Letters to the Editor: East Rockaway, Lynbrook

Accusations ‘a joke’

To the Editor:
The Pride Party has been in control of the Village of East Rockaway since 1997, but they were known as the Unity Party back then. They are now crowing about uncovering alleged wrongdoing at the library (“Library responds to Pride Party allegations,” Feb. 23-29).

Bruno Romano has been a trustee for 12 years, and Fran Lenahan was a trustee for four years. What exactly were they doing during this time? The library has been offering these same employment benefits since 1983. Every year that Lenahan and Romano were in office, they approved the library budget. Never once did they raise a question. Did they actually look at anything then, or were they just following orders?  Now that there is an election, are they coming out of the woodwork or just taking their heads out of the sand?

This is a joke.  They are not leaders, they are followers. 

William Kienke
 East Rockaway

It’s time to trim library expenses

To the Editor:
The library’s culture of disrespecting its taxpaying neighbors must be reformed.
I’m glad Mayor Lenahan and Trustee Gogarty will get this done. It’s about time the library trims its expenses by cutting these exclusive perks to part-time employees to provide homeowners with additional tax relief.
 
Harold Messerschmitt Jr.
East Rockaway

Poor policy to attack library

To the Editor:
I moved to East Rockaway to enhance my children’s opportunities. The keystone to success in our society is education, and one of the very important resources for that to happen is our public library.

For Mayor Lenahan and his extreme ideologues to suggest that the library was acting improperly in providing certain methods of pay in the form of health insurance and other compensation — when in truth half of all Nassau County libraries do so — is disingenuous at best.
My children benefited greatly in their younger years from the East Rockaway Public Library and the programs it provided. To attack them in such fashion is poor policy and hurtful to this community. If anything, more money and more compensation should be paid to support our libraries which provide a great service to our children and to this community. 
 
Dr. Robin Wieder
East Rockaway

A team to be reckoned with

To the Editor:
What a pleasure it was watching the Lynbrook girl’s basketball team perform this season. Not only did they win 15 of their 20 games, but watching the “scoring machine” Brooke Gerstman tear up the nets in every game was thrilling. Brooke’s record scoring season, with 36 points in a single game and a career total of 1,160 points, set new Owls standards. However, there is no “I” in “team.”

There are others on this championship team and, without their athletic ability, Brooke would not have been able to set her records: Meghan Montine, a scrappy ball handler and passer-played tenacious defense; Danielle Amaya, who was often overshadowed by taller opponents, managed to position herself under the boards for many important offensive and defensive rebounds; Joelle Church, after returning from an early-season injury, held her own and was a standout in rebounding.

Amanda Coughlin’s accurate outside shooting took pressure off Brooke when she was double-teamed, and freshman Ciara Gordon showed toughness as she handled the ball like a veteran, contributing on many offense rebound put back points. Early-season injuries to Olivia Cohn as well as Maria and Christine Randazzo surely put more pressure on under-classmen Hanna Carlson and Nicole O’Doherty.

And let’s not forget Shannon Baker, who was a very important part of this powerful basketball machine. Yes, Brooke led the team in scoring, but it was Shannon who took over when Brooke was double and sometimes triple teamed. Brooke was the standout star and nucleus of this team, but without the other players this would not have been a championship season.
Congratulations to all of the Lynbrook girls, as well as coach Heather Manikas, who has brought this program to the semifinals for the past three seasons. Lynbrook girls’ basketball is once again a team to be reckoned with every season.

Don Roth
Former Lynbrook High School coach

Press propaganda mongers?

To the Editor:
The comments made by Rush Limbaugh are screamed across the liberal media with dire consequences for him and conservatives like him — but I would like to remind everyone that when Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a slut, among other names, he didn’t apologize or lose sponsors.

Again, it’s the double standard and only one side, the liberal, is presented with pressure to destroy conservatives like Limbaugh. How can we reach people with the truth unless the press acts like journalists again, instead of propaganda mongers?

Louise Strauss
Lynbrook

Purely partisan political editorial

To the Editor:
I just couldn’t believe your editorial, “We must begin redistricting now, not later” in the March 1-7 issue.

I didn’t see this same editorial 10 years ago when the Democrats were in the majority and they drew up the election districts as they saw fit. And can you imagine, they even split up municipalities to favor their incumbent Democrats. Where was the League of Women Voters then? There was no one calling for a special commission and no one claimed a violation of the Voting Rights Act back then.

Now that the Democrats are not in charge and the Republicans get to reconfigure the election districts, suddenly the Democrats and this newspaper chain cry foul. This was nothing more than a purely partisan political editorial. The next time the owners of your newspaper express a political opinion, maybe they should inform the reader what their political persuasion is so that everyone will know why they write what they write.
I wrote this because I am a proud Republican, and I’m not afraid to say it.

Steve Grogan
Lynbrook