To the editor,
It has been nearly three years since Brighton Beach was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Our only large supermarket — Met Foodmarket — was destroyed. There were rumors that it would not reopen due to the fact that the rent would be increased three-fold. Once this became a reality, where were the local residents supposed to go? Many being elderly seniors could not make it to other supermarkets, so many suffered because of this.
We were informed that smaller stores would replace Met, but what stores? To this day nothing but empty space still exists. Our local politicians were aware of this problem and made a point of attempting to attract a supermarket, but so far the place stays empty. Of course the greed of the landlord plays a major role. All too many stores have gone out of business since landlords have attempted to double or triple the rents.
Years ago there was talk about commercial rent control, but that proposal went out like the dinosaur. What does it takes to attract a real viable supermarket that serves the whole community?Jerry Sattler
Brighton Beach
Snoozing pols
To the editor,
After the shooting of our brave marines in Tennessee at the hands of an Americanized Muslim terrorist (there, I said it as our president won’t), it is such a sad sight to see our city and state police in full riot gear protecting our military. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
America has been asleep at the wheel, as the president and fellow politicians allow the car of common sense to go careening off the cliff. Politicians running for president are so worried about illegal Mexicans and the building of walls in the south, I have heard nothing about the massive influx of illegals romping in from the north. It is common knowledge that this is the preferred entry point for those wishing to do us harm from the Middle East.
I guess the talking heads will continue to do what they do best, and not really take care of our safety and security here on American soil until it is far too late.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
Super-zeros
To the editor,
As I previously wrote, Lenore Skenazy’s column (“Rhymes with Crazy”) is a welcome addition. However I have to take exception with her July 3 column, “Superheroes to the Rescue of America.”
I agree that it can be healthy to a certain degree for children to fantasize, but even small children know that “Superman” cannot fly, nor does he have the boundless powers of 100 men. When teenagers and adults, however, portray actors like John Wayne as proud, noble, and competent war heroes, it can have devastating psychological effects for the individual and the country.
Some people believe John Wayne was a decorated World War II hero. The unvarnished truth is that he never served in the military because he had five children.
During the World War II era, if a man had a wife and children he was reclassified because the government would have to give child support of $80 a month for one child, $120 for two children, and $160 for three. The budget for allotments could not give an illimitable amount and the budget could not budge for every physically or mentally able person.
This in effect will cause many generals and colonels to force their subordinates to perform certain actions under false pretenses because they themselves — unable to separate fact from fiction — may believe John Wayne was great.
I agree that John Wayne was a very kind and decent man, but it is hypocrisy to emulate him and other actors because this is acting under false pretenses.Elliott Abosh
Brighton Beach
Road rage
To the editor,
Many other states note on license plates the county where the plate (owner of vehicle) originates. New York is a large state with 62 counties. I believe our state license plates should also note the county where the vehicle’s owner lives. With so many vehicles on the road, and with so many more vehicular accidents than in the past, this might prove helpful in locating vehicles that run afoul of the law.
Improperly displayed license plates are becoming more and more prevalent in Brooklyn. Large license-plate frames obstruct originating state and other relevant information. This violation carries a hefty fine, but is rarely — if ever — carried out.
The public should be made more aware of this important law, and violators should be ticketed. Plastic covering over plates is also a common obstruction.Joan Mangano
Mill Basin
Junk justice
To the editor,
When Wall Street caused the financial disaster in 2008 there was hope that heads would roll, indictments would follow, and the people who caused it would go to jail. Well we all got snookered, and business as usual.
Some minor fines were imposed, but that was chump change to the powerful and wealthy. What amazed me was just before the women’s soccer world cup, football association officials were indicted for corruption. Why was the justice department so concerned that those officials would be tried? Does this sound like a typical double standard? Once again business as usual. Does it surprise anyone that people have such little faith in the justice system?
Solomon Rafelosky
Brighton Beach
Bully pulpit
To the editor,
Caitlyn Jenner said at the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards: “Call me names, I can take it, but the young people living their lives expressing who they are inside, they shouldn’t have to take it.”
