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2021
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HERALD
Healing through flower therapy
Students donate over 400 books
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Vol. 29 No. 19
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_________________ BALDWIN ________________
MAY 5 - 11, 2022
Town asks for 45 more days Officials request time to take hard look at environmental studies By KARINA KoVAc kkovac@liherald.com
Karina Kovac/ Herald
BAlDWIN cIVIc ASSocIAtIoN President Darien Ward, third from left, and government liaison Karen Montalbano, second from left, with Baldwin residents outside the Town of Hempstead’s Nathan L. H. Bennett Pavilion.
Neighbors shared concerns about the potential delay of the hamlet’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative with the Hempstead Town Board last week. Their comments and questions were addressed by an attorney, Steven Losquadro, who was introduced by Town Supervisor Don Clavin’s chief of staff, Jack Libert, to discuss the details of the extensive work planned for downtown Baldwin. Though the board decided
not to issue a moratorium on the projects that comprise the initiative, Losquadro explained that the board requested that he and an associate, William Duffy, re-examine in detail the special zoning districts and environmental impacts of the project, which was designed to bring more people and business to downtown Baldwin, and promote economic growth and development. The review is required by the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act to ensure that the projects’ infraContinued on page 5
Library takes a stand against unparalleled book banning By KARINA KoVAc kkovac@liherald.com
There were a seemingly unprecedented number of attempts to ban books across the nation last year. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked more than 700 bids to challenge or remove nearly 1,600 books — the most since the organization began collecting censorship data 30 years ago. In response, the Baldwin Public Library has promoted the Unite Against Book Bans campaign, which promotes a diversity of books to open young minds to a larger worldview. Library
B
anning books is the slippery slope to the erosion of our freedom of expression. ElIZABEtH olESH Library director
director Elizabeth Olesh said that virtually every book the library contains could offend someone in some way, but, “I don’t think it is appropriate for a
library to exclude materials or limit access to the larger community because it includes potentially objectionable content.” That objectionable content, Olesh has noticed, is usually targeted “at materials that deal with Black, Indigenous and people of color or LGBTQIA+ issues.” Many parents, she reasoned, feel they are protecting their children from sensitive and complex issues that are difficult to confront head on. But limiting their access, Olesh added, “doesn’t protect them from life’s complex and challenging issues. On the con-
trary, reading a book can be a way to understand and process a tough topic.” “Anybody that bans a book is the best thing a publicity agent could ever have — thank you for helping me sell more copies,” the filmmaker John Waters told the Herald with a laugh. Waters is known for focusing on sensitive and offensive topics in his films
while at the same time making light of them, and has done so in books as well, among them “Shock Value” (1981) and “Role Models” (2010). The ALA notes on its website that attempts to control what people read are nothing new. Asking the question, “Who Challenges Books?” it answers, Continued on page 15