceptions of Nazi or Communist Party members), age and gender. That is hardly conducive to being labeled a "narrow-minded" group of people.

We believe in open dialogue and transparency in government — without, of course, the prevailing corruption displayed by both leading political parties, which believe they are lord and masters over we the people, who, in actuality, are the government, and not the rabble the political elitists would make us out to be.

The letter also infers that Tea Party members lack intelligence. I take exception to that assertion, since most all my acquaintances in the organization are high school or college graduates, which really says nothing, since lacking either degree does not make one less of an American nor less of a person with an idea to help straighten our country out.

The last accusation in the letter's liberal bag of rhetoric, is to label us "nonsensical" ralliers. Allow me to once again set the record straight. This past week, the Rockville Centre Tea Party Patriots were called by some Freeport residents asking for our assistance with an issue on which Freeport's mayor was working behind closed doors, without any input from the community, attempting to build an incinerator in South Freeport for the express purpose of burning New York City garbage.

After our research staff investigated, we attended the protest in front of Freeport Village Hall opposing the effort to keep the Freeport public and the affected surrounding communities out of the loop on the progress of the initiative.

When we arrived at Village Hall, there was a great mixture of Americans standing shoulder to shoulder against a wrong that was being imposed on the people. Nonsensical? Hardly! This is the way American people should work together, helping one another, and not allowing government to control our lives. That's what the Tea Party Patriots are all about, and that's why I'm proud to be a part of it.

Mickey Clark

Rockville Centre