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COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL
A4 Friday, August 16, 2019
THE DAILY MAIL Established 1792 Published Tuesday through Saturday by Columbia-Greene Media
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If at first you don’t succeed... bumps, milled pavement and driving our cars over some pretty rough road. Seeing the roundabout getting a rebuild so soon after it was completed is troubling. It suggests problems and weaknesses nobody could see coming last summer. State DOT spokesman Joseph Morrissey said the project was completed to the specifics laid out in the original construction plans. “The project that included the roundabout was constructed last year on time and under budget,” Morrissey said Wednesday. “Asphalt pavement was placed in accordance with contract specifications. The schedule was clearly outlined in pre-bid documents and was not accelerated,”
Morrissey said. But here’s the kicker: “Portions of the project need to be repaved this week to correct some imperfections.” Imperfections indeed, if almost the entire roundabout had to be torn out and replaced. On the bright side, the new roundabout is expected to be completed by the end of the week and this project will be done at no cost to taxpayers. Somewhere along the line, errors of some kind were committed to create those imperfections. Credit DOT for accepting the responsibility. So the next time you navigate the freshly minted second roundabout, think of it as a free ride.
ANOTHER VIEW
A fatal mistake any of us could make The Washington Post
You’re a single working parent, or a stay-at-home dad, or a grandmother assigned to babysit for the day. You’re absent-minded or type-A, rich or poor or somewhere in between. Regardless of wealth, gender, age, occupation, ethnicity or any other demographic marker, it could be you. Though you don’t believe so, until it’s too late. It’s easy to watch the news and be certain that only an utterly heartless, totally incompetent parent could unintentionally leave a child in a car on a warm morning. But memory is fickle, and the neurological lapse that can cause a caregiver to forget about a child in the back seat of a vehicle is indiscriminate. To entertain this delusion is to hide from the facts: Eight-hundred and twentynine children have died in hot cars from 1998 to 2019, and more than half of those deaths have been accidental, according to the National Safety Council. A change in routine, a particularly stressful morning or even a distracting phone call can lead to this fatal slip. In the caregiver’s mind, the child is happy and taken care of,
safely dropped off at day care or wherever else they might normally be. Last month in New York, Juan Rodriguez, a father of four, dropped his twin babies off at day care and drove to his eight-hour shift at a hospital in the Bronx. Like so many other devastated parents, he realized only after work that his overworked brain had imagined the drop-off. In the meantime, his youngest two children died in the back seat of his car, still buckled into their car seats. Since that day, nine other children have died from heat-related causes in the back seats of cars, bringing this year’s total to more than 30. This is not a new problem, and people have been pushing for technological solutions since at least 2000, when NASA designed a weight-based alert system connected to a keychain alarm. Automakers Hyundai and Kia have integrated motion sensors into their vehicles’ second and third rows to detect children and pets. Lawmakers have proposed bills, most recently the bipartisan Hot Cars Act of 2019, to require built-in auditory alert systems. Smaller innova-
tions, such as car-seat weight sensors and “smart” clip-on systems, also could help. All of these solutions have struggled to gain footing, in part, because no parent believes he or she will make this fatal mistake. Acknowledgment and acceptance of the risk would go a long way toward reducing the number of these tragic occurrences. But car companies shouldn’t wait to implement lifesaving technology. Companies and caregivers alike need to accept the reality of this problem: This is an accident that nobody is immune to. Just as child-proofing your house does not suggest you might one day drop or hurt your baby, adding safety measures to your vehicle and baby carriers does not mean you are a negligent parent. In fact, it suggests the opposite. Because a child’s body heats up faster than an adult’s and because cars trap heat, even mildly warm days can create life-threatening situations for children left unattended. As the effects of extreme climate change worsen and heat waves continue, addressing this is more important than ever.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ‘We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.’ CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The Daily Mail welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must contain a full name, full address and a daytime telephone number. Names will be published, but phone numbers will not be divulged. Letters of less than 400 words are more likely to be published quickly. The newspaper reserves the right to edit letters for length, clarity and content. Letters should be exclusive to this publication, not duplicates of those sent to other persons, agencies
Marielena Hincapié The Washington Post
OUR VIEW
If you’ve experienced a sense of deja vu as you traverse the $4.5 million roundabout on the Columbia County side of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, you’re probably not alone. State Department of Transportation crews and equipment reappeared Monday, as the electronic signs promised, to do some night work on the roundabout. We thought it was to complete a punch list of minor tasks still to be done on the project, which looked finished to our inexperienced eyes. We were wrong. The roundabout opened last October, but now, less than one year later, the blacktop had to be excavated, replaced and repaved. It meant another round of
Trump thinks immigrants cost the U.S. He’s wrong. My family proves it.
