Letters to the Editor: Highway department praise
Southold
Highway department praise
During the recent snowstorm, my mailbox was knocked down by the town plow. I feared the red tape and the delay when I reported it to the Southold highway department. I could not have been more wrong. I placed a call and a wonderful woman answered every question I had and even apologized for the accident.
The next day my post was repaired and a new mailbox was installed. Kudos to the men and women of the department I thank you very, very much.
Jimmy Flanagan
Mattituck
Brava! Bravo!
Congratulations and appreciation are in order for Greenport choral director Erika Cabral and Greenport band director Kyle Reese for a stellar Winter Concert. The students performed beautifully and the concert was truly a joyful event to attend. The passion and commitment of these two educators was in plain evidence that night. You could tell that they believe in their students and enjoy what they do. They brought out the best in their students, and the community is fortunate to have them among us. I’m a Mattituck grad and resident, but I felt every bit a Porter that night. Thank you!
Tami Loeffler
Southold
Greenport’s holiday decorations
I would like to congratulate the lighting designers and various elves who hung the holiday decorations in Greenport. Driving down Front and then Main Street one enters a fairyland. Sailing ships, mermaids, angels glitter alongside the lights of various businesses. It feels like one is in a Hollywood set for a charming Christmas movie. What a treat to cheer us up at this time of year!
Carol Groneman
Orient
Obits for 2025
Just a brief note of appreciation for the people who are no longer with us. Thank you. I am deeply saddened by a few on this list, as were some dear friends who — since I live in Sardegna, Italy — I have lost touch with. Sigh. Keep up your good work, guys. I hope next year’s list is shorter.
Janice Robinson
East Marion
Children want to talk about death
I would urge every child and adolescent mental health professional to read Elena Lister’’s and Michael Schwartsman’s book: “Giving Hope: Conversations with Young Children About Illness, Death and Loss.” And, if the reader can bear its emotional demands, Philip Lister’s loving narrative, “A Short Good Life,” titled with a quote from their daughter Liza during her age four through six struggle with Leukemia.
The Listers, child and adolescent psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, deeply valued their daughter’s questions, as well as their own, leading them (as Philip writes) “to a wisdom that interferes with taking things for granted.” The reader is privileged to enter a child’s mind during a terrible time in her life when she asked all the hard questions, and to witness her family’s utter respect for the truths in those questions as they slowly began to mirror and understand the inner world of their very sick child.
Nathaniel Donson, M.D.
Cutchogue
No war in Venezuela!
Representative Nick LaLota supports President Trump’s Venezuelan invasion and Maduro kidnapping. His public statement characterized the action as securing America’s border and protecting national security. Mr. LaLota’s staff emphasized the action was civilian “law enforcement” not military.
However Trump contradicted this justification by admitting the main purpose of the military deployment was regime change and access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, not drugs. While Trump failed to comply with his legal duty to inform Congress before the invasion, he informed oil company leaders “before and after.” Promoting commercial interests is now the purpose of U.S. foreign policy.
Michael Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, advised the U.N. on Monday that any nation in the western hemisphere with energy reserves is a potential military target of the U.S. Trump has now threatened Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Iran, Greenland and a second strike on Venezuela.
Mr. LaLota further stated that America will need Marco Rubio’s diplomatic leadership, backed by strong international alliances, to prevent China and Russia from exploiting this moment. Well, 78 countries just joined together at the U.N. to condemn the U.S., forming a strong international alliance against us. We no longer have any allies.
Where is this going? This invasion was not only illegal, in violation of the Constitution and international law, but immoral. This military action violates the American values that made our Democracy a beacon of hope for 250 years. It has destroyed the world order created in the wake of World War II, desecrating the bloodshed sacrificed by my father’s generation.
Mr. LaLota, please stop bootlicking Trump and his Republican sycophants and vote to stop the war in Venezuela. Vote to protect American values, the Constitution, your constituents, their military sons and daughters, and our tax dollars. Or we will vote you out!
Barbara Farr
Riverhead
New year, old problems
Happy New Year! But we still have to tackle issues from last year. Supervisors Panico (Brookhaven) and Schaefer (Babylon) are challenging NYS Cannabis officials [who] are eliminating municipal home rule by giving cannabis licenses to businesses in violation local ordinances.
We have the same problem here in Riverhead. The Stark family wants to put a dispensary close to a school on Route 25, in violation of town code. “Planet Nugg” wants to open a cannabis dispensary on Main Road in Aquebogue. This one is only a few hundred feet away from a church, child daycare and a stone’s throw from residential homes — also in violation of town code.
I would like to know if the new Riverhead Town supervisor and board are going to join Brookhaven and Babylon in their fight against the state. It’s not just about cannabis. If the state can eliminate home rule on cannabis, then they can eliminate home rule on everything! I look forward to the response from all my elected town officials. We elected you, and we want to know your opinions.
Richard Park
Riverhead
Trump’s models
President Trump’s judge-jury-executioner attacks on alleged drug speedboats in the Caribbean and western Pacific echo the extrajudicial murders by President Duterte in the Philippines of accused drug purveyors.
President Trump’s seizures of U.S. sanctioned oil tankers off the Venezuelan coast remind us of Yemeni attacks on ships they condem as supporting its enemy Israel.
President Trump’s threats to invade Venezuela and replace its leader Maduro for threatening US interests follow the same might-makes-right logic as President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his demand that Zelensky be ousted
Aggressors clothe their self-interested hegemonistic agendas in noble sentiments, confident that only they are exceptional.
John McAuliff
South Setauket
ICE raid in Riverhead
During this horrible year of “chasing people,” we consistently hear our police departments insist that they are not helping ICE as it detains and deports immigrants. This paper reports that a state police spokesperson said the police were not “involved in, nor assisting with,” an ICE operation outside Riverhead Station on Dec. 30, 2025. Community members rallied in front of the station to prevent ICE vehicles from removing immigrants from the area. They used vehicles to block ICE, a form of community resistance to Trump’s deportation agenda that we are seeing everywhere. How did the state police exercise their alleged distance from deportations?
Police assisted ICE by allowing them to park behind the station. Police then assisted ICE by clearing the road of community resisters, thereby assisting ICE in driving away with detained immigrants. With this kind of uninvolvement and non-assistance, our police actually facilitate and support the horrific deportation agenda of our president. Until police actively refrain from action, including actions to clear roadways, they are aiding and abetting ICE. No amount of denial changes this.
Deborah Little
Riverhead
Compare and contrast
Picture a tiny country that’s been at war since Oct. 7, 2023. Hundreds of thousands of reservists yanked from their jobs. Enemies surrounding it on all sides. Hundreds of ballistic missiles sent by its archrival, a regional superpower, bombarding its cities. How would you expect that country’s economy to look at the close of 2025? Well, at the end of last year, Israel ranked as the third-best-performing economy in the OECD. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange finished among the top three markets worldwide. Unemployment: 3%. Inflation: A manageable 3%. Growth: A healthy 3.3%. The shekel at a four-year high against the dollar.
Now picture another country, a big one with safe borders, a young, educated, tech-savvy population and boundless oil wealth. You’d expect prosperity, right? Meet the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is suffering from 45% inflation, 20% unemployment, and a currency that just hit an all-time low. The moral: Maybe the Ayatollahs should stop focusing on destroying Israel and start concentrating on rebuilding Iran.
Martin Levinson
