To the editor,
My heart goes out to the good people of France, recovering from devastating attacks by Muslim extremists. It amazes me how many times the free people and states of the world get slapped in the face by these terrorists, yet do not come together as a unified force to crush these vermin.
Europe and England are in a fix. They have opened their borders, and hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees are flooding in. Many are truly fleeing for their lives, but it has been established that many are members of the terrorist groups infiltrating these lands. I am sure that if anything like this happened in Russia, Vladimir Putin would respond with force — without the backing of these states and the useless United Nations — and flatten the cities and towns which are safe havens for these terrorist groups.
I keep praying that the idiots in Congress and President Obama finally come to their senses and secure our borders. Let’s join with Russia to eradicate terrorism and help insure the safety of the people of the world — but don’t hold your breath.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
Lame columnists
To the editor,
I read every issue of your newspaper. Your story about abandoned boats in Jamaica Bay (“Shipwrecks of Jamaica Bay,” online Oct. 8) appeared well before the New York Times picked it up. I will remain a loyal reader.
However I think it is time to replace your opinion writers, It’s not a question of disagreeing with their viewpoints. I think they just write down whatever random thoughts they are having at any given moment and then you publish these transcribed thoughts. Lenore Skenazy (“Rhymes With Crazy”) is slightly better, but there has to be someone better out there to write opinion pieces for your newspaper.David Schon
Brooklyn
‘Excellent’ Shav
To the editor,
Excellent column, Shavana Abruzzo (“Bill DeBlash-sio is the new Mayor of Murk,” A Britisher’s View, Nov. 13). Thank you.
I’d also like to add, Mr. Mayor, remember your word about Long Island College Hospital? I’ve always believed that how you start your new year is also how it tends to end.
I was the secretary of the hospital’s emergency department for more than 27 years, and believed and stood by him for the whole duration. Well a year and a half later, I am still looking for a job. Mayor DeBlasio, a person’s word does matter.
Shavana, keep up the excellent work. A person’s word and writing do matter.Ida Grant
Canarsie
• • •
To the editor,
Shavana, Mayor DeBlasio recently borrowed more than $150 million for affordable housing from the city’s pensions. Crains revealed that more than $400 million was lost from the city’s pensions in 2014, due to a poor choice of investments, and now Comptroller Scott Stringer needs to step in.
I wonder if this has anything to do with all the consultants whom DeBlasio is hiring for political reasons, who have clients that are not in the best interest of the city.
Name withheld upon request
‘Pitbull’ Shav
To the editor,
Shavana Abruzzo (“A Britisher’s View”), I’ve been meaning to tell you that the occasional times you reply to me when I send an e-mail your way, which is so nice of you, you sound so calm. Then I read your columns, including the recent one on police disrespect (“Quentin Tarantino’s the ‘Hanoi Jane’ of cop bashers,” Oct. 30), and you’re a pitbull. But in a good way.
When people like me are too lazy to type stuff, we just sit back and let you speak for the rest of us. Well, for me anyway. Thanks, God bless, and ciao.Lou Smith
Bay Ridge
Flip flop, Dan
To the editor,
As a former patient of Planned Parenthood of New York City and a current volunteer, I know full well its scope of services. When I was in my early 20s and I needed access to affordable reproductive health care, I was able to walk into a Planned Parenthood health center and receive quality, non-judgmental care. I am grateful every day that I lived in an area that did not limit my access to health care. I will never know the reality of living in a town where access to care is denied because of restrictive, dangerous laws.
Unfortunately countless women, men, and young people live in areas where access to Planned Parenthood is either limited or non-existent. This reality devastates me. Even more upsetting is the idea that elected government officials could be so out of touch with this reality, and downright cruel in their voting decisions. I am a constituent of Rep. Dan Donovan (R–Bay Ridge), and he voted against my right to access reproductive care in his first week on the job.
In his campaign he promised that he would not vote to place federal restrictions on abortion, yet one of his first votes in the House was in support of a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks. He later voted in support of a bill that would defund Planned Parenthood of its federal funding. He then voted in favor of creating a special panel to investigate Planned Parenthood and its procurement of fetal tissue. In fact Donovan was the only city representative to support these outrageous bills.
In a September interview with Brian Lehrer, Donovan said that the vote to defund would “redirect the monies allocated for Planned Parenthood to other women’s health care facilities.” He went on to justify this vote by blaming the recent smear videos released by anti-abortion individuals and said, “People have seen those horrific videos, I don’t know if they’re altered or not.” Dan Donovan, how can you be so out of touch with reality?