It’s easy to agree with that. No young people should be bullied for anything in my book. Hopefully bullying will become as extinct as the dinosaur. We are all people, and should accept each other with grace and forgiveness for flaws perceived or genuine.
I think it would help to be real about the terms “homophobe” or “transgenderphobe.” The hypocrisy is that the LGBT community asks for unconditional acceptance, but deny heterosexuals with a different perception than their own the right to be accepted as straight. How can gay people ask to be accepted as equal, and not accept straight people as straight and happy with being straight?
I have no hate for people who have a different lifestyle than my own. I have a gay family member who was dear to me before and since she came out. She is, and will always be, my family. I don’t get her choice, but I don’t condemn her for it, and she accepts me as straight and doesn’t try to name-call me something I’m not — a “phobic.” Let’s have mutual respect.Jessi Ferri
Brooklyn Heights
‘Capital’ fix
To the editor,
Please bring back the much-needed death penalty in New York. When our mothers told us young’uns there’d be hell to pay if we didn’t clean our room, we understood the penalty if we did not clean our room. So we cleaned our room.
Bring back the death penalty, then loudly advertise that fact, and the dire consequences if not adhered to.Name withheld upon request
Stars & gripes
To the editor,
Burning the American flag as a protest, to be seen all over the television and internet, has to be a really stupid idea. Outside of possibly burning oneself and starting a fire, how in the world is doing something like that going to play in the mind of the public?
I wonder how many veterans watching some jerk burning the flag felt eager to join the peace movement, after seeing something like that during the protests against the Vietnam War? Just who were these guys burning the flag, anyway?
I remember a friend telling me about how she was in a large peace march to protest the Vietnam War. Just about everyone was carrying a small American flag, but everyone was surprised not to see any television cameras to cover the protest, as it marched to the White House.
But when the march got just outside the gates of the White House, dozens of cameras could be seen around a much smaller crowd, with one guy burning the flag. That’s what got covered on the evening news, with not one word about the much bigger march my friend was in.
Someone once had the idea to wash the flag as a protest against the Vietnam War. That was clearly a much better idea than burning it.David Raisman
Brooklyn
Non-trepreneurs
To the editor,
“And so it begins…” Your article, “Costume catastrophe! Times Square plague afflicts our beloved Boardwalk” (online July 2) perspicaciously begins about the relocation of costumed characters driven out of Times Square and onto the Coney Island Boardwalk. Once these exhibitionistic extortionists commandeer any area, they are inevitably followed by legions of connivers, emulating the anti-social paradigm of extracting money front unprotected civilians. The only restraint on their confrontational aggression is the limit of their imagination.
Welcome to hordes of optical squeegee men, who will pull off your sunglasses or eyeglasses without your consent, “clean” them, “shine and polish” them, and demandingly await remuneration. In your auto, you pay for the uninvited service, assessing the cost of a shattered window or kicked-in fender or door. On the Boardwalk, there will be no protection of a closed door or window.
Welcome to hordes of self-appointed entrepreneurs. Unasked, they will assist you with bench chairs, coolers, umbrellas, and other gear that you are lugging to your chosen sandy destination. Perhaps the City Council can license these bogus bellboys and establish reasonable rates, so as to augment the depleted city budget.
Can-and-bottle collectors can augment their income by filling up the bottles with water and selling them to the unsuspecting. Some of us suspect that this is already being done on a grand scale by the beverage industry. The economic opportunities are limitless. Artists can create necklaces of seashells and survive in a capitalistic society, while inspiring the aesthetic and cultural ambiance of Brooklyn. Fortune tellers have always constituted a magnificent mosaic in the cornucopia of Coney Island’s cultural community. A randomly found seashell, when interpreted correctly, reveals your destiny for a dollar.
What about the displaced masseuses who lose employment based on zealous, puritanical crackdowns on legitimate massage parlors? They could peripatetically combine the therapeutic benefits of massage with sunscreen applicants, by going blanket to blanket.
