GREENPORT
Greenport deserves its fair share of CPF
Over the past 26 years, the Community Preservation Fund, sourced from the 2% transfer tax on real estate transactions, has significantly enhanced quality of life for both residents and visitors of the East End. Established to preserve community character, this fund has enabled all East End towns to acquire and protect open spaces, vital for responsible environmental stewardship.
Subsequently, it was amended to include water quality and historic preservation as allowable uses. While Southampton and East Hampton towns have adopted these amendments, Southold did not.
It’s time for our town leaders to change this policy. Since the Community Preservation Fund’s inception, none of its proceeds have been allocated to the Village of Greenport. In our one square mile, we urgently need these funds to manage storm flooding and runoff along Front Street and to preserve our historically significant structures, such as the auditorium at the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue. Village residents have contributed substantially to the fund and deserve their fair share.
I urge Southold Town leaders to adopt the long-approved state use of CPF funds for historic preservation and water quality issues, following the example of other East End communities.
Elizabeth Talerman
WADING RIVER
A ‘brazen’ decision
We celebrate when the early colonists risked everything to establish the concept that everyone is equal under the law. Sadly, last Monday, the Supreme Court brazenly disrespected the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and destroyed that concept! In order to escape all trials and judgment by his peers, Donald Trump had asked SCOTUS to make a ruling that a president may not be prosecuted for any “official acts” during his/her term, with no clear standards as to what is official and what is private.
This action had no basis in the Constitution, but rather was blatant judicial activism for the direct benefit of Mr. Trump, who claims that all his crimes were “official acts,” making him immune from facing a jury. However, it also created an elite protected status reserved only for presidents, very similar to the power of monarchs we fought to escape. For this reason alone, we cannot risk electing Trump, who speaks positively of retribution and dictatorship and enjoys whipping up crowds with violent rhetoric. It will take years to reverse this corruption of our government, so we need to start immediately via election of a president and Congress that will return to the Constitution.
Alan Daters
RIVERHEAD
We should compare their cognition
Objective observers were deeply disturbed by the words and appearance of both President Biden and former president Trump during their debate.
The Democrats are struggling publicly about what to do. The Republicans are pretending they don’t have a problem.
The only way to resolve the competency question is that both Biden and Trump submit to the same independent medical evaluation of their cognitive abilities, neurological status and psychological stability.
Refusal to do so by a candidate should be considered disqualifying.
John McAuliff
ORIENT
Employment up, deficit down
I entered the job market in the 1970s. Finding a job then was tough going. I wanted a job with opportunities and I also wanted to pay my bills. I hated debt and paying interest. I wanted to be able to “balance my budget.” People said the unemployment rate was bad, rising; it was 13% — that unlucky number stuck with me. We need to get unemployment down, jobs up, they said, to get our deficit down and balance the budget.
That I understood. More income helps pay the bills. I felt optimistic when I read we were lowering our deficit, had a budget surplus. That was under Clinton/Gore. It meant to me that there would be economic growth, jobs, opportunities and that my Social Security would be there for me when I got older.
I still pay attention to the federal deficit, the borrowing our government does to pay our bills. When our deficit is going down and job numbers going up, I feel confident we are sailing in the right direction, heading away from crashing and towards prosperity.
Guess what is happening today? After the last administration busted the budget by giving tax breaks to the very wealthy, we’ve shifted strategies. We are investing in America. Our employment numbers are going up and up, we have the best job market since the 1960s (unemployment is 3.8%) and the deficit is going down — trillions less. The stock market is optimistically roaring. And the best news, for me and the climate-concerned: Biden’s three big investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary for a livable planet — creating opportunities and jobs for decades to come. The Wall Street Journal called the American economy the “envy of the world.” Why rock the boat? Stay the course.
Mary Morgan
CUTCHOGUE
Partisan politics, lies and dissension
Each party continues to enhance their positives and degrade the other party’s accomplishments. George Washington warned us of partisan politics. He’s doing wheelies in his grave right now!
