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We have seen the brutalist attack ads on
Senator Monica Martinez on TV.
I am writing to describe her
true record and her real accomplishments.
With her eye on
public safety, Senator Martinez introduced a bail reform bill that
would protect us. Her bill would empower judges to determine whether
someone should be detained, pretrial. To ensure the greatest
fairness, Senator Martinez called for an appeals panel also.
Senator Martinez has led the fight against gang violence. She has
secured funding to ensure that our law enforcement agents are
correctly equipped.
Senator Martinez wants Suffolk County
taxes to be under control. She secured nearly $42 million in support
of local government. Her proposed 2 % property tax cap, and support
of the STAR exemption will save the average Suffolk County homeowner
an average of $6,000 a year.
Senator Martinez’ policies are
supported by the New York League of Conservation’s Voters and the
Sierra Club. With $300 million secured for the Environmental
Protection Fund, she has also procured $350,000 for drainage
projects where they are urgently needed. She continues to advocate
for our beaches, our parks, and our safely from natural disasters,
and is award 100% (perfect) score by the 2019 State Environmental
Scorecard. (Lee Zeldin’s lifetime record is 13%.)
Martinez
led the charge against disgusting, illegal dumping. The perpetrators
chose to dispose of toxic materials in disadvantaged neighborhoods,
exposing residents to 50,000 tons of hazardous waste: asbestos and
pesticides. Senator Martinez’s bill will prosecute illegal dumpers,
protecting us.
I haven’t even taken Senator Martinez’ strong
advocacy for students and pro-health stances into account.
Do
you wonder who paid for the brutalist ad? It’s a company that was
only formed this August and is registered in Delaware.
Jennifer Vorbach
Bellport Village
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s made our lives
better and fairer. Her challenge to Congress to end pay
discrimination toward women, which led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act, benefited women and families across the country. At the
time of its passage a typical working woman lost an estimated
$431,000 over her lifetime because of the gender pay gap: Money that
her family could have used to buy a home or put two kids through
college.
Indeed, what made Ginsburg truly a treasure was her
ability to remind us how much we all lose when discrimination exists
toward any group. Among her landmark cases, she challenged a
military regulation that denied husbands of women serving in the
military the same benefits as military widows. In another case, she
went after a Social Security provision that denied widowers the same
survivor benefits as widows.
Both were based on the
antiquated assumption that women were not critical breadwinners to
their families. In her elegant arguments – whether against
discredited notions of a woman’s place or abilities or against the
evisceration of the Voting Rights Act – she taught us that
unchallenged prejudices hurt not just women but men, families,
communities and the nation as well. She will be missed.
Sue Hornik
Bellport Village
As per the petition attached, it has
taken the CoVid quarantine which has returned our Summer Residents
24/7 to enjoy the bounty of the 5-day outrage of noise and pollution
in the execution of maintaining our greenery!
To the petition
organizers I recommend "Full Speed Ahead!”
PLEASE!!
Barbara D Knowles
Bellport
Village
PETITION TO MOVE TOWARD A GREEN FUTURE IN
LAWN CARE IN BELLPORT FOR PURPOSES OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND QUALITY OF
LIFE
We, the undersigned, are petitioning the Village of
Bellport to address the noise and environmental pollution caused by
gas-powered lawn equipment––including leaf blowers and hedge
clipper––as well as the overall detriment to the quality and life
and health of Village residents due to the daily barrage of noise
and air pollution caused by mechanized lawn machines. We are
requesting the following:
1. In line with other
municipalities in New York and across the nation, as well as a
recently proposed amendment to New York State public health law (S
1300-d, dated January 29, 2020), a ban on the use of gas-powered
leaf blowers in the Village of Bellport.
2. In line with
other municipalities in New York and across the nation, as well as
advocacy organizations such as Quiet Communities, Inc., a ban on
gas-powered hedge trimmers, or a severe restriction on the number of
continuous hours they can be in use, in the Village of Bellport.
