Letters to the Editor: Food rescue efforts

Southold

Food rescue efforts

Cost-cutting policies enacted by the current administration are having a devastating impact on less fortunate members of our communities. Worsening food insecurity is placing additional burdens on local food banks. 

Food Rescue US–North Fork would like to thank The Suffolk Times and Riverhead News-Review for publishing writer Deborah Wetzel’s March 20 article, “Local group seeks food and transporters, to the rescue!” 

Thanks to that article, we have been contacted by numerous community members interested in volunteering to “be the rescue.” We want to express our gratitude for the support we received from the paper, as well as to the volunteers and donors working together to help us achieve our mission of filling plates, not landfills.

Stephanie McEvily and Anne Howard

Site co-directors, Food Rescue US–North Fork

Greenport

Shortsighted firings

Dominic Bossey’s opinion piece about the firing of federal workers (March 27) was right on target. I’m a retired federal employee, having worked the last few years of my professional career as a psychologist at the Manhattan VA Hospital. I remember when I first started to work there that I was so impressed with the care that I thought we all should have a VA in our lives.

Our veterans deserve all the care that they receive at the VA, and I feel honored to have been able to help them in whatever way I could. Cutting staff just because you can is shortsighted and just plain wrong — for the federal workers and for those they serve.

Margaret Backman 

Riverhead

Yellow Barn

It seems as though Riverhead Free Library is biting the hand that feeds it. For years I have shopped at the Yellow Barn and spoken with the women who run it. They are in that barn in the rain and in the hot sun, stocking shelves and giving  me recommendations. I am sad to know that they will not be there this year to greet me or supply me with books for the summer, and I am angry at the library for blaming The Friends trying to offer support. How can you choose to cut off an organization that offers you up to $30,000 in payments for library programs and services  each year? Because they choose to offer scholarships to Riverhead seniors as well? Because they choose to support our schools by providing donations of supplies to those students who need it most?

Isn’t the library supposed to be a support for the community as well? How can it possibly make up for not having that money this year without asking for the community to step up when we’re all being stretched thin as it is? It’s a disappointment to myself and many others, and shows poor decision making and leadership on behalf of the library.

Ashley Cizikas 

Southold

Honor

“There is no honor among thieves” is a time worn adage and is still true today.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that all the spinning about the Signal chat is total B.S.

The Trump administration is using semantics and parsing words in a pathetic attempt to dodge accountability for a breathtaking screw-up of epic proportions.

Harry Truman famously said:,“The buck stops here.” Trump never, ever takes any responsibility for anything. Why do any serious citizens take him seriously ?

His newest accomplice, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is trying to take vital resources away from the neediest people in our country. 

Honor is a paramount value for many people, including the U.S. Marine Corps, whose code is : Honor, Courage and Commitment 

Sadly, honor is at best a quaint concept to the Trump administration. Rather: dodge, deflect, attack and never “man up” and take responsibility for your actions, your mistakes and the consequences.

Meanwhile, our congressman, Nick Lalota, a Navy veteran, is mindlessly defending Trump and his feckless national security team. Please contact him and let him know how you feel about this national security debacle. Think long and hard before ever voting for him again.

Dick Sheehan 

Lewes, Del.

Misquoted

While still keeping up with what’s going on in Southold Town, I just wanted to let the writer of the etter “History erased” (March 20) know that the phrase “A day that will live in infamy” was spoken and coined by Franklin D Roosevelt and not Winston Churchill. I am sure that the writer, as a former journalist, will appreciate the historical phrase being credited to the proper leader.

Art Beisel 

Southold

Quality quilter

Wow! I was happy to read the lovely article in The Suffolk Times about local quilter Roberta Garris. Her work is beautiful, meaningful and always timely. As long as I’ve known her, she’s been a tireless and generous woman who unselfishly volunteers for her community, synagogue and neighbors. 

Elaine Goldman 

Southold

Poor judgment

Shame on the law firm Paul Weiss!

It is with great disappointment, but not surprise, that I watch their lack of courage and foresight in bending the knee to our defendant-in-chief. By capitulating to pressure and penalty from the administration for doing normal legal work that just happened to displease the president, they are showing a cowardice that will ripple out to other law firms and help to cripple our judicial system.