Lincoln stated in his address at Gettysburg: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” He was killed by the opposition.
Biden just held a rally in Wisconsin, an angry old man screaming as he read the teleprompter that the Supreme Court decision on immunity just gave Trump the power, quoting Justice Sotomayor, to legally order SEAL Team Six to eliminate political opposition. Please, this is hyperbole at its worst.
Every serviceman swears an oath to the Constitution and every serviceman understands that an order as just described above would be “an unlawful order and [they] would not carry it out.”
The lies that are coming from both parties must stop. They disrespect the reason our Founding Fathers declared our Iindependence by affirming they “mutually pledge our lives, our fortune and our sacred honor.”
Our sacred honor! There is no honor in partisan politics. It is tearing the nation apart. It just keeps putting out “whoppers” instead of telling us “where’s the beef.” We the Ppeople are tired of being lied to, period! Give us honesty and transparency, not “malarkey” or “horsepucky.” I and the country want the dissension to stop.
Bob Bittner
SOUTHOLD
What I care about
I don’t care if he slept with a porn star. I don’t care that he pardoned his political friends. I don’t care that he and his family profited from being in the White House. I am heartsick that I had more autonomy over my body 50 years ago than my granddaughters have — all thanks to the three Supreme Court judges he appointed. I despise his racism and authoritarian ways. I am scared of the 2025 Mandate for Leadership. If you want to be scared, read it. Or be an ostrich and wake up and find we live in a Nazi regime or a Putin-like country. We all have choices — at the moment.
Rosellen Storm
SOUTHOLD
It’s not just about the next four years
Since the debate, most of the news coverage has been on the question of whether President Biden is too old to serve effectively as president. Lost in the news is that during the debate Donald Trump didn’t answer the questions that were put to him and the answers he did give were, as usual, lies and deceptions.
Whatever we think about the debate and the performances of the candidates, the central issues of the 2024 election cycle remain. The issue is what kind of future we want. This is not an election about the difference between two parties, center right and center left. The Republican Party is now all about Trump’s agenda. No legal accountability, revenge, selling the government to the superrich and carbon interests, eliminating women’s rights and voter rights. Imagine the people he would appoint as attorney general, secretary of state, secretary of homeland security and secretary of defense. Imagine his judicial appointments of judges who will sit on the bench for two or three generations.
This election is not about the next four years. It is about whether we will still have a country based on the Constitution and a country that believes in liberty and justice for all. During the debate, Trump said that the United States is now a banana republic. If he wins, he will make us into the biggest banana republic of all time.
Steve Curry
CUTCHOGUE
It’s about the Constitution
I spent this Independence Day weekend struggling to find the spirit of the holiday. As an attorney, I felt particularly betrayed by last week’s Supreme Court decision creating immunity for certain presidential acts. This outcome is contrary to everything I’ve studied about the U.S. Constitution during my legal schooling, and about the history of this nation since grade school.
I’ve spoken to many people about what they view as the key issues of this presidential election. Many say the Southern border immigrant crisis, abortion, inflation, the Hamas-Israeli conflict, Christian values or the Ukraine war. While these are policy issues affecting our lives, and may have serious consequences for our nation’s future security, they are not what this election is about.
What this election is about is the U.S. Constitution and the preservation of our democracy for our children, grandchildren and future generations. We’ve persevered and righted the ship for almost 250 years now, this great American experiment of self-government of, by and for the people. We the people can’t let six individuals who are beholden to the ultra-wealthy through behind-the-scenes donations and access, and beholden to The Federalist Society (the real “deep state”), to twist the intent of the Constitution to support the dictatorship of a supreme president above the law, fracturing the delicate checks and balances among the three branches of the federal government.
At this juncture, the only way to reverse the damage of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision is to vote blue up and down the ballot. I’m not advocating one-party rule. But the Democrats need the political power now to figure out how to get rid of or dilute these corrupt Supreme Court justices, and how to return the office of the presidency to its rightful place, under the law.
Barbara Farr