To the editor,
Hooray! Finally someone else is speaking about the poor service we receive from our local Sanitation Department (“Trash Can-troversy,” Letters to the Editor, 1-13).
What happened to the days when our trash was picked up in front of our house and the emptied cans returned there? Now we have to put our cans at the curb only to find them in the street, and covers under cars after pick up. Also, any trash dropped is left in the street.
I have been trying to solve this problem for more than a month. I originally called our local Sanitation Department and spoke to a supervisor, who said he would speak to the men. The problem continued. Then, I registered two complaints with 311 and Community Board 10. The problem still continued. I spoke to the supervisor again and was told that the men denied it, and that I was the only one complaining, but that he would speak to them again. The problem still continues.
I am beginning to think that it is either done intentionally or the men don’t care as there are no repercussions.
If other readers have this problem, they should call 311 and Community Board 10 at 718-745-6827.
Helen Rasinya
Bay Ridge
To the editor,
The desires and safety of thrill seekers and risk takers riding the Cyclone Roller Coaster has to take priority (“Kindler, gentler Cyclone,” Jan. 19).
In Sep. 1953, when I was 11 years old, I went on the Bobsled in Coney Island with my father and we were not strapped in — we might have both been killed. The very same year, I knew a young lady who stood up while the Bobsled whizzed downhill just to be a show off.
Times have not changed in more than 50 years. Your paper reported in 2007 that a man died after breaking his neck on the Cyclone’s 85-foot drop. In another incident, according to the Amusement Safety Organization, riders were injured on the Cyclone last year, including four terrified people who bit their tongues. There should be a requirement for riders to sign a waiver indicating that they ride at their own risk.
Before the Brighton Beach Baths folded in 1990, they had a warning that said, “Diving at your own risk.” This might not be so much of an issue now if the ride operator had asked to be absolved in the first place.
Elliott Abosh
Brighton Beach
Snail mail
To the editor,
For as long as I can remember and without fail, we received our mail at about 1:30 pm. Several months ago, a different letter carrier, for some unfathomable reason, took an hour to get from one side of the street to the other, and we didn’t get our mail until 4:30 pm. Then, there was a spike in misdirected mail — if I’m getting someone else’s mail, then who’s getting mine?
About three weeks ago, we started receiving our mail at around 7:30 pm. Initially, we were told by the post office that this is an experiment that could last six months. Now, complaint calls to the Ryder Station Post Office are not even being answered.
Letter carriers have stated privately that we should expect mail deliveries until 10 pm. Now they raised the first class rate to 45 cents, and the service has been turned into a sick joke. Whatever happened to, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night shall keep these carriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds?”
It’s no wonder the postal service is going bankrupt — U.P.S. FedEx and D.H.L. and e-mail are blowing them away. They can’t compete, so they want a tax on e-mail!
When an “experiment” is an utter failure from the get-go, why drag the agony out for six months? End it now. It’s tax season and people are waiting for their tax documents and other important mail. Uncle Sam probably will not accept the “it got delayed in the mail” excuse.
On my block, nobody has received any mail deliveries since 1/19. What’s up with that?
David Podesta
Marine Park
No ‘slow’ zone
To the editor,
Maybe the Manhattan Beach Civic Association and the Manhattan Beach Community Group didn’t submit an application to reduce the speed on Oriental Boulevard to 20 mph because they realized how foolhardy that would be (“‘Slow’ zone slip up,” Jan. 26).
If someone will not listen to a 30 mph speed restriction, they certainly will not adhere to a 20 mph restriction. Speeding along Oriental Boulevard is a real problem, especially at school arrival and dismissal times. However, a 20 mph speed restriction or high-tech speed cameras are not the solutions. Cameras would result mostly in summonses issued to motorists inadvertently traveling a little over the speed limit when the real danger is from those traveling at 40 mph or above.
A 20 mph limit would encourage many cars to drive on the crosswalk and bicycle lane to pass those going at 20, increasing the danger. Last week I even saw a bus pass another one the crosswalk because the other one was traveling only at 20 mph. Also, there would be a noticeable increase in air pollution and traffic congestion if everyone were to drive so slowly.
Before the Oriental Boulevard was reconstructed in the mid 1980’s speeding was not possible because the street surface was so rough and potholed. What is needed are several sets of mild speed bumps that require you to slow down to below 30 mph. Speed bumps that would not interfere with buses or snowplows, not the ones currently in use on other streets which require you to slow down to 10 or 15 mph. Also, there needs to be regular unannounced enforcement at varying locations, and summonses issued to those who speed. A ticket blitz once a year or every time there is a fatality accomplishes nothing.
Kingsborough Community College also needs to be more aggressive in combatting this problem and impose its own penalties for those caught speeding. Also, why is neither association recommending reducing alternate side parking regulations from four days a week to two, in effect doubling the amount of available parking on four days of the week? That would reduce the number of students racing for a parking space.
Allan Rosen
Manhattan Beach
Quinn-essential pork
To the editor,
To the victor goes the spoils! The practice, started by her predecessors, continues with City Council Speaker Christine Quin.
She issued checks for 50 percent of each member’s annual awarded lulus of between $4,000 to $28,000 per year, on top of a $112,000 base salary, to her loyal members for chairing a Council Committee or subcommittee. The base salary plus lulu is three times what average constituents earns for a job officially classified as part time.
Hard working municipal civil servant employees and most ordinary New Yorkers would never see such treats from their respective employers. Perhaps Quinn will host a ceremony when issuing the remaining balance of lulus in July to coincide with the completion of the renovated City Council chambers.