Days after his interview, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D–Manhattan) told Brian Lehrer, “It’s an absolute, undisputed fact that the tapes were doctored and altered.” Maloney later mentions what we all know to be true: other women’s health care facilities cannot take on Planned Parenthood patients, if the organization were to lose funding.
I don’t know if Donovan has ever been to a Planned Parenthood health center. I don’t think he has ever been in the position to need access to affordable health care services like the ones Planned Parenthood provides. It is apparent that he knows absolutely nothing about what really goes on at Planned Parenthood. By supporting harmful bills that restrict reproductive health care, Donovan completely disregards the health of his constituents, like me and the 2.7 million women, men and young people that rely on Planned Parenthood. We come to Planned Parenthood for services like birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and well-woman exams. Services that are provided at a low-cost that are not easily accessed elsewhere.
As one of his constituents, I sent Dan Donovan an e-mail about Planned Parenthood funding and Title X, a federal grant program that provides individuals with comprehensive family planning and other preventive health services. In his response Donovan wrote, “I have concerns over whether one beneficiary of Title X funding, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, subsidizes its abortion practice with taxpayer dollars.” He went on to say that, “In an ideal world there would be no abortions. Unfortunately, this is not the case; for that reason, I believe there should be reasonable restrictions placed on the procedure.”
It appears to me that Dan Donovan’s motivation in voting to defund Planned Parenthood is because he wants to completely eliminate access to abortion. Despite the fact that no federal dollars pay for abortion services as a result of the Hyde Amendment, Donovan has made it clear that he would rather take away all affordable reproductive health care services than allow women to access legal abortion services.
By voting against Planned Parenthood to further his own agenda, Dan Donovan is ignoring real people and playing games with our lives. I am disappointed that he ignored my health care needs by supporting dangerous bills. The women, men, and young people of Staten Island and Bay Ridge deserve better from our elected representative.Lauren Coe
Bay Ridge
Fuel for thought
To the editor,
Gasbu
Mill Basin
Merry Xmas
To the editor,
Am I the only one who does not like the white Christmas lights strung along Third Avenue in Bay Ridge? What happened to the beautiful colored lights? I do hope Bay Ridge is not becoming “politically correct,” which we know is not really correct. Though lights do not a Christmas make, colored lighted are cheerier.
Christmas is a sacred holiday for many, and it appears some want to omit it altogether. Other holidays are celebrated without changing their names, so why should Christmas? To the businesses who caved to satisfy others, shame on you. So I’ll say it to all: “Merry Christmas.”
Annette Gerage
Bay Ridge
Republi-cons
To the editor,
Republicans would like to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If not for President Roosevelt there would not be Social Security, and if not for President Lyndon Johnson we would not have Medicare or Medicaid. So every time you hear they want to cut these programs, be scared and ask why they take it out on people who cannot afford the cuts.
When the Depression was on its last legs, what did President Roosevelt do? He established the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, both of which created jobs that put men to work, building highways and the Hoover Dam. The Republican Party still refuses to raise taxes to pay for needed repairs, with falling bridges and highways that are now crumbling, but its presidential candidates seem to find a way to insult each other without offering solutions to our problems.
Years ago both parties were able to work together, and were friendly towards one another. Today’s Republicans want to shut down the government, which would affect all of us.
Jerry Sattler
Brighton Beach
Grump Village
To the editor,
Igor Oberman, the contentious former president of the Trump Village Section 4 Co-operative, is reportedly suing tenant shareholders for defamation based upon what they said through their website. Oberman had, until recently, been an unpaid board president who gave up his presidency to establish a paid position for himself as the co-op’s property manager. He replaced ousted property manager Douglas Elliman, a decision taken on his watch.
Little noticed is that Mr. Oberman and co-op attorney Dean M. Roberts, of the firm Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, have contorted clear, plain English, and unambiguous words: “bequests and bona fide gifts by shareholders to members of their immediate family are exempted from the transfer fee” by charging an illegal additional five percent transfer fee (better known as a flip tax).
This additional fee on the sale price is imposed when the apartment is first sold to a non-family member. This fee is in addition to the 20 percent first-time sales flip tax required of all non-family transfers. This could amount to $16 million taken illegally (based upon 1,000 apartments out of 1,144 originally owned apartments being sold as first-time sales at an average sale price of $320,000, at an average five percent flip tax).
