Letters to the editor

Volume One, Issue 14, Dec. 29, 2006 - Jan. 4, 2007

Don’t trash rail option

To The Editor:
Re “Northern exposure: High Line faces threat” (news article, Dec. 22):

I write wearing many hats: Democratic state committeeman for south Chelsea, the Village, Soho and Tribeca; chairperson of the Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Council; Parks and Waterfront Committee chairperson for Community Board 2; parent, and West Village resident. I am a big fan of the High Line project and stand in awe of what Friends of the High Line has accomplished. However, F.O.H.L.’s recent forum on expansion of the High Line project into the West Side Rail Yards gives me great pause.

This past summer, the City Council and the mayor enacted a Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) that would involve alienating parkland on the Gansevoort Peninsula and expanding the existing waste transfer facility on Pier 99, right next to Clinton Cove Park. The proposal has met with broad opposition. It has been condemned by C.B. 2, C.B. 4 and C.B. 7, by the Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Council, as well as by Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymembers Richard Gottfried and Deborah Glick, New Yorkers for Parks and Friends of Hudson River Park. One of the major proposed alternatives would involve use of some portion of the rail yards to ship out waste by rail.

It is critical, as the anti-SWMP forces build their fight, that the High Line not be used as a weapon against the effort. It is entirely possible that the High Line project can be extended into the rail yards and the rail option for West Side trash can be pursued; but this will occur only if all of us work together. Gaining some additional parkland on the High Line, at the expense of losing it at Gansevoort, accomplishes nothing.

I urge F.O.H.L. to work with the anti-SWMP forces so that a solution is found which is a win-win for our communities.

Arthur Z. Schwartz

Pataki’s costly legacy

To The Editor:
Your Dec. 15 editorial, “Governor Pataki’s Downtown legacy,” was informative, but his statewide legacy leaves much to be desired.

Consider his track record over the past 12 years. Governor Pataki’s lavish spending of taxpayer dollars to special-interest groups to grease his 2002 re-election made the late liberal Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller roll over in his grave! His record deficits, excessive spending and late budgets give taxpayers anguish!

Spending in the adopted 2006 budget is more than twice the rate of inflation. This budget contained almost

$1 billion worth of legislative members’ pork barrel projects, known as member items, along with a potential deficit in the billions. Under Governor Pataki’s tenure, with bipartisan support of the State Legislature (including both Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno), borrowing for quasigovernment agencies has grown by billions of dollars. The combined budgets for dozens of these agencies runs into the tens of billions of dollars. In many cases, these expenditures are tracked offline and not counted as part of the regular budget; even worse, they are exempt from basic oversight by both the State Comptroller and State Legislature. In 2006, Albany’s three-way dance between Pataki, Bruno and Silver continued. Career politicians, on a bipartisan basis, still operate the same closed-door budget process. Albany’s $115 billion budget is greater than that of most states and many nations.

New York State is number two nationally among the 50 states, with each resident responsible for $3,515 of the $50 billion total debt. Under “TaxPaki,” state debt grew from $27 billion in 1995 to $50 billion today. Projected future red ink may raise this debt to $54 billion by 2009. New York State public authorities debt is an additional $72 billion. These combined debts plus future interest total $187 billion!

On balance, Pataki has been a net loss for New Yorkers.

Larry Penner

Profile in courage

To The Editor:
Re “Staying positive while living with H.I.V./AIDS for 15 years” (news article, Dec. 8):

I read Chelsea Now online here in Minnesota. I loved the article about Kevin Beauchamp. He is such a fighter, but without the combative attitude. His humor and community spirit are inspirational for anyone dealing with hard times. In the photo, he looks like any other healthy, handsome man. You would never know to look at him, the health issues he has overcome. Thanks for the great, upbeat article, and best wishes for continued health to Kevin!

Mary McKoskey

A real horror show

To The Editor:
The senseless and tragic death of Eric Ng on the Hudson River bike path has been examined in a compelling manner in a talking point by Charles Komanoff (“Greenway deathtrap: More accidents will happen,” Dec. 15) and a letter by Michael Gottlieb (“The monster within,” Dec. 22). Komanoff excoriates a leaden bureaucracy and Gottlieb a mindless Frankenstein populace. The truth certainly lies somewhere in between.

After a December of balmy weather that saw a cherry tree blossom in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, it’s difficult to believe that anyone could still be blind to the connection between S.U.V.’s, manic consumerism and our impending climate crisis and imperial oil wars.

In the case of Eric Ng, however, I can’t give the mayor, police and Department of Transportation an easy pass and blame the victims, as Gottlieb does.

Carl Rosenstein