Joseph McCoppin
Sheepshead Bay
Wary-juana
To the editor,
Marijuana is not and should not be a part of mainstream America. The rush to legalize it is all about money — we close hospitals to build condos in this country.
People seem so desperate to get high on something or another. When you smoke you think everyone else does, too, but not everyone smokes pot! What we do in the privacy of our own homes can affect others. If you get high in your own home, then drive a car or perform surgery, it can have dire consequences. Pets and children should not be exposed to such substances, either.
If pot didn’t alter perception then why would you ingest it? If it is proven to truly help very ill people, then okay, and no one should have to go to jail for small amounts, but I for one do not want to smell it or ingest it. There is no such thing as “contact high” because of someone’s liquor consumption.
Mary A. Pantano
Tunnel vision
To the editor,
The proposed Cross Harbor Freight Tunnel, which might connect New Jersey to Brooklyn and Queens, is under consideration again. In theory, it might move thousands of trucks on a daily basis off the roads and on to railroad tracks for significant portions of the journey between New Jersey and Long Island. It reminds me of the long-forgotten proposed tunnel between 69th Street in Bay Ridge and St. George on Staten Island. The concept was to extend subway service from Brooklyn to Staten Island. Ground was broken with entrances at both ends in the 1920s, but the project quickly ran out of money and was abandoned to history. When living on Shore Road in Bay Ridge, friends and I would look to no avail in attempting to find the abandoned site filled in decades earlier. Flash forward almost 90 years later and we have the proposed “Cross Harbor” rail freight tunnel project.
Construction of any new freight, public transportation tunnel or bridge project can take years if not decades by the time all feasibility studies, environmental reviews, planning, design, engineering, real estate acquisition, permits, procurements, construction, budgeting, identifying, and securing funding is completed. This is before the project reaches beneficial use. Construction for the 2nd Avenue subway began in the 1960s. Bond money intended for this project in the 1950s was spent elsewhere. The latest completion date for the first segment of three stations between 63rd and 96th streets on the upper east side of Manhattan is 2016 at a cost of $4.5 billion. Construction for the original tunnel to support bringing the Long Island Rail Road from Queens into Grand Central Station began in the 1960s. The latest completion date is now 2023 with a cost of $10 billion. No one can identify the source for the estimated $16 billion to build a new tunnel for New Jersey Transit and Amtrak known as the “Gateway project” to gain additional access to Penn Station from New Jersey. Ditto for paying back the $3 billion federal loan which covered a majority of the estimated $4 billion for replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge in Westchester. Any guess who will find $5 to $10 billion or more needed for construction of a new Cross Harbor Freight Tunnel? This may be just another in the continuing series of feasibility studies sponsored by various governmental agencies and public officials over decades. They generate some money for consultants, along with free publicity, for elected officials who promise a bright future, but all to often move on to another public office before delivering. You are frequently left holding an empty bag with unfilled promises. At the end of the day just like the long abandoned Brooklyn to Staten Island subway project, don’t count on seeing any shovel in the ground before the end of this decade. Don’t count on completion of any Cross Harbor Freight Tunnel in our lifetime.Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
MTAwesome!
To the editor,
July marked the 50th anniversary of federal government support for public transportation. The success of public transportation can be traced back to one of the late President Lyndon Johnson’s greatest accomplishments, which continues benefiting many Americans today.
On July 9, 1964, he signed the “Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964” into law. Subsequently this has resulted in the investment over time of several hundred billion dollars into public transportation.
Millions of Americans, including many residing in Brooklyn today on a daily basis, utilize various public transportation alternatives. They include local and express bus, ferry, jitney, light rail, subway, and commuter rail services. All of these systems use less fuel and move far more people than conventional single occupancy vehicles. Most of these systems are funded with your tax dollars, thanks to President Johnson.
Depending upon where you live, consider the public transportation alternative. Try riding a local or express bus, commuter van, ferry, light rail, commuter rail or subway.
Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Then and now
To the editor,
Did you know that the first game to be played at the Brooklyn Dodgers Ebbets Field was an inter-league exhibition game against the New York Yankees on April 5, 1913? Ebbets Field officially opened on April 9, 1913 against the Philadelphia Phillies. The original Brooklyn Dodgers name was derived from residents who would dodge trolley cars when crossing streets for decades, until their own decline and final death in the 1950’s. If it had not been for mega builder Robert Moses, along with both the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers leaving the Big Apple in 1957 for California, there may have been no Barclays Center or Brooklyn Nets.
The golden era of baseball in the city took place in the 1950s with a three-way rivalry between the American League New York Yankees, and the National League New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. All three teams claimed to have the best center fielder in baseball. On street corners all over town, citizens would argue whether the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, Giants’ Willie Mays or Dodgers’ Duke Snider was champ.
Ordinary Brooklyn natives could ride the bus, trolley or subway to Ebbets Field to see their beloved Dodgers. Working and middle class men and woman of all ages, classes and races co-mingled in the stands. Everyone could afford a bleacher, general admission, reserve or box seat. Hot dogs, beer, other refreshments and souvenirs were reasonably priced.
Team owners would raise or reduce a players salary based on their performance the past season. Salaries were so low, that virtually all Dodger players worked at another job off season. Most Dodger players were actually neighbors who lived and worked in various communities in the County of Kings.
Residents of the era sat outside on the neighborhood stoop, shopped at the local butcher, baker, fruit, and vegetable stand. Television was a relatively new technology and the local movie theater was still king for entertainment. Brooklyn still had its very own daily newspaper — the Brooklyn Eagle — which ended publication some time in the mid-1950s.
During the 1950s, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley tried to find various locations for construction of a new baseball stadium which he pledged to finance using his own monies. With limited seating capacity at Ebbets Field, he needed a new modern stadium to remain financially viable. City master mega-builder Robert Moses refused to allow him access to the current-day Barclays Center build on Atlantic Yards. This location was easily accessible to thousands of baseball fans from all around the Big Apple via numerous subway lines and Long Island Rail Road.
Thousands of fans who moved to other neighborhoods in eastern Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk County would have had direct access via the LIRR. Imagine how different Brooklyn would have been if elected officials had stood up to Robert Moses and allowed construction of a new Dodgers stadium in downtown Brooklyn. Without the departure of both the Brooklyn Dodgers (becoming the Los Angeles Dodgers) and New York Giants (San Francisco Giants), there may have been no national league expansion in 1962. There would have been no Colt 45s (original name of the Houston Astros), our beloved New York Mets, or the Barclays Center hosting the Brooklyn Nets basketball team.Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Lesson 101
To the editor,
In reality, it doesn’t matter how long tenure is. Even tenured teachers can be fired. Principals just don’t want to go through the paper work in the process. If a principal doesn’t like you, you will be assigned the most difficult classes and therefore with unsatisfactory results and the lack of discipline in these classes, you shall be terminated.
When Spiro Agnew resigned from the vice presidency in Oct. 1973, Nixon tapped New York’s Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to be vice president. Lt. Governor Malcolm Wilson became governor and ran against Hugh Carey in the 1974 election. Carey won and thanked the teacher’s union for its support by going along with the legislature and increasing teacher tenure to five years. I vividly remember this because myself and others had to wait an additional two years to be tenured.
While this was occurring, Unity Caucus, which has run the union for more than 50 years, strongly recommended that we give money to the Committee on Political Education in order to get the tenure reduced to three years again. Had we stayed with Gov. Wilson, we wouldn’t have encountered this mess. Increasing tenure will only cause novice teachers to leave in droves.
