Letters

Letters to the Editor

CUTCHOGUE

We did it ourselves

Regarding Mr. Meguin’s Equal Time that “workers” are taxed more than the “millionaires.” I am a retired “worker” who happened to obtain “millionaire’s” worth by working and living within our means to accomplish this so-called “status.”
We weren’t given any government handouts nor any inheritances. We were and are responsible for ourselves.
Our “unearned income” is derived from hard-earned money that was my risk and therefore rewarded and when I lose, I don’t have the luxury of a municipal union making taxpayers make up the difference.
And pay tax on it to boot! Meanwhile your president wants his grimy hands on it to redistribute it to people who don’t deserve it.
I wish you no success in your attempt for the supervisor’s job. This country is already heading toward third worldism and we do not need your help to accomplish this any sooner.
And I still mow my own lawn.

George Farhbach

SOUTHOLD

Where are the cops?

It was with some bemusement and much dismay that I read the front-page article on increased traffic along Route 48 (“Deadly stretch of road,” July 28).
Clearly much of the blame for the problem can be placed on drivers with the wrong priorities, but it seems as if our local traffic control has its own problems as well.
When Chief Flatley is quoted (misquoted, I hope) as saying, “People are coming off the expressway and still want to do 70 miles an hour,” he appears to have forgotten the twelve miles of road between Riverhead and Mattituck.
More dismayingly, the article mentions that Southold supports a state grant that “pays officers to work overtime to stop aggressive driving.”
That’s like a grant that would pay firemen extra to put out aggressive fires. I’m a university professor and I can’t imagine getting a pay raise for really, really insisting that my students remember what I tell them. Surely, enforcing traffic codes is the basic job of traffic control.
When driving east into Southold where Route 48 narrows down to one lane, who among us has not been cut off by some moron accelerating past the speed limit in order to gain an additional eight feet of highway? And yet who has ever seen traffic control adequately policing that stretch? In a decade of living out here, I never have.
I also live along Soundview Avenue, a twisty stretch without sidewalks but with plenty of families, joggers and dog-walkers. The signage is poor and inefficient, and miscreant speedsters are all too common. When I have flagged down traffic control and pointed out these safety concerns, they have either shrugged or passed the buck to the Highway Department.
If Southold Town traffic control really wants to work harder to stop aggressive driving in our increasingly domesticated area, I would be more than happy to reward them with my hard-earned tax dollars.

Laurence Maslon

ORIENT

Enough ideologues

George Sullivan’s Equal Time opining the rich pay more taxes and to suggest they should pay more smacks of class warfare brought tears to my eyes.
Perish the thought that the hedge fund folks, heavy-duty earners, who only pay capital gains taxes on their income and are taxed at a far lower percentage than a cop or house painter, get an increase.
Pity the powers on Wall Street who treat our economy as a gambling casino.
Given that the top 10 percent of Americans now control about two-thirds of our national wealth, leaving the rest of us with one third, and given that the disparity in income in this country is greater than any time since the Great Depression, Mr. Sullivan need not worry. The rich are just fine.
Common problems require shared sacrifice. The House Republicans repeat over and over again that you can’t raise taxes and increase jobs. Oh yeah. Like all those jobs created by the Bush tax cuts. While most of this country was taking an economic haircut, the rich were getting richer.
Enough of ideologues. This country needs problem-solvers in office. It will take both cuts to the budgets and increases in taxes to right the ship of state.

Sandra Sinclair

CUTCHOGUE

Falsehoods, not facts

We would like to present the facts and contest the falsehoods which have been reported as fact as to our farming operations.
The statements that we buy and resell a large amount of our produce are false. We farm 180 acres of vegetables on the North Fork and crop our fields an average of three times per season, resulting in net acreage production of over 500 acres. This produce must be moved from the fields to market by truck. This is not industrial use of agricultural land, this is farming.
The statements that we truck in produce daily from JFK airport are false and defamatory. We purchased used trucks bearing non-local addresses, but they are farm vehicles with “farm” license plates restricting their travel beyond the North Fork. Produce is harvested daily in our fields, loaded into these trucks and hauled to our barn on Alvah’s Lane.
We dispute the statement in this paper that, “the drivers are sleeping in their trucks on the side of the road” overnight. This never happened.
Fact is, our neighbors harassed the farmer who leased our farm before we purchased it 15 years ago. He grew cauliflower here and they complained back then about the dust and irrigation noise.
We also dispute that we are in violation of site plan requirements. The town inspector has confirmed our position following a recent inspection.
I am disappointed that the town and local media continue to give credence and coverage to our neighbors and their false accusations. Unbiased and informed journalism should be the standard.
We hope for more support from the town and the community for our efforts and efforts of our neighboring farms in our had work to keep agriculture alive on the North Fork, rather than this apparent willingness to submit to false facts that will lead the North Fork into suburbanization.
I will take every action to protect our legitimate farming operation.

Paulette Satur

Satur Farms

GREENPORT

Support the ferry

I remember quite a few years back when the North Ferry was flush and they didn’t charge people/cars/trucks for a period of time. It was a gift to all of us.
Now times are tough and they need to increase fares to stay afloat. I say any company that shares in the good times should be supported in the hard times.