3. The creation of a lawn maintenance schedule by geographic
zone, similar to the Sanitation pick-up schedule, that designates on
which days lawn maintenance with mechanized equipment can occur on
particular streets of the Village. Each zone would permit three days
a week of mechanized work, allowing for all households to maintain
their properties, while providing for 4 noise-free days for
residents. Hand-powered and non-mechanized maintenance and garden
work would be exempt from this regulation, as would exceptional
circumstances due to named storms.
The members of the Board of Education of
the South Country Central School District would like to acknowledge
the swift action of the commissioners and chiefs of the Brookhaven
Fire Department in denouncing the actions of some of its members to
display a confederate flag on a taxpayer-funded fire truck. We also
appreciate the support for anti-bias training by the NAACP and many
of our elected officials to change this hurtful behavior.
The South Country Central School District encompasses the Brookhaven
Fire District. Therefore, we recognize how an incident like this, in
such a diverse community as ours, can be used as a teachable moment
for both the members of the fire department volunteer service and
our community as a whole.
We are all neighbors, coworkers,
family and friends. Tolerance and support of one another must go
hand-in-hand. The South Country Central School District Board of
Education pledges to do our part in examining our education
curriculum to ensure that we are educating our students to be the
best they can be. We further pledge to be an instrument for lasting
change against systemic racism, intolerance and social injustice.
Sincerely,
The South Country CSD Board of Education
E. Anne Hayes, President
Cameron Trent, Vice President
Gena Ancona
Melissa Aruta
Cheryl A. Felice
Clyde Parker
Chris Picini
Dear Chief Di Pinto Jr.,
The BVA
Board is writing in response to the display of a Confederate flag on
a Brookhaven Fire truck.
The Board is eager to see quick and
transparent resolutions to the investigations begun within the State
Division of Human Rights Department and the Suffolk County Human
Rights Commission. The Board looks to you, Chief Di Pinto Jr., for
your continued open and clear communication with our community on
the steps, actions and results your department is procuring.
The BVA Board has a history of working with the Brookhaven Fire
Department for the good of our community. We look forward to
continuing that partnership in a way that employs and celebrates the
fundamental principles of any community: diversity, equality and
inclusion.
The BVA Board cannot more strongly agree with your
statement that racism has no home in our Firehouse nor in our
community.
Sincerely,
The Brookhaven Village
Association Board
There is no such thing as a Brookhaven
Hamlet Fire Truck.
Brookhaven Fire Department is In The
Brookhaven Fire District and covers Brookhaven hamlet , most of
Shirley west of The William Floyd Parkway and parts of Yaphank and
Bellport . We operate two fire houses fully equipped one in
Brookhaven the other in Shirley on Camp Upton Road . We average 800
alarms and we do not operate an ambulance. Our chiefs as well as our
members come from all the mailing addresses and at present one fire
commissioner Is from Shirley .
This is not an official
statement but a simple explanation that I would explain to anyone .
I hold no position and no longer respond but I’m a 58 year member.
Ron Kinsella
Brookhaven, NY
As a Brookhaven Hamlet resident I was
appalled to see a photo taken this weekend of a Confederate flag
draped on a fire truck belonging to my local fire department. This
flag is a symbol of hatred and there is no place for it, or the
racism it represents in today’s society. Brookhaven Fire Chief Peter
Di Pinto said in a statement that the incident involved a single
firefighter, acting alone, and he condemned it adding "racism has no
home in our firehouse.” Apology accepted. But what’s needed is for
the fire department to take action by removing the individual
responsible for this hateful act immediately. A slap on the wrist
won’t do.
Larry Tierney
Brookhaven Hamlet
Editor's Note: This letter is in response to our recent Seen & Heard piece.
Thank you for your excellent coverage of
the demonstration in Bellport last Saturday morning in support of
the U.S. Postal Service. In particular, your video of interviews
with participants helped illuminate the multiple concerns that
brought people to the protest.
Recently our Congressman, Lee
Zeldin, wrote to the House leadership expressing his support for the
US Postal Service and criticizing tactics that would politicize the
USPS.