No one wants to admit that unruly pupils are the causes of the ills of the public school system. You could make 10 years a requirement for tenure and you shall encounter the same problems. Start allowing discipline back in the schools and you would see those teachers being rated ineffective improve rapidly.Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Scott String-along
To the editor,
City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s report that New Yorkers spend more time traveling to work than those who commute in other cities told us nothing new. This has been previously documented in numerous other taxpayer-funded studies and newspaper articles. Older generations moved to two fare zones in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island in search of more affordable housing, safer neighborhoods, better air quality and better schools. They knew full well that they would be living in a two-fare (bus to subway) zone with longer commutes to and from work. Newer generations looking for the same quality of life moved to the suburbs. They had to deal with driving to a commuter railroad station, riding the railroad and transferring to the subway before arriving at work. More recent generations moved beyond the old inner suburbs to newer outer suburbs with even longer commutes.
The real questions Srtinger failed to look at is who is providing the appropriate level of funding to improve everyone’s commute and how those dollars are being spent.
For decades under numerous previous Metropolitan Transportation Authority five-year capital plans, both the city and state collectively cut billions of their own respective, financial contributions. They repeatedly had the agency refinance or borrow funds to acquire scarce capital funding formerly made up by hard cash from both City Hall and Albany. This has resulted in long term agency debt, doubling from $15 billion to more than $32 billion. More money has to be spent on debt service payments. This has resulted in billions of fewer dollars available for both operating and capital improvements for safety, state of good repair, and system expansion capital projects and programs. While Washington has consistently provided billions, it is both City Hall and Albany that have retreated from properly financing the capital program since the 1980s. How much money did Stringer bring to the city as a member of the State Assembly and Manhattan borough president? How much money has Stringer asked Mayor Bill DeBlasio, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and the City Council to provide in the municipal budget? Talk is cheap, but actions speak louder.
Stringer and other career politicians continue to miss how both the Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority manage their respective capital and operating assistance programs. Both the city and the agency combined have an active portfolio in billions of ongoing capital projects and programs. This includes almost two billion dollars of yearly assistance from Washington. These dollars are supplemented by billions more from various discretionary federal funding sources, including post 9-11 aid, American Recovery Reinvestment Act, and Hurricane Sandy funding.
Stringer’s staff time would have been better spent auditing both the city and the agency, along with their respective sub recipients and operating agencies, to see how prudent they have been in managing all those billions of dollars from Uncle Sam and Albany.
Stringer could give up both his fee parking space at City Hall and his special police parking permit. He can use his transit check to purchase MetroCards. Why not ask his wife to do the same? This will afford Stringer the opportunity to join several million constituents who use public transportation on a daily basis and also contribute to a cleaner environment.Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
‘Stupid’ Dems
To the editor,
Pee on the southern Brooklyn Democrats for being so stupid as to endorse the underground Republican spoiler for the Republican Party, James Inne, masking as a progressive candidate for Green Party U.S., not to be confused with the real Green Party, which would never run a candidate to take away votes needed to defeat a Republican candidate, something Green party US has no problem with.
Indeed when Al Gore ran against George Bush, Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, got tons of money from the Bush people. Is anyone still too stupid to understand why this was done?
This is what Martin Kilian, a forming member of the German Green Party in 1979 had to say about this so-called Green Party when it ran Nadar for president during the Gore-Bush election: “The position of the American Greens is highly questionable and outright immature if you ask me,” he said during an internet interview.
It is high time progressives and Democrats see this so called Green Party for what it really is there for: to help Republicans by taking away votes from Democrats.
I challenge anyone to come up with a more intelligent answer that is not full of it from Green Party U.S. David Raisman
Bay Ridge
On track
To the editor,
Practically every Thursday evening at the end of the month I go to a Barnes and Noble open-mike poetry event at the Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street location in the northwestern part of Brooklyn.
I take an F train to and from my location from Brighton Beach taking the Q train to Stillwell Avenue and transferring to an F train getting off at the Seventh Avenue station.
On my return trip, however, I try to take an F train back to Stillwell Avenue, but I sometimes have a considerable wait, and to save time take a G train with its final stop at Church Avenue and then wait for an F line going back home to Stillwell Avenue, and again take a Q to Brighton Beach.
If the G train can’t go directly to Coney Island, wouldn’t it make more sense for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build a direct route from either Coney Island to Rockaway station in Queens or have a super express where the first stop would be either Canal Street or Grand Street?