Construction began in 2007 with an original cost estimate below $50 million and a completion date of 2009. In 2008, the first of a series of cost overruns raised the price tag to $65 million. The bills for both a final price tag of $123.8 million and completion date of July 2012 along with all the lulus are paid by your hard earned tax dollars.
Council members have staff to also drive them around town and private parking privileges at City Hall. I wonder how many ever considered using mass transit for commuting to work, such as millions of their constituents do on a daily basis? Do any of them have a Metro Card and use it on a regular basis? Check out the parking lot at City Hall when the council is in session and see for yourself.
Nine percent of eight million New Yorkers are still out of work, and there are many public-minded citizens, besides the current 51 members, with the knowledge and wisdom to perform their jobs at a fraction of the cost. Many would gladly serve and show up for work full time without all the perks of office for $112,000 per year — minus all the traditional insiders lulus or other benefits ordinary New Yorkers can only dream about.
Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Blue tone
To the editor,
I guess Anthony Malkin, the owner of the Empire State Building, has more respect for the New York Giants than he has for Mother Theresa. He wouldn’t put the blue lights on to honor her 100th birthday, but he had no problem putting on the blue lights for a football team.
Sure hope God is a Giants fan for his sake.
Peter Orsi
Marine Park
‘Rainbow’ family
To the editor,
The Rainbow Heights Club in Flatbush is a great place for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community living with mental illness.
It’s the best day treatment program I’ve ever been to with intelligent, socially mature and sexually tolerant individuals.
I feel very comfortable and relaxed there without feeling as if I have to conform to anything. I like the staff and members who are exceptional and a pleasure to be around.
This is the closest I’ve ever come to being “outside” the mental health system.
Sebastian Casalenova
Bath Beach
Golden irony
To the editor,
Gov. Cuomo delivered a strong and inspired State of the State address, recapping the significant successes of his first year in office and outlining a vision for the future of New York that all New Yorkers can support.
It hit all the right notes on issues that matter to our neighborhood — reviving our economy, strengthening our schools, reinvesting in our transportation system, and giving New Yorkers the honest and transparent government they deserve. But, state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge) strangely chose to criticize the governor for being weak on public safety, despite the fact that Cuomo has proposed expanding the DNA database to cover all crimes, among other initiatives.
Sen. Golden’s criticism is ironic because he was curiously absent from the Senate chamber last year during a vote on a critical bill that would have helped our police officers investigate incidents of gun violence — clearly a top issue of public safety.
We can’t settle for just one good year in Albany. There’s still a lot to be done to fix the political dysfunction of the past decade. Our elected officials should be working with Gov. Cuomo to get New York back on track, instead of offering empty criticisms.
Andrew Gounardes
Bay Ridge
To the editor,
I wonder how many people know that on New Year Eve, President Obama signed military powers to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without a trial?
I read a tiny article about this, and have not heard a single word about it since. To me this is serious — no?
Is this 1940 Germany. It’s a disgrace and Obama has to get out.
Name withheld
To the editor
There is a dangerous traffic light on the corner of Oriental Boulevard and Ocean Avenue in Manhattan Beach. It blinks red on one side and yellow on the other. Drivers never know when to go or stop. It is controllable by a button to allow pedestrians cross for about five seconds. There have been numerous accidents at the corner, and last year a young boy was killed by a speeding bus.
Speed bumps and cameras will not correct this situation, and according to the Department of Transportation, it is the worst traffic light in Brooklyn.
Norman Smith
Manhattan Beach
To the editor,
American empires were built with blood, sweat, tears and fossil fuels! Freedom must be guarded and protected or it ebbs away like the tide.
The best sailors and soldiers on the planet have overthrown tyrants, liberated the oppressed, rescued the lost and kept the American way of life alive. The Rev. John WInthrop’s vision in 1630 was “a shining city on a hill” that the entire world could see as a beacon of light and liberty.
When 55 delegates met in Philadelphia in June 1787, they were charged with the task of improving upon the Articles of Confederation that garnered 13 wayward and capricious colonies for 11 years. A compromise, known as the Virginia Plan, would help found a nation, and draft the U.S Constitution, our second document.
Today, the American left and Socialist renegades have pushed our Constitution aside. President Obama decided to attack Libya without the approval or consent of Congress. Instead, he went to the U.N. Security Council to announce his half-baked plan. Are Libyan freer today or better off? The flagpole at the Benghazi courthouse sports the al Qaeda black flag that says in Arabic, “There is no God but Allah.”
Tod Davis
Marine Park
Education 101
To the editor,
You have never run articles lauding teachers, especially those teaching in difficult schools.
You have never spoken about the problems of class sizes, the need for the 600 school concept for disruptive children, the fact that we have principals from the Leadership Academy rating teachers when they themselves have never taught, uncooperative parents ready to battle the teacher at every step, and the city’s refusal to use excessed teachers to teach classes so as to lower class sizes. Instead, these duly licensed teachers have been relegated to substitute status. I haven’t heard you mention that the while the mayor proposes merit pay, there is no money to lower class size.
You are quick to point out that certain teachers assaulted students, but you never report when a teacher is assaulted on a daily basis by a student. The number of teachers are out due to being assaulted on the job is shocking.
I never hear you write about the fact that teachers spend their own money for supplies since the latter is lacking in so many schools. I never hear you praising teachers for coming in earlier to decorate their rooms in August, when school is not officially in session. You never mention the dedicated men and women who work with children after the school day, or those who make home visits on their own time to the homes of problem students.
All your paper does is knock teachers. Why do you refuse to look at the other side of education? Why is it always the teachers fault?
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