I was pleasantly surprised that Zeldin was supporting
an issue I care about. Even in ordinary times the Postal Service is
an institution that knits our neighborhoods, communities and indeed
our entire country together. Add to that the pandemic and the need
to vote by mail, and it becomes critical to the exercise of our
rights as citizens.
Yet when the Delivering for America Act
was introduced in the House last weekend, Zeldin took a very
different tack. The bill included a $25 billion appropriation in
FY2020 funding for the Postal Service Fund, which would remain
available until expended. It required the USPS to reverse new
policies that might delay the processing or delivery of the mail and
stopped the removal of any more mail boxes. Most importantly, it
required the USPS to treat election mail like first-class mail, even
if that requires overtime pay. Since the November election will
depend heavily on mail-in ballots, the bill required that the USPS
postmark all mail-in ballots on the day they are received by the
USPS.
On the basis of his prior letter, I assumed Mr. Zeldin
would support such a measure. Wrong. He voted against the bill.
Fortunately, it passed the House anyway.
Does Zeldin really
think his constituents won’t notice when he takes one position
publicly on a matter of such importance and then votes the opposite
way?
I for one will remember this on November 3rd.
Marc Rauch
Bellport, NY
I want to express my concern for the
future of the USPS. I have been troubled for quite some time about
the financial demands made upon it which have not been made of other
agencies. Now, I am concerned that under Mr. de Joy it is being
destroyed before our eyes.
We need to remember that this is
our United States Postal Service and think about the many vital
services the USPS provides to all of us. I don’t know what my
husband and I would do without reliable, timely and reasonably
priced mail service, especially now in the midst of COVID concerns.
We need the USPS to deliver our medicine. We need it to deliver
food and supplies—we are seniors and like others at heightened risk
for COVID, we must minimize the risk of shopping or picking up
medicine or hand sanitizer in person; private couriers or shoppers
are beyond the means of many of us. I needed it to send sewn masks
to our children and grandchildren when masks were otherwise hard to
get. We need it to communicate and pay our bills and we will be
depending upon it to deliver our absentee ballots.
My husband
is a veteran and we are especially concerned about his fellow
vets--100,000 of them work for the USPS and well over 300,000 depend
upon the USPS to deliver their medicine. They gave so much for us;
how can we let Mr. de Joy jeopardize their jobs and leave them
without medicine?
For the sake of seniors, veterans and all
of us who depend upon the USPS and to preserve our right to vote, we
must stop Mr. de Voy and his ruinous policies. We must get behind
our postal workers and continue to stand up for them. We must save
our United States Postal Service.
Susan Beckett
Bellport, NY
Editor's Note: This letter is in response to our recent Editorial.
I read your editorial about boat slip
rentals for this summer and I watched the recorded discussion by the
Village board of the matter.
In any normal commercial
transaction a payer has the expectation that he will receive what
was described in his purchase agreement. Ergo the slip holders
should be reimbursed for the non-availability of the slip services
they bought.
If the village board cannot claw back some
money from the contractor for the late delivery of the dock area in
working condition then some legal proceeding should be initiated. If
no basis for a claw back exists then some heads should roll at
Village Hall either because an incompetent contractor was chosen or
because Bellport Village stake holders were not adequately protected
by the contract entered into by their representatives.
Graheme J B Williams
Bellport, NY
PSEG needs to be doing better job. On
Thornhedge there are several elderly residents. No repair crews have
even been seen - and no work done. I hope the Mayor is doing his
best to fight for our interests.
S. Stoneburn
Bellport Village
I'm writing this letter in regards to the
Bellport Brewing Company finally coming to Bellport. Their original
location in Yaphank was not the right place for them to be at all
since they are the Bellport Brewing Company.
My husband and
I are members at several wineries and vineyards out east and end up
going to eat while we are out there. We love going into Patchogue to
hit up Blue Point Brewery's new location then going for food at one
of their local restaurants. Our village needs things for people to
do when heading here, perhaps while waiting for a table at one our
wonderful restaurants and shopping in the stores. This microbrewery
would help our local economy when the weather doesn't allow for a
trip to the beach or a round of golf.