This might be beneficial for commuters when tracks need to be repaired as an alternative to bus service. Elliott Abosh
Brighton Beach
No-prez Pataki
To the editor,
Former New York governor George Pataki’s announcement that he is running for president in 2016 will be followed as being one of the first to drop out. No one who truly believes in limited government, balanced budgets, reduction in long-term debt and support for the free enterprise system signed up for his ill-fated 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. The same will be true in 2016, which is why Pataki will once again never get out of the starting gate.
Pataki’s lavish spending of taxpayer dollars to special interest groups to grease his 2002 re-election for his third and last term made the late liberal Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller roll over in his grave! His record deficits, excessive spending, and late budgets give real conservative Republicans anguish. Native New York Republicans who know Pataki best, will once again deny him the ability to carry New York as a favorite son candidate.
Pataki’s self promotion is really motivated by a desire to drum up both business for his consulting firm and consideration for a cabinet or other position in any future Republican administration. Pataki wrote his own political obituary long ago. Except in his mind and personal ego, Pataki is essentially irrelevant in politics today.
It is time he set his sights on something more realistic. Perhaps consider running against Sen. Charles Schumer in 2016.Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Judge and jury
To the editor,
I have never been so bloody frustrated by the attorney general’s and the court system in the past and now in the present. Do you remember the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s when the banking customers were left with the bill? I can’t remember if any of those people went to prison? Of course who could forget when Wall Street prime mortgage went down the tubes and not one person was indicted. Some big shots paid a fine that in my judgement was chump change.
Now of course the attorney general goes after the world class soccer federation. A $100 million is chump change compared to the billions lost on Wall Street.
Also I can’t believe how the courts can rule about a women’s right, not only for an abortion but for other medical procedures that can save the life of all women. Who appointed them judge, jury, and executioner?Jerry Sattler
Brighton Beach
Greedy landlords
To the editor,
Despite all their crying, landlords continue to make money on their rental properties and it’s about time that they are being put in their place.
For example landlords are required to paint for their tenants in rent-controlled and rent-stabilized buildings every three years. Since many of the tenants are in frail health they’re unable to go through with the painting, so the landlord saves money by not having to pay for a painter or the paint. You can just imagine the quality of the paint that is used. It isn’t exactly Benjamin Moore. When tenants move into an apartment they have to pay security. This could either be a month or two months rent in advance. The money goes into an account and earns interest. When the tenant vacates, landlords find fault so that they can hold back part of the security money. I personally know of a case where a tenant’s security deposit was lowered because there was a nail left in the wall, or carpeting was still on the floor. Obviously, the landlord pockets the security money if the tenant dies while in residence. In both rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments, if the sink, stove or refrigerator are there for a certain number of years, the landlord is permitted to put in new utilities and therefore jack up the rent. Tenants beware. Many of our landlords know of places that recondition utilities. The utilities come in a carton and look perfectly new. What the tenant doesn’t know is that they have been reconditioned. Reconditioned utilities are not new, but the tenant is paying more in rent for supposed “new” utilities. Still another landlord rip-off. One thing I will give to Mayor DeBlasio: He is giving it to the landlords. The latter have had it great in this town since Mayor Koch opened the door to co-operative conversions, Giuliani continued the same, and Bloomberg allowed landlords to run wild with huge increases on expiring leases.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
DOE dunces
To the editor,
What is all the fuss about mayoral control of schools? It has been anything but a success and here is why:
Class sizes continue to burgeon in our schools. Nothing is being done by the mayor, the union, or the supervisory union to ameliorate the situation. Thousands of regularly licensed teachers are displaced and placed in the Absent Teacher Reserve category. Most of these teachers were rated satisfactory during their classroom careers, but because of school downsizing or being unable to get along with the principal, they were essentially demoted. Their presence could help in lowering class sizes. The mayor still allows for people from the so-called Leadership Academy to be principals in our schools. Despite the fact that many never taught a day in their lives, they are rating teachers and are the so-called experts. At least 10 years of classroom experience in teaching is needed before one becomes a supervisor. Mayoral control has offered no help whatsoever in maintaining discipline in our public schools. Far too many schools are totally chaotic where discipline is a distant memory. The liberal lunkheads running the system refuse to reconsider the return of the 600 schools for the unruly. Under mayoral control teachers still have to scrounge around looking for funds to buy classroom material. In short, mayoral control is a disaster and should be replaced by a committee of active and retired teachers and supervisors running the schools.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Rent unstablized
To the editor,
No matter what decision is made regarding the rent expiring on rent-stabilized apartments, the story will be for one day and then disappear for another year.
