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THE WEEK OF JULY 10, 2003
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No thanks to them
Dear Editor:
City Council Member Dennis Gallagher was given many thanks by protesters after he procured $500,000 from the city budget toward purchasing the Catalpa YMCA. But the thanks should be given to the people who actually created that money in the first place: the taxpayers. This misdirected gratitude shows the lack of depth in the protesters’ thinking.
What business does the government have in purchasing and co-managing a private community center? The building’s renovation and maintenance costs (which was one of the major reasons that it incurred nearly $4 million debt) are more likely to go up, not down, as city-contracted, unionized labor and basic government bloat milk taxpayers beyond the center’s worth.
It is a simple fact that when someone—whether it be the city or a civic group—is spending other people’s money, they tend to spend it less wisely than if it were their own. Gallagher has already cautioned us that the $500,000 is not enough and that up to twice that may be needed to cover the purchase.
Protesters see only the short-term future with a shiny, new YMCA, not the long-term costs that will come out of the paychecks of the very youths this plan aims to benefit.
Typically, if one wants to risk his or her own money on the YMCA, one is free to do so just as one is free to refrain. But the situation is atypical because Gallagher and the protesters are forcing everyone, including those who disagree, to risk their income by virtue of subsidization. This is morally wrong.
The YMCA is a good example of why you need to work hard to keep what you value precisely because of the possibility that it will disappear if you don’t.
Voluntary contributions are a great way of financing the YMCA. But instead, protesters (comprised in large part by parents) have opted to teach kids by example that begging the government for handouts of other people’s hard-earned money without so much as a public referendum is how you get what you want in Ridgewood.
For this, Council Member Gallagher and the protesters do not deserve our thanks. They deserve our disdain.
Leonardo F. Urbano
Ridgewood
Assemblyman’s advisory
Dear Editor:
With the city’s ticket blitz underway, Queens residents are receiving summonses for activities that they didn’t even know were violations.
One such violation is the unofficial reserving of parking spaces by residents. This is when an individual uses a garbage can, orange cone, or other object to deter someone from parking in front of their home on a public street.
Citizens are also prohibited from marking or painting curbs and posting signs in the roadway in an attempt to prevent someone from parking by their home.
It is certainly frustrating when parking is not available near one’s own home. I sympathize with residents who feel that reserving a parking spot is their only option, but as per New York City law, this practice is illegal.
It is quite obvious that the city is cracking down on all types of violations, and I wanted the public to be aware of this regulation, in order to avoid another unnecessary ticket.
Thank you for your courtesy and consideration.
Michael Cohen
Member of the State Assembly
Ticket blitz blasted
Dear Editor:
I would like to commend Ruth A. Lowe of Ridgewood for her to-the-point letter, (“Draws bead on ticket blitz”) which appeared in your June 26, 2003 issue.
I believe Ms. Lowe speaks for a large majority of New Yorkers who are fed up with: first, this ridiculous ticket blitzkrieg by City Hall and Big Brother legislation by the City Council Socialists; and second, by the constant Christian-bashing by the media, liberal legislators and the regressive state of the Supreme Court.
Ms. Lowe’s article addresses several excellent, common sense issues, which lead everyone to ponder: “What the hell is going on?” and “When is it going to stop?” The situation with the person who was given a ticket for having their rosary beads hanging in their own personally purchased car is as sick as the ticket that was given to a young pregnant woman for resting on a subway staircase.
This band of malcontents had better get their heads out of their orifices, get away from reading Marx, Lenin and Mao; take the flowers out of their hair and stop smoking the illegal substance they tried in their formative (?) years! Another irony is the fact that these geniuses who smoke illegal substances jog behind exhaust violation buses in their designer sweats, but then pass legislation that tells a multiple- generation local tavern owner that no one can smoke a legal substance in their privately owned establishment, for which they pay the State Liquor Authority a huge fee for their liquor license.
They also say that physical destruction of our country’s flag, “Old Glory,” is a form of free speech! Our country’s flag is the one unifying symbol that binds us all as Americans! Talk about liberal spin! Forget the spin, the socialists are getting so far out-of-hand that the spin is sending us off to a distant, cold and morally lacking point in the universe!
My fellow Americans, it’s time for everyone to start looking at the candidates, their platforms and positions before blindly voting “The Party” in the future. That’s what got us into the socialist mess we are being enveloped by in the “Liberal Northeast!” Apologies to the great State of New Hampshire, the shining star in the socialist wasteland! The liberal media, legislators and judges, who have twisted and bent the Constitution of our great country to meet their socialist agenda, should be made aware that this great document that guides all Americans can and will be addressed by the majority of Americans who have just sat back and watched as these malcontents are destroying what made the United States of America the greatest country on the face of the earth. We will change the direction of your liberal compass. God Bless America, “One Nation Under God” and Das Kapital will never replace the Holy Bible!
Try a dose of some good and common sense. It’s what made America great!
John N. Severa
Forest Hills