This is not the first time I have seen Paul Weiss stumble into short-sightedness and a missing of the moment. In the late 1980s Paul Weiss gave me office space in Hong Kong — a generous pro bono gift to the U.S.-China graduate school I worked for, a pioneering joint venture between Johns Hopkins and Nanjing universities. But after the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989, Paul Weiss shut down its Hong Kong practice — against the wise advice of its senior partner. The firm feared there wouldn’t be enough work for the practice as skittish U.S. companies debated pulling back from China. Not long after the firm went through the disruption and expense of dismantling the Hong Kong office, however, U.S.-China business relations roared back and — with great expense — Paul Weiss opened a Hong Kong office again. 

With its misguided decision-making some 35 years ago, Paul Weiss only harmed itself. Its decisions now are harming all of us.

Patricia Lloyd

Riverhead

Drones are still up there

Every night for months, including this week and right now, I observe car-size drones transversing over my house continues over the Hillcrest Horse farm flashing white and red lights. This goes on as soon as it gets dark and continues most of the night. One thousand to fifteen hundred feet above the tree line. I contacted News12 and apparently they were not forthcoming. It is concerning and I cannot believe there haven’t been numerous reports because they are very obvious. I hope someone can find the truth.

Ralph Esposito 

Orient

Incorrect ‘facts’?

This is in response to the March 20 letter “History erased.” I wish to correct the extensive misinformation contained in the original letter. When reading it  I immediately noticed that the writer erroneously credited Sir Winston Churchill rather than President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt  with the quote “a day that shall live in infamy.”

Noting this error, I wondered what other incorrect “facts” were present in this letter. It only took me a few minutes to go onto the Arlington National Cemetery website,  where it was clearly explained that “No service members have been permanently removed from the Notable Graves section of our website.” Further: “All profiles of individuals from the previously listed categories “African American History,’ ‘Hispanic American History’ and ‘Women’s History’ can be found in other categories …”  

I then went to Prominent Military Figures, then Tuskegee Airmen, and there was an entire informational essay on that topic. So these brave airmen (as but one an example), were in fact not deleted from the website at all.

Therefore, in point of fact, there is no bigotry or racism on the part of the cemetery’s website or the Trump administration directing changes to it, as the writer incorrectly stated. Further, his stated concern regarding what facts the Trump administration is likely to erase next (based on what they allegedly did to the website) is also debunked.

Chris Chiaffitelli 

Laurel

Thank you!

I would like to send my sincere gratitude to our town highway department and Superintendent Daniel Goodwin for their attention to my requests concerning Laurelwood Drive. They are always attentive and always return my calls. Many thanks.

Barbara Kelling 

Cutchogue

Manufactured bias

I agree with the March 27 letter “Oath vs. ideology”  that “no sane American wants a dangerous criminal element who legally or illegally entered the country to remain.” But nobody is being deported “under our law,” as the writer says, because Trump and his advisors are ignoring any law that doesn’t suit them. In a much more polite way, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts said basically the same thing, slapping Trump’s wrist for intimidating a federal judge hearing an appeal from Venezuelans about to be deported. The simple underlying and highly unusual message: That’s not how our law works.

Aside from legal issues, many people too easily hear “immigrant” and think “criminal.” That is not new. During the extreme anti-immigrant climate of the 1920s, groups like the Ku Klux Klan, “mainstream” newspapers and scores of congressmen made the same mistake. One group facing such stigma were southern Italians, who nativists insisted were opening the door to the Mafia. The truth is, the overwhelming majority of immigrants from all countries were poor and/or politically oppressed. They faced staggering hardships to get to America, where they worked their butts off to get ahead. That is as true for today’s immigrants as the current bias against them is manufactured.

William Sertl 

Cutchogue

Defending the Constitution

I am a registered Democrat who spent 2016-20 giving President Trump credit where I thought it due. For example, I’m a protectionist on trade. I also know and respect many Trump voters; I, too, am disgusted with Washington, D.C., and voted for big change when I could — I’m a Bernie Democrat. That said, I believe Trump is a terrible human being and a bad president, and I voted against him twice.