I truly hope the board
sees the benefit of having the Bellport Brewing Company become
another destination to go to when visiting our beautiful village.
April Ackerly-Dahn & Robert Dahn, Jr.
Bellport
Village
On Monday, August 10th at 7PM via Zoom
the Village Board of Trustees will consider a proposal that entails
a change to the Village Code pertaining to the all-important
Neighborhood Business-Transition Zone in order to allow a brewery
business with food trucks.
The transition zone on Station
Road above the Four Corners was proposed in the Master Plan for
Bellport in 1988 and passed into the Village Code soon after the
plan was adopted the following year. Its purpose was to delineate
the downtown and prevent sprawl- especially in the form of small
strip malls- that have disfigured other communities on Long Island.
The goal was to preserve the buildings that exist while continuing
to allow a mix of residential, professional, and commercial use.
According to the Code, vintage buildings that are no longer used
residentially cannot be torn down, but they can be converted to
professional offices. The idea behind the transition zone was to
preserve Bellport’s sense of place by providing a “buffer area”
north and east of downtown. The village committed significant
resources, manpower, and time to come up with a strategic plan that
made sense and would do just that.
As we understand it, the
proposed change is to allow a brewery in an existing commercial
building that is in the transition zone E. So far so good. But then
the proposal seeks to permit “food trucks as an accessory use.”
Section 21-286.15 of the Code states that “no accessory buildings
and/or uses are permitted in the Business E Zoning District” while
Article 1. General Sec. 21.1 states “no accessory building shall
have a kitchen…no accessory building shall be used…for income
producing purposes.” These restrictions are foundational to the
Code. Why emasculate it for the sake of a single business? Besides
tampering with something that has served the village well for 30
years, eliminating this restriction is not appropriate for two other
reasons.
First, it raises the question where these trucks
would be parked. There certainly is no room on the shoulder of
Station Road. Not only would that be unsightly, but it would also
pose a traffic hazard by blocking the view of southbound drivers as
they approach South Country Road. If a truck motor needs to run, it
would add to noise and air pollution. The backyard and driveway of
the building does not offer a solution either and the issue of
pollution remains. So where would these food trucks be placed?
But there is an equally important issue to consider. The idea of
having a “scene” where people drink beer, mill about, and then drive
away could be problematic and flies in the face of the village’s
concern for traffic safety.
Victor Principe and John
Renninger
Bellport Village
Like many of our residents, we are
disappointed and frustrated with the response by PSEG to Tropical
Storm Isaias and the systemic failure of the utility’s
communications system.
While the quantity of outages is lower
than those experienced during Superstorm Sandy, the communication
problem has been far worse. Their outage map is not reflecting
actual outages, leading residents to wonder if PSEG is even aware of
their outage. Further, the new municipal portal which was set up to
report critical outages and blocked roads in need of PSEG support
failed less than two hours after the start of the storm. The
collapse of PSEG’s telephone and text systems have led to a near
information blackout. In short, the entire communications system put
in place by PSEG was a monumental failure.
Brookhaven Town,
which has more than 3,700 miles of roads and is physically larger
than Nassau County, has been working around the clock to clear our
roads of fallen trees and branches. The survey and overhead line
crews provided to us by PSEG are there to support that function by
de-energizing lines, not to rebuild electrical infrastructure and
restore power. We have had over 1600 trees come down across the town
with more than 400 of those involving power lines. With no crews
assigned to this task on the day of the storm, seven yesterday and
ten today, it will take many more days to clear those roads that
require PSEG assistance. This has resulted in street closures,
residents unable to leave their homes and a dangerous obstacle for
emergency responders.
For years we have all seen
advertisements from PSEG about the millions of dollars they have
spent on tree trimming, communications systems, municipal portals
and other preparations in the event of a major hurricane. Isaias,
which was only a Tropical Storm, shows that this investment of our
money did not bear results.
