Letters to the Editor: January 9, 2025
LIRR funding shortfall
LIRR commuters should be concerned about insufficient funds being programmed to bring bridges, viaducts, tunnels and other basic infrastructure that are in poor or marginal condition up to a state of good repair in the proposed MTA $68.4 billion 2025-2029 Five Year Capital Plan. This also applies to Metro North Rail Road and NYC Transit. It is questionable if $600 million is sufficient funding for LIRR critical infrastructure projects under the proposed next Five Year Capital Plan. Can this eliminate the growing backlog of critical infrastructure repair. Too many critical capital assets remain in daily service beyond their anticipated useful life. There is still a $33 billion shortfall to fully fund the proposed upcoming Five Year Capital Plan.
Safety, state of good repair, reliable on time performance with a minimum of service disruptions at a fair price should be a higher priority than system expansion projects. The $7.7 billion Second Avenue Subway Phase 2, $5.5 billion Queens Brooklyn Light Rail Inter Boro Express and $3.1 billion Metro North Bronx East Penn Station Access projects all need to be put on hold. Funding for all three would be better spent on critical infrastructure projects benefiting over 4 million NYC Transit subway, 200,000 plus LIRR and 200,000 plus Metro North daily commuters. MTA Chairman Janno Lieber and MTA Board members have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the interests of riders and taxpayers.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
Keep those letters coming…
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Larry Penner
Long Time Reader
and Frequent Letter Writer
Great Neck
Armed guards aren’t the answer
As has become the norm in the Three Village Central School District members of the community have discovered a cause to champion that needn’t be raised. Now that the start time phenomenon has become a budget-contingent coming attraction, armed guards in our schools are the latest call to action. A knee-jerk reaction to an unfortunate, yet thankfully harmless, incident at Ward Melville High School this past fall, has been the demand to arm our security guards. The reasoning behind this charge is the all too familiar claim that “the only way to fight a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Decades of research by the highest and most well-trained law enforcement agencies in the country have debunked this “theory” and proven that many times the presence of armed guards in school settings has invited and/or intensified the violence committed. Anyone with recollection of the atrocities in Uvalde and Parkland knows firsthand that armed security did nothing to deter the perpetrator and no lives were saved. As a mother and an educator there is nothing more important than safety in school buildings and I would never begrudge any parent the feeling of security when a child is in an academic setting. However, there are myriad other approaches to avoiding threats to our children today and they do not include arming security guards.
The pushback will of course be the previously noted adage about fighting a bad guy with a good guy gun, especially since many of the guards are former law enforcement officers. None of the crusaders of this battle are willing to note the fact that we are actually very lucky. Long Island has fortuitously been spared any instances of mass gun violence in our schools. And the one scary instance that Three Village experienced was handled responsibly and transparently. Yes, a gun entered our high school. Yes, there was a chance something horrific could have occurred, but it didn’t. The true concern is that a weapon came through the doors. The best defense against a repeat situation is a system of detection (and not metal detectors) not an addition of guns.
At this juncture we need to trust that our district security experts have the best interests of our children at heart and will continue to keep them safe. Guns in and/or around our schools is not the answer.
Stefanie Werner
East Setauket
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