The by-laws of the co-op gives their lawyers the right to defend the co-op at the co-op’s expense and to claim the co-op’s legal expenses from each plaintiff. Roberts knows that there would be no payoff for each plaintiff, as the amount of money for each injured shareholder is small, the payoff is just for his law firm. Oberman hides behind the opinion of his lawyer, even though the offering document is clear and unambiguous.
Allan D. Grody
The writer is a former shareholder of Trump Village Section 4.
On track
To the editor,
I whole-heartedly agree that express service should be restored to the F train in Brooklyn. I was able to enjoy the benefits of express service until I retired in 2003. However there was, and still is, another problem with F service, and probably with other trains going to and from Coney Island as well. Many trains terminate at Kings Highway, five stations away from the last stop, Coney Island. Passengers going further have to wait on the elevated platform in boiling hot or freezing cold weather until another train arrives.
I understand the need to avoid congestion at the Coney Island station. What I don’t understand is why they can’t get the arriving trains out of the station at the last stop as soon as they unload, either by sending them right back to Manhattan or to the train yard. I would rather wait five minutes on a heated or air-conditioned train while other trains are being cleared out of Coney Island than to be forced to leave my train and stand on a snow-covered platform shivering until another train comes in. Winter is coming! It’s time to take all trains to the last stop.
All stations are used by senior citizens and people with disabilities, at one time or another. All stations need elevators or escalators. Many stations need repair work, especially on stairways at elevated stations. Fares keep going up, but transportation services and stairways do not get any better. Many seniors who need elevators cannot use the subways in their neighborhoods. They are forced to use Access-A-Ride.
The city would save money in the long run, if it spent more on making subways accessible to seniors and other physically-challenged, would-be passengers, and would improve the service on city buses. Then fewer people would need to use Access-A-Rides.
Elaine Kirsch
Gravesend
‘Useless’ agencies
To the editor,
Of all the city, state, and federal agencies, I admire the National Transportation Safety Board the most because whenever there is a major plane crash, a train derailment or a tragic highway crash, they put 100 percent into their investigation on what caused the accident.
Never once have they sugarcoated the cause of an accident. Although it may take many months of a year or two for their conclusions, they often make recommendations that in the future will save countless lives.
When has the Department of Transportation ever listened to the concerns of the residents about any changes being made? How about never. Another useless city agency is the Parks Department. When there was an outcry about putting concrete on the Boardwalk, Parks claimed it was easier to maintain and that there was no way to get rainforest wood. What they never mentioned was that the design commission stated that recycled wood from out of state could be used just as easily.
Both these city agencies are deaf to the public’s concerns, so why do we even need them?
Solomon Rafelowsky
Brighton Beach
Frankly, Jerome
To the editor,
Jerome Frank seems to think I favor the upper one percent of Americans that achieved their wealth through hard work and a drive to do better (“Income inequality,” Sound off to the Editor, Oct. 16).
Maybe in his case, his attitude and the attitude of so many people who bemoan the fact that they are not rich are self-repressing them to the lower rungs of society.
My family emigrated from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other European states prior to 1900. Nothing was handed to them on a silver platter. They knew that to succeed in the new land, they had to learn its language and get together, getting their hands dirty, to scratch a living out of whatever they chose to do.
I pride myself, in some little way, of championing the rights of the workers, as I once was a vice president in a local union. During my tenure I learned a lot of the so-called one percent versus the 99 percenters. I saw how the different attitudes of the workers determined how far they progressed or regressed through the ranks. Those individuals with a sense of drive and determination climbed the ladder of success, ultimately leaving the ranks for management positions. Those with an attitude, a socialist-communist attitude of I-deserve-everything, were always in trouble with the boss, calling upon me and others in the union to help bail them out.
I invite Jerome to learn the true history of his favored socialist parties and understand that even with them, there was an upper one-percent-plus crust of political hacks enjoying a very good living while the people, under their tutelage, were the true working “slaves of the state.”
Capitalism ain’t perfect, but at least under its reign and our hard-fought-for-and-won American freedoms, one has a chance to stand up, excel, and achieve a higher income and attitude status.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
‘Weakened’ Chuck
To the editor,
I am not surprised that according to a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) most recent favorable approval rating is down to 52 percent. This represents his lowest approval ratings since May 2000.