More than 30 years ago Brookhaven
instituted a policy requiring new subdivisions to have all utility
lines buried to better prepare these homes to weather significant
storms. It is well past time for our electric utility to abandon the
19th century technology of power lines on wooden poles and make
annual investments in beginning the process of moving all lines
underground.
Brookhaven Supervisor, Ed Romaine
Highway Superintendent, Dan Losquadro
Editor's Note: This letter is in response to our recent Editorial.
Thank you for your editorial COVID-19, It
Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over...I agree with all the points you made.
Our numbers are very good because people in our surrounding
communities have been paying attention to the suggestions made by
the medical experts.
However, it is very troublesome to see,
& come into contact with, employees at Home Depot, Lowe’s and
Cirillo’s wearing their face masks below their noses, and sometimes
on their chins.
Do we like wearing our two-ply masks on these
hot & humid days? Absolutely not!! But we do it for the good of all,
to show our respect for one another’s well being. We all need to
comply with the safety precautions that are in place to keep the
numbers of new cases and deaths from Covid 19 as low as possible.
And that “ALL” includes the person slicing our cold cuts behind the
deli counter at Cirillo’s.
Ronni Green
Bellport,
NY
Below you will find the link the
anti-vector sprays used in Suffolk County. The adult mosquito
control products listed are Anvil 10 10 ULV, Duet ULV, and Scourge
1854.
Studies have shown that each of these sprays contains
products that are considered harmful to humans and to wildlife.
https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/Public-Works/Vector-Mosquito-Control/Vector-Online-Form
A Suffolk County spraying helicopter was seen in the
vicinity of Bellport recently. The Suffolk County website itself
recommends that people and pets stay indoors and keep doors and
windows shut.
Despite the spraying, it’s been a banner year
for mosquitoes. And there appear to be fewer butterflies and moths.
Only the cabbage whites seems to be plentiful. My street has
experienced a rash of dead catbirds.
My neighbors and I have
employed non-chemical sprays with excellent results.
It’s my
hope that we can persuade Suffolk County Vector Control to convert
to less toxic sprays. It’s also my hope that an efficient alert
system can be instigated so that we know, at least a few days in
advance, when chemical spraying will take place.
I invite
anyone who would like to join me in this to email me at:
jennifer.vorbach@me.com.
Jennifer Vorbach
Bellport Village
It is one of the first signs and joys of
summer when the fireflies appear as if by magic and glow above the
grass in patterns of random beauty in the evening.
Reading up
on their lifecycle, I discovered that they are dwindling around the
world.
Probably many Bellport residents know this (or would
assume it since so many other living things are in danger of
disappearing), but I felt moved to write for any who don’t, about
what we can do to help preserve these unique, enchanting beetles.
Xerces.org and firefly.org have a lot of fascinating info, but
the main takeaways for conserving are:
- reduce amount and
limit use of outdoor lighting
- try to provide places where they
can breed
- let grass grow long in some part of your yard, leave
at least some leaves unraked. Undisturbed logs /brush piles are
good, as is water
- don’t kill too many snails or slugs -the
larvae eat them
- reduce or give up pesticide treatments
Unfortunately, suburban gardens are some of the last refuges of
beneficial insects and pollinators - or perhaps it’s fortunate,
since we can participate so directly in their preservation.
One other tip on these sites is to share your concern with
neighbors, so here I am.
Lisa Keim
Bellport Village
Editor's Note: This letter is in response to our recent Editorial.
Great editorial! I'm pleased that you
continue to post COVID-19 data and related information. At the
beginning I read about what was happening in Italy and how the 1918
pandemic killed more people than WW I and was proud that counties in
the San Francisco Bay area issued orders to shelter in place very
quickly after COVID-19 first appeared. I worried about my mother in
East Patchogue and brother, whom we did persuade to come from his
apartment in Manhattan to stay with her. New Yorkers evidently paid
attention to what was happening around the world (and very shortly
right there!) and did a great job of slowing the spread. Now
California is relaxing its rules and COVID-19 is spreading faster
than ever. Thank you urging people on Long Island to be careful!
Curtis Jones
San Jose, CA