Edit Page In Our Opinion:
Communication Breakdown Confusion has broken out this week over a supposed plan to remove The Triumph of Civic Virtue, a statue that has sat outside Queens Borough Hall for decades, to be repaired and possibly moved to a cemetery in Brooklyn. Queens officials say they were told of plans to move the controversial statue after the Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services had placed a fence around the crumbling landmark. But the DCAS asserts that no plans have been finalized and the agency is looking at its options – nothing more, nothing less. The situation is an example of government bureaucracy at its absolute worst. Instead of working together to attain the best possible outcome, it seems that no one is sure of what is really happening and the result is the City and the Borough are at odds when open communication could have solved a number of problems. If the statue is to be removed – something that many officials over the years have tried to do – it should only be done once all involved have been informed of the decision, and a plan should be enacted to replace the landmark. Hopefully, City and Borough officials can figure out a way to get on the same page without causing so much confusion in the future.
In Your Opinion:
Page 6 Tribune July 19-25, 2012 • www.queenstribune.com
Save Saturdays To The Editor: There is a problem facing our community that needs to be addressed – the future of our postal system. We hear all the time that the United States Postal Service is losing money but if a proposed bill in Congress, H.R. 2309, is passed, the results will be disastrous. The results of this so-called solution will hurt all of us. For generations Americans have traditionally relied on six-day service of dependable doorstep delivery of everything from postcards to packages. If Congress passes H.R. 2309, Saturday delivery will be eliminated. In a misguided attempt to purportedly save the USPS, we will inevitably see its rapid decline and eventual death.
The argument in favor of H.R. 2309 is a weak one. The thought is that to save money, you simply cut back on costs and services. As someone who runs a small business, that kind of thinking is nonsense. You have to ask the follow-up question, “What will the impact of those cutbacks be?” Here is where the cutback crowd ignores reality. You can’t cut services, raise prices, and be successful. If you limit the service you offer – especially a growing segment of postal business such as parcel delivery – all that will result is a dangerous disadvantage for the USPS. The list of H.R. 2309’s negative consequences is lengthy and frightening. It doesn’t acknowledge that business in America is now conducted around the clock. If the USPS Saturday delivery is elimi-
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nated, businesses will have to rely on more expensive private services, unnecessarily increasing their costs. Nor does H.R. 2309 take into account the number of jobs, approximately 80,000, which would be lost. Veterans, a segment already hurt badly by the weak economy, hold many of these jobs. We can’t afford to lose the USPS. Urge Congressman Turner to vote against H.R. 2309. Dennis O’Brien, Forest Hills
Live Free Or Diet To The Editor: We live by one-liners in this country. The above might come from a corn syrup ad, encouraging your sweet tooth. But generally speaking, mottos that have been around for a long time don’t seem to hold up any more. So, let’s change this one and make it: “Live Free And Diet.” Now it becomes good advice to a corpulent politician who worries about his/her election chances. You’ve heard “Free Market Forces (insert your favorite).” After decades, one guru had to admit to Congress that he wasn’t so sure any more. It would be a shame to give that one up. Why not change it to “If Market Forces Were Free …” No, that’s too bland. Let’s try a pseudo-Libertarian threat: “Leave Market Forces Free Or Die.” Now we are getting somewhere. When asked what to do to help returning veterans get jobs, one West Coast mayor said on TV: “The Money Isn’t There!” That was the gist of Pharaoh’s dream in Genesis, Chapter 41. He had spent all his money on self-serving projects, and then there was a bad harvest and a recession. Joseph advised him, “do this, do that and the money will be there!” Let’s make that a promise to future enlistees. Many of the 99 percent protesters have probably read last year’s blockbuster, “Winner-Take-All Politics,” which describes how we arrived at the 1 percent phenomenon. The authors conclude that politics can’t solve it because it was created by both sides of the aisle. How about a third side of the aisle Veronica Lewin, Deputy Editor Marcia Moxam Comrie, Contributing Editor Reporters: Harley Benson, Wayne Dean Doyle, Ross Barkan, Megan Montalvo Interns: Asia Ewart, Cristina Foglietta Photographers: Ira Cohen, Michael Fischthal, Lee Katzman
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with a motto, “Winner-Don’t-TakeAll Politics.” Help me, if you think of a better one. Robert C. Ferber, Jackson Heights
Blight Revisited To the Editor: In an earlier letter (Briarwood Blight, Queens Tribune, Nov. 25 to Dec. 1, 2010), I pointed out the environmental deforestation and concomitant damage to the ecosystem of Briarwood due to the present Van Wyck-Kew Gardens Interchange construction project’s widening of the three-lane Van Wyck Expressway. However, reporter Ross Barkan’s article, “Traffic Nightmare: Queens Highways Rank As Most Congested” (Queens Tribune, July 12-18, 2012), accurately explains the reason for this “Wasteland” in terms of Robert Moses’ ideological opposition to public transportation “to offset the debilitating congestion on Queens and Long Island’s roadways.” According to Barkan, “a lack of a northsouth subway line that runs through Queens is one culprit for the Van Wyck’s congestion.” Yet, “Moses also quashed proposals for a subway extension along the Van Wyck, built between 1947 and 1963).” So the cause for this environmental debacle in Briarwood is due to the lost battle of the Long Island Regional Planning Board’s Lee Koppelman, who opposed highway construction “at the expense of public transportation.” The cure to the Van Wyck congestion lies not in the present widening construction, but rather in the accommodation of new commercial traffic through widening of the Belt Parkway and a subway extension along the Van Wyck. The present project of building an elevator at the Briarwood-Van Wyck E-F subway station is a minimal MTA concession granted their $68 million deficit in the 2011 budget. But the whole problem is traceable to the aversion of Robert Moses and Mayor Bloomberg to democratic “urban planning and oversight” (Julian Brash, Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in
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the Luxury City). So, we have the Briarwood Wasteland as a perpetual legacy to our children. Thanks also are extended to the Queens CB 8 and the Briarwood Community Association. Joseph N. Manago, Briarwood
Goose Questions To The Editor: Well, once again, the hysteria has begun. Now 700 Canadian geese were rounded up and killed so that they would not collide with and cause an accident with a plane. To begin with, those birds were living on federally protected land, the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge. Why was an airport ever built so close to such a sanctuary? That was not a very practical thing to have done at all. While it is very possible that birds can and have had collisions with planes, it is just as possible and likely that there could be near collisions on the airport runways between planes, which would have nothing to do with birds but would be human error. In 1977, there was a tragic collision between two passenger planes on a runway in the Canary Islands - human error, and no birds were involved there. Over 500 people were killed due to human error. Is it the goal of the government to destroy the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge? There must be another more humane way to reduce the threat of plane-bird collisions other than killing them. The skies must be safe for both people and birds. John Amato, Fresh Meadows
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