In 2019 I joined the Voting Rights Lab. I analyzed state laws and legislation about all things voting: how to register, get a ballot, return a ballot or decide if the vote counts. In 2020, my team tracked how COVID transformed election law. Rules changed so people could vote without worrying they would catch a then often fatal disease. I monitored the changes in 17 states, including New York, Florida, Arizona and Wisconsin. I promise you: The votes were accurately counted and Joe Biden won fair and square.

President Trump’s subsequent, very effective attacks on our elections destroyed trust, damaged our country and changed how I saw him for the much worse. But I never expected him to openly attack the U.S. Constitution.

No, the President of the United States cannot unilaterally change law, overriding statutes with executive orders or withholding properly appropriated money. Congress makes laws. The president signs or vetoes them.

Yes, courts can rule against presidents; that’s the point: check and balance. The House of Representatives is threatening to defund courts or impeach judges because President Trump doesn’t like their decisions. That’s the Executive Branch telling the Legislative Branch to close or punish the Judicial Branch. Where is the check or balance?

However far apart we may be on other issues, please, let’s unite to defend our Constitution.

Abigail Field 

Cutchogue

Cruelty and lawlessness

In response to the letter “Oath vs. Ideology” (March 27), I’d agree with some of the comments if they were accurate. President Trump and the Republican administration have been trumpeting ICE and their detention and deportation of “criminal” immigrants. Is that what they are doing?

In 2024, under the Biden administration, ICE deportations reached a 10-year high, which means that more were deported in 2024 than any year of the first Trump administration. And during the Obama administration, there were more deportations on a yearly basis than during the first Trump administration. I mention this only because it illustrates that deportations, be they good or bad, are not limited to the Trump administration — and to say that Biden did nothing is just wrong.

I agree that we want dangerous criminals off the streets, and that should be the mandate for ICE. But now, the Trump administration is deporting easy targets including green card holders, permanent residents, and even tourists with minor violations.  It’s not about crime, it’s about numbers.

Lastly, we sent supposed Venezuelan members of Tren de Aragua to a gulag in El Salvador. ICE later admitted that one-third  were just deportees. If these deportations were “found within our immigration law,” why did a judge order the planes to return to the U.S.? Why has the administration refused judges’ orders? You may not agree, but that is for the courts to decide — not you, me or the Republican administration.

We are a country of laws. These people had no day in court to dispute the “charges,” no notification to family or attorney; some weren’t even Venezuelan. Now we are trying to deport legal residents because of their political views. Are we this cruel and lawless a nation?

Gary Comorau 

Cutchogue

Doing nothing is not an option

In the last federal election, I didn’t vote for a lot of things, including the following: 

• I didn’t vote for anyone to take [health care] away from people whose only medical coverage is Medicaid.
• I didn’t vote for the wealthiest country on the planet to deny USAID benefits so people who have almost nothing will surely die from hunger and diseases.
• I didn’t vote for an Attorney General who thinks she only represents Donald Trump in his retribution rage and not the people of the United States.
• I didn’t vote for a Secretary of Defense who blurted out attack plans on another country over a commercial app, thereby putting members of the military at risk of losing their lives.
• I didn’t vote for putting a vaccine skeptic at Health and Human Services while we have a measles problem that  could become an epidemic.
• I didn’t vote to take thousands of government jobs from people who’ve done nothing to deserve being put out on the street with almost no notice at all.
• I didn’t vote for a vice president who travels the world insulting our allies.
• I didn’t vote for a president who can afford the price of eggs to engage in idiotic economic games while telling people who can’t afford the eggs, “Don’t worry, the pain will only last a little while.”
• I didn’t vote for a guy who thinks he should be entitled to a third term despite what the Constitution says. 
• I didn’t vote for anyone to take a perfectly sound post-COVID economy and subject it to a clear risk of a recession because he thinks we should go back to 1900 economic theories.
• I didn’t vote for anyone to ruin more than 80 years of relationship-building with other Western countries. 
• I didn’t vote to attack our closest friends in Canada.

For others who also didn’t vote for these things, we can no longer sit by and watch this guy and his cronies fiddle while they burn down the country. Do something. Anything. Protest what’s going on. Send letters to the paper. Demand that your Republican congressmen get some guts and stand up to this guy instead of enabling him. Make sure you vote in the mid-terms to get rid of those enablers. But for heaven’s sake, don’t sit by and do nothing. That’s exactly how autocrats take over. And once democracy is gone, it’s gone.

Michael Levy