Joann Tamin

GREENPORT

Factual error

I would like to offer a factual correction to the article entitled, “Still seeking health insurance, Kapell may sue Greenport again.”
The article refers to a resolution passed in 2007 at the end of my term as mayor as being the one now in dispute. In fact, the resolution at issue was adopted in 1995 and established that members of the village board of trustees would enjoy the same village-funded health benefits as members of the Greenport CSEA union. In other words, we would be treated the same as any village employee; no more, no less.
The village has recently acknowledged in writing that it has relied on the 1995 resolution to provide George Hubbard Jr. with health benefits since taking office in 2007. My claim is that this resolution also provides for my benefit in retirement after more than 20 years of service to the village.

David Kapell

EAST MARION

Birds of a feather?

After watching the Democrats tack so far to the right during the debt crisis negotiations it has occurred to me that Barack Obama is almost as conservative as John Copertino.

Gregory Wallace

MATTITUCK

Give and take

Compromise is the essence of democracy.
The Constitution is loaded with them, as is the Declaration of Independence. Can we do less?
That is enough.

George Kreiling

EAST MARION

Asked & unanswered

What has happened to our beloved country?
The government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals, but nothing for their victims.
In public schools you can teach tolerance for others, but don’t mention the word God.
We got rid of the communists and socialist threat by renaming them progressives.
We are unable to close our border with Mexico, but we have no problem stationing 38,000 troops along the South Korean border.
Who are we protecting the Western Europe countries from?
You can have pornography on TV, but not a nativity scene in some public places.
We take money from hard-working Americans and give it to illegal immigrants in the form of food stamps, medical care, clothing, business loans and housing. Why?
We still have the freedom of speech, but only when it is politically correct.
Our government has become the foster father of millions of children, while allowing the men who fathered those children to shirk their responsibility of support and fatherhood.
If they are needed in the work force, then what is wrong with immigrants entering legally, registering, and having their backgrounds checked?
If we are a melting pot of nationalities, then why do we have to choose either English or one particular foreign language when we dial up businesses and municipal offices?
Why are we being baited into this “divide and conquer” strategy?
Our forefathers chose to accept English as their language. They didn’t impose their native language on others. They became part of the melting pot.
What happened to this melting pot?
Why doesn’t our leftist press report the fact that the Fort Hood shooter and the Norway bomber were in fact Muslim terrorists?

God Bless America.

John Copertino

Southold

Truly stupid people

We have some very stupid people living in the Town of Southold.
On Sunday I was at the town transfer station around noon, which was very busy with cars waiting on line for an open slot, when I got my opportunity to unload my refuse and recycle. Next to me was a family — father, mother (I’m guessing, maybe they were young grandparents) and two children, ages probably 3 and 5.
Next thing I see is the 3-year-old boy, with the father’s assistance, standing on the wall directly above the sign that says “Caution, dangerous area, leave small children in the car,” throwing glass bottles, handed to him by the man, one at a time into the bin below his feet.
The mother and other child were standing nearby enjoying the fun.
I’m sure if there was an accident, these people would be the first to bring a lawsuit against the town for not supervising all activities in which stupid people are involved.
I hope the people in this family are readers of The Suffolk Times and maybe will realize the jeopardy they were putting their children in.

Tom Drennan

GREENPORT

Art as a symbol

Perhaps it wasn’t a perfect piece of art.
It was intended as a sculpture of an osprey, but there were those who referred to it as the “angry pigeon.” Its legs were out of proportion, its beak too big, its wings misshapen. For all of its shortcomings, the osprey sculpture that has stood at the end of Steve Clark’es shipyard since June 2002 has become an integral part of the Village of Greenport.
Even as the locals denigrated and mocked it, visitors, who are far less cynical, would stream down to Preston’s Dock to take pictures, inquiring about its history. It wasn’t the Statue of Liberty, but it did symbolize something important.
The osprey was perched atop a piece of steel recovered from the World Trade Center. This steel was all that anyone needed to see to understand the destruction that took place that day in September.
“Why an osprey?” visitors would ask as we went past during our harbor tours.
I thought about it and came up with an answer that satisfied me if not my listeners. The osprey was almost wiped out, but thanks to the intercession of many people, the prime culprit in its demise, DDT, was eliminated from use in the United States. Perhaps the osprey is a symbol like the mythical bird the Phoenix that after being engulfed in flames would rise again.
I have no idea what the artist intended, but maybe it is just there to remind us that even in this most beautiful spot the realities of the world we inhabit are never far away.
From the water, the osprey — officially titled “Morning Call” — looked bigger, stronger, more perfect than it did from the docks. It was perhaps the most photographed icon in our small village.
I don’t know the specifics of why the sculpture is being moved. I do know that Steve Clarke did us all a service by having it on his property all these years. The osprey belonged on the waterfront in the harbor, its wings spread in welcome over our beautiful bay.
All along I had been under the impression that the village somehow owned that sculpture. Hadn’t many of us contributed to it? How sad it was that the community wasn’t given an opportunity to express their wishes before it was moved.
It will be missed.

Dave Berson

ORIENT

The wrong fence

I observed what appears to be an electric fence along the Main Road in Orient. I do not object to ordinary deer fencing, but electric fences along highways are dangerous to both people and deer.
Even though the shock is mild, it frightens the deer. The deer then runs and if there’s oncoming traffic the deer runs in front of the cars causing an accident.
As we all know, there is often quite a lot of traffic along Route 25 in Orient.

Maureen Sanders