Commentary on today’s news and opinion, from readers and newsmakers.
The East Ramapo Town Board voted 3-0 tooverride New York state’s two-percent tax-levy cap on Monday. Town supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence has said newly imposed fees that Rockland County is passing to towns as it faces a budget crisis require the town to exceed the tax-levy limit. He estimates that town taxes will increase by 6.9 percent, a figure that many LoHud.com readers and East Ramapo residents are outraged by:
“It is completely inappropriate for the board to have voted last night on the approval worded as it was (with no new cap or any mention of limits in anyway) at this point in time. By the end of the night he admitted publicly that they were going to exceed 6.9 percent and that he hoped it would still be in the single digits. I wish The Journal News had stayed to hear that admission…”
— Deb Seidman
”[St. Lawrence] has wasted our tax monies on the stadium (which is not generating the promised money) and the Elm Street affordable housing (which is not affordable and is being sold to corporations from Brooklyn). He is hiding the town budget! He is artificially inflating costs for some departments like the ambulance corps, but he is using that money to pay for his two big mistakes.”
— Susan Montemorano
“The problem is and always has been voter apathy. The percentage of registered voters who actually show up at the polls is an embarrassment. For such a “well educated, affluent” community, the majority of residents are hopelessly (and by choice) uninformed about the very community they live in. If people took the time to understand the issues in their community and do their pubic service by voting, [St. Lawrence] and his mindless minions would not have gotten this far.”
— Lizanne Fiorentino
Yonkers police caught a local man believed to have been selling drugs after engaging in a high-speed car chase where the suspect drove on sidewalks and crashed into police vehicles giving them minor injuries. The sister of the accused man videotaped the aftermath of the arrest and alleges that her brother was the victim of police brutality. LoHud.com readers offer their thoughts on the posted video and what really transpired:
“He was caught in the middle of a drug deal. He took off driving over the double yellow lines, almost hitting other cars and people. Those very same people are in your community! This has nothing to do with whether or not you’re on welfare or if you work. This has to do with crime.”
— Karen Gizzo Campanile
“Where is the rest of the tape? She said she started recording after the beating stopped, I bet the first part of that tape shows him violently fighting the police, not them beating him as she claims.”
— Frank Rizzo
What are you talking about today? Leave your answer in the comments below.