There are two reasons for this decline: One, like the cowardly lion from the Land of Oz, Schumer came out against the proposed treaty with Iran, but with a wink and nod to President Obama refused to lobby his fellow senators in joining him to oppose the treaty. Many Jewish and non-Jewish friends of Israel are not happy with his abdication of leadership on this issue.
Two, since 1981 under Schumer’s watch as both a congressmember and senator our national debt went up by $17.4 trillion, increasing from $1 trillion in 1981 to $18.4 trillion, today. No wonder Schumer never talks about this at his standard Sunday news conferences. It is nothing to be proud of.
Besides conservatives and Republicans, many mainstream moderate Democrats and independent voters are not happy with his fiscal mismanagement of Washington. Younger voters who will have to pay off this debt are especially displeased.
Schumer faced unknown Republican challengers with no-name recognition, money or party support in 2004 (Howard Mills) and 2010 (Jay Townsend). New York Republicans now have a surprising opportunity in 2016. Given Schumer’s weakened poll numbers, perhaps a brave Republican candidate with both name recognition and the financial resources to offer a serious alternative will finally step forward to challenge him in 2016. It might make for an interesting contest as opposed to another Schumer coronation.
If New York Republicans give Schumer a free ride for the third time, he will be free to run around the nation in 2016 assisting other fellow Democrats running for the Senate. Democrats only need a net pick up of five seats to regain control of the Senate. Schumer will use his well-oiled, pay-for-play fundraising machine — he already has $20 million in the bank for his 2016 race with no announced opponent — to raise whatever it takes, be it $100 million or more, so he can become the Democratic Senate majority leader.Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Classroom trenches
To the editor,
As Warner Wolfe used to say, “Let’s Go to the Videotape,” when he would want something investigated further. Similarly let’s go to the school records of violent criminals, or better yet, do something with them in their formative years so that they don’t resort to such violence. If you opened the school records, you would see evidence of cutting class, constantly disrupting the class, roaming through the hallways, cursing, screaming, fighting, and causing all sorts of mayhem.
The city’s school system has failed these students and others by their complete refusal to deal with disruptive youth. As a result, the latter become more emboldened with each passing year, and their deviant behavior worsens until an innocent life is lost.
We keep such students in regular classes if the parent refuses to sign for special placement. As a result, chaos results as teachers desperately try to keep order with burgeoning class sizes. When are we going to face this problem head on and not keep sweeping it under the rug? This is not a racist problem. Disruptive pupils come in all races, religions and all backgrounds.
Empty out the regional and district offices and get teachers back in the classroom. We need more psychologists and psychiatrists in the schools. Less suspensions will not solve anything.
So-called staff development is a complete joke and everyone knows it. Let all the militants, ultra liberals and critics of teachers get themselves teacher licenses and get a taste of what it is like in the trenches.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Frankly, Jerome
To the editor,
Reader Jerome Frank stated that citizens do not have the right to own guns, except as part of the militia (“Shun guns,” Sound Off to the Editor, Nov. 13). He is 100 percent, positively, totally — wrong.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in both the Heller and MacDonald cases, affirmed that the Second Amendment is an individual right of citizens to own guns without the requirement of being a member of a “well-regulated” (well-trained) militia, which actually do still exist. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, “You have to read it (the Bill of Rights) before you can talk about it intelligently.”
Mr. Frank said that we have police forces to protect us, and therefore people do not need to own guns. This is total nonsense. The Second Amendment is not a “Bill of Needs,” it is a “Bill of Rights.” The police cannot protect us, and they will be the first ones to tell us that the law does not require them to protect any individual (with some exceptions), only “the public” as a whole. When an armed intruder breaks into your house, you may not have time to call 911, but even if you do, what do you do to protect your family in the meantime? When every second counts, the police are mere minutes away. By the time they arrive you might already be dead. If you had a gun, you could retreat to a bedroom with your family and your gun, and be able to defend them until the police arrives.
The National Rifle Association provides gun safety training to civilian shooters, and even trains police officers in gun safety and marksmanship. There is even a gun safety program for kids, teaching them what to do if they happen to come upon a gun. The association advocates for the preservation of Second Amendment rights for all citizens, not only its members. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are well aware that pushing for more ludicrous gun control laws is a non-starter and that is the reason they shy away from it. There are about five million N.R.A. members and members of other Second Amendment advocacy groups who have never committed any crimes whatsoever and they resent being put in the same class as criminals, mental cases, and domestic abusers. Our lawmakers should focus on the right target and increase the penalties for using guns in the commission of crimes. David F. Podesta
Marine Park