When controls were lifted on apartments in Boston or Detroit, the situation got so bad that they had to be brought back. No one ever bothers to discuss why landlords with violations in their buildings get automatic increases. There should be no rent increases until all violations are removed with no retroactive increase. Rent-controlled apartments also need scrutiny. The tenants there get automatic maximum base rent increases of 7.5 percent yearly.
Don’t think that co-ops are the panacea either. At my luxury co-op, for an election of officers to take place, you must have a quorum.
As there has been no quorum in seven years, we have had no elections in that time, and incumbent board members remain in office for another year. Anyone resigning from the board is merely replaced at the discretion of the board.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Race case
To the editor,
Good students and teachers come in all hues. You could see a teacher actually shine with one class and the same teacher do miserably with a class with discipline problems.
Stop relating everything to race. I had outstanding African American students when I taught, and unfortunately the opposite was true of other students — of all races.
How come the Department of Education has never established a rotation system of its teachers? As an example take the teachers from the top schools and place them in the most difficult schools. Why? They know what the results would be. Suddenly these highly effective teachers would be deemed ineffective. It’s a matter of the complete lack of discipline in our public schools. No one wants to face reality for fear of being hounded out. Yet I repeat, discipline problems come among all students, regardless of race, religion, and nationality. You can’t teach without effective discipline. Why haven’t we returned to the 600 schools for placement of chronically disruptive pupils? Why aren’t the parents of the disrupters fined for the actions of their children? Until we improve discipline in our schools, we shall see the same abysmal results. Please stop the nonsense of linking race and bad teachers. It is not the case, no matter what the statistics say.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Gas tax
To the editor,
Legislation to fund the national Highway Trust fund and its Mass Transit Account (which funds public transportation) continues to be deadlocked in Washington. This vital funding source to cities, states and transportation agencies is used to pay for both highway and transit projects.
In the past presidents and Congress have been more interested in winning another term in office. So they have repeatedly kicked this can down the road. The national gasoline tax is used to support the Highway Trust fund was last raised to 18.4 cents in 1993. Taking any action to raise this tax by only pennies per gallon years ago would have resulted in a ample robust Highway Trust fund today.
With gasoline at record low prices (under $3 per gallon) isn’t this a good time to raise both the federal and state gas tax by just pennies per gallon? For the first time in many years, this action could fully fund the national HighwayTrust Fund and its Mass Transit Account.
Most Americans, be they city, suburban or rural residents, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, benefit by good roads, bridges, and public transportation. With continuing gridlock and partisan bickering in Washington, renewal of the Highway Trust Fund and accompanying Mass Transit Account could be the one issue Congress can agree on. Wouldn’t it be great if both Congress and the president could be proud of accomplishing something for a change?
Larry Penner
Great Neck, NY
Itchy-footed Blas
To the editor,
I wish that Mayor DeBlasio would visit city schools instead of his constant trips around the country to promote his supposed progressive agenda. With these visits, our liberal mayor would see the lawlessness occurring in far too many schools. With his lax view of discipline and removal of suspensions of disruptive students, his agenda is regressive.
The mayor belongs in the city for most of the time in order to oversee various agencies. We didn’t elect him to go around the country. While the mayor travels, crime is up as we hear that there are more shootings. Let him ride in a squad car with police to see what is occurring, let him visit apartment buildings to see what residents there have to put up with. Let’s see him fighting for renewal of rent control and rent stabilization.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