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Like so many immigrants and refugees throughout our country’s history, my parents decided to come to the United States in search of better opportunities for my nine siblings and me. I moved here with my family from Colombia when I was 3 years old. My parents dedicated over two decades of their life toiling in Rhode Island’s factories, and at times, they would be temporarily laid off from jobs. During those few short gaps in work, we relied on food assistance and other government resources to make ends meet until they were called back to work. We ultimately thrived thanks to that support, and today we’re all professionals - scientists, health professionals, educators, business owners, corporate managers and a lawyer — contributing to our families, our communities and our country. We aren’t unique: Millions of families across the country sometimes struggle to get by. When families face hard times, successful anti-poverty programs, such as food assistance, allow us to get back on our feet and thrive. But the new policy announced this week by the Trump administration — the “public charge” rule — will turn these critical support programs into weapons to target and punish immigrant families for hitting the same hard times that all families do, forcing lawfully residing immigrants to choose between feeding their kids and obtaining a green card. If the courts do not block this new rule before it goes into effect in October, all communities will suffer — and the United States will no longer be the land of opportunity. Instead, we will become a country where it’s impossible for families like mine to realize our full potential. From the start of his administration, President Donald Trump has unleashed attack after attack on immigrant and refugee communities. But the
Department of Homeland Security’s announcement this week of its new rule is among the most pernicious moves yet. The regulation is essentially a racially motivated wealth test that would make it much more difficult for low- and moderate-income immigrants to obtain green cards by declaring that immigrants who use an expanded range of public services are ineligible. It would mean, for many families, that falling on hard times might result in being deemed a “public charge” and therefore ineligible to stay here permanently. This policy will discourage tens of millions of people from using the programs their tax dollars support, and if it had been in effect when I came here as a child, I have no doubt that my family’s immigration story would have been impossible. I wouldn’t be a citizen. Under this new policy, many aspiring citizens will be penalized in their efforts to obtain a green card if they are likely at any point to fall on hard times. Worse, it weaponizes the use of government support services such as Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which ensure that millions of Americans have access to affordable health care and can put food on their tables. This will have dire consequences for countless U.S. citizen children of immigrants who came here legally. The Trump administration’s rhetoric about the policy implies that immigrants are somehow a drain on our country’s vast resources. But that isn’t true at all. Immigrant families — even those with humble beginnings — make tremendous contributions to the United States over time. According to the National Academy of Sciences, immigrant families create a net benefit, not a cost, of $30.5 billion a year for state and local budgets by the second generation. By the third generation, that net benefit rises to $223.8 billion a year. While Trump goes on xenophobic rants against
undocumented immigrants, calling them invaders, animals and other dehumanizing epithets, his policies have been consistently targeting immigrants who are lawfully present. Like many of Trump’s previous actions — from the bans on immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries to the attacks on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and temporary protected status, to the dismantling of our asylum laws, which has caused unspeakable harm to families seeking safety at our increasingly militarized southern border — this racial wealth test will separate families while stoking fear of and among immigrants, refugees and communities of color. But this one goes even further: By fundamentally transforming our legal immigration system to favor the wealthy and white, it disenfranchises communities of color and deters them from securing life’s most basic necessities. Out of all the immigration policy changes Trump and his chief immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, have developed, this one would have the most fundamental effects on our legal immigration system and wreak the longestlasting changes on our country. It’s clear that Trump has no real interest in finding solutions on immigration. Instead, his administration is aiming to prevent immigrants from becoming permanent residents, and eventual citizens and voters. All of us — regardless of what we look like or where we come from — must reject Trump’s divisive tactics. Trump knows that our unity creates the sort of power that ultimately threatens his presidency, and he’ll continue to work hard to divide us. That’s exactly why he’s so focused on policies like this one that aim to take away our communities’ collective power. We must fight it. Our future — the very soul of our country and our democracy — is at stake. Hincapié is the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thank you, Jack, you will be missed To the editor: Veterans lost a true friend on July 30, 2019. His name was Jack Race and he resided in Columbia County. I co-chaired with Jack and Janice Anderson on the “Thank-a-Veterans Day” we held in 2014, 2016 and 2017. I was honored to be part of this committee and awed at
Jack’s enthusiasm, energy and love for Veterans. Jack was able to secure donations from local merchants and individuals to provide each Veteran a free barbecue chicken dinner, refreshments, memorabilia and free raffle tickets with more than 30 chances to win a variety of prizes. Jack had the drive and
initiative to put these events together and I was lucky enough to be a small part of it. I just want to say thank you Jack, you will be missed and so will the Thank a Veterans Day Event. God Bless You. VINCE GRIMALDI, CO-CHAIR THANK A VETERANS COMMITTEE HUDSON
Boycotting is my right and moral responsibility To the editor: Now that the House of Representatives has decided that boycotting Israel is antisemitic, it is time that I confess my various crimes. I have indeed been boycotting products. I refuse to do business with Airbnb because the company makes money renting apartments and houses in the illegal settlements. Palestinian homes get demolished and Jewish only settlement blocks are built, then rented out by Airbnb. I also would never buy or sell my house using RE/MAX, another company profiting
from the settlements. RE/MAX buys and sells apartments and homes there, but of course not to everyone. Only to those with the right ethnic and religious backgrounds need apply. I refuse to buy a Volvo because the car company makes heavy equipment used to destroy Palestinian homes. HP will never get my business because of the work they do computerizing the checkpoints and surveillance systems in the West Bank. I wouldn’t use HSBC Bank because it loans money to companies that arm the occupation. If I were a gambler, I would
boycott the Sands Hotels because they are owned by Israeli/American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who buys support for Israel by donating tens of millions to Trump and the Republican Party. If I had young children, I wouldn’t let them watch Fox Kids or Power Rangers because they belong to Israeli/American billionaire Haim Saban, who ensures support for the occupation by paying millions in bribes to the Democratic Party. Boycotting is both my right and my moral responsibility. FRED NAGEL RHINEBECK
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