Letters to the Editor: Transportation, a tortured doe and Santorum
PECONIC
Victimized again
It is grossly unfair when a section of the population is singled out for a specific action.
So it is with us, the folks from the East End. Once more, the Suffolk County Legislature raises our cost of living. As reported recently in a Jan. 5, 2012, Newsday article, they say, Suffolk bus ridership will see their first fare increase in two decades when the cost of a ride will rise by one-third. This is not the first fare hike for the East End.
The rate was increased last spring from $1.50 to $2 to cover additional operation on Sunday for two routes, S92 and 10C. Both serve only the East End. They run from Orient through Riverhead and on to the Hamptons and back. As soon as the nice weather ended, so did the Sunday service, however the fare increase remained.
Newsday continues, “Under a plan unanimously approved … the fare will rise from $1.50 to $2 on most routes.” Read carefully, “most routes” does not include routes S92 and 10C. These fares will rise not to $2, but to $2.25. That’s 75 cents in less than a year, certainly more than the one-third increase mentioned.
Maybe that’s not so bad, you might say. However, the last fare hike here was just last spring. That put us, the East End, at the highest rate in all Suffolk. Now the fare is even higher and the service lower. Once again, a small section of the population bears the burden and gets less in return.
Where are our government officials when we need them?
Joel Reitman
ORIENT
Who is he?
I am shocked and disgusted by Jeanne Groeneveld’s account of torture to a Southold doe.
Unfortunately, Ms. Groeneveld could not/did not identify the perpetrator. I, for one, would like to know his name, if only to be sure that I never have any business or personal relationship with this dreadful individual.
Maureen Sanders
SOUTHOLD
See something? Call
I believe that most people are against inhumane treatment of living creatures. At least I hope so.
That story about the hunter who pulled a wounded living deer along on a rope in an area where hunting was prohibited was disgusting. Yet I know firsthand that stories like this are not unusual. Hunting of any sort is not allowed within 500 feet of a residence, any residence.
The story this woman related shows that the people might not be informed about what they can do other than wring their hands if something like this happens in their backyard.
First, call the police. Tell them that hunting is going on within 500 feet of a residence. Tell the police that the animal is still alive and being treated inhumanely. Last, demand to see the bow hunting license, and most important, get the plate number.
There was more than one person at the scene of this horror show. Do you know that a citizen’s arrest is legal?
Yet with all these good policies in effect this type of abuse is still rampant. I’ve had hunters in my backyard. I’ve called the police but circumstance made it difficult to get someone here before the culprit left. Sometimes the reasons being that people are indifferent, the police are not able to come and when they do come there are no laws that stop such misanthropes from truly being punished.
Most importantly, you have to do something other than lament that “someone should do something.” It’s up to you if you want this to stop, not the miscreants that would tie a living animal with a rope around its neck in the back of a truck.
Eve Randall
CUTCHOGUE
This is more intense
Southold Town law provides that, “Any change in use or intensity of use which will affect the characteristics of the site in terms of parking, loading, access, drainage, open space or utilities will require site plan approval.”
Using the property on the southeast corner of Peconic Lane and Main Road as a brewery rather than a car dealer may involve similar intensities, but the types of uses are dramatically different. Whether or not the intensity of use changes is secondary; the primary consideration is if the type of use will change.
It is hard to believe that Southold Planning Board found that changing the property use from a car dealership to a brewery will not “affect the characteristics of the site in terms of parking, loading, access, drainage, open space or utilities”.
It is also obvious that the proposed brewery will “eventually add a tasting room.” By approving development of a brewery without a tasting room, the Planning Board is partitioning the action which violates basic principles of land use regulation.
Development of North Fork beer breweries to complement North Fork wineries may be a positive development or not. By irrationally waiving the requirement of a site plan the Planning Board is neglecting its duty to review and contribute to the design of proposed development so that negative impacts are mitigated and positive impacts are promoted on the comprehensive plan of Southold Town and on both public and private nearby land uses.
Benja Schwartz
PECONIC
Who knew?
I didn’t realize that we had such a drainage problem on Route 25.
Tom Grattan Jr.
PECONIC
Dismayed, not angry
In the coming months, I predict many editorials will be written for and against the present administration and its ideology.
As an independent voter, I’m troubled by the direction people of the social progressive mindset would take this country. While it’s true I’m distraught, saddened and even dismayed by the social progressive’s ideology, I’m not yet angry.
I leave the anger and rhetoric to the far left social progressives in Washington and the Wall Street occupiers who believe success and capitalism is un-American.
Mr. Obama has succeeded in promoting class warfare by calling for the redistribution of wealth while overspending, increasing the national debt, devaluating the dollar and weakening the military so that the social progressives can continue paying for unserviceable pork and entitlement programs.
The Democratic Party has been replaced by the new Communist Party, whose only agenda is anti-religion. The bigotry of the secular progressive left is apparent when they take down crosses or censure “one nation under God” or “In God we trust.” A Communist does not pray to God, and what’s more he doesn’t want you to pray to God.
It was the social progressive Democrats that were instrumental in removing prayer from the classroom and banning the mention of God or displaying any icon in schools. They did this under the guise of separation of church and state.
The Founding Fathers were men of vision and moral conviction. They believed in a supreme being, a creator of all things good — in a word, God. They used the Bible as a framework when writing the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The social progressives within the public school system will never include those facts as part of the curriculum in an American history class.
Like so many, I lean toward the traditionalist belief in a system or party where the recognition of a supreme being is first and foremost and the belief that our rights come from God, not the state, Mr. Obama or the social progressive Communists.
God bless all that would follow the Constitution and save the U.S.A.
George Dengel
CUTCHOGUE
Telling the truth
On the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day our community met to celebrate Dr. King at Peconic Landing. Supervisor Russell, Mayor Nyce, local clergy, members of the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force and others in the community were all there.
In stark contrast to this event, on Jan. 23 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was faced with a question at a GOP rally in Florida that was astounding in its outright factual errors and subtext racism about President Obama. Throughout the questioner’s 40-second harangue, Mr. Santorum stood respectfully silent. He said nothing when the well-spoken supporter stated that President Obama should not be referred to as president. That President Obama was an avowed Muslim and had no legal right to be president. Lastly, the candidate was asked why no one was doing anything about it.
The president embodies all the family values that Mr. Santorum always talks about. He is not a Muslim but rather a solid Christian.
He does have the right to be called president. Although unnecessary, he did produce his long-form birth certificate and was overwhelmingly elected by the American people.
Why didn’t Mr. Santorum correct the gross errors, if not the undertones of bias that were evident in this question? Instead he stood with a smile on his lips and could only answer the question by telling us that he was running for president to unseat Mr. Obama.
When faced with a similar question four years ago Senator McCain did set the questioner straight. He seemed a little shocked by the question and by the fact this type of voter was part of his base. Mr. Santorum was not shocked, but rather seemed to welcome the question. His answer was pathetic and against everything both Martin Luther King Jr. and America stand for.
The same question should have been asked at the Florida debate of the other Republican candidates. A disavowal of this slander would not be setting a high bar for the upcoming election, but would at least set a minimum standard of truth-telling.
Morton Cogen
