Letters to the Editor: Zeldin 09.29.16

Proud of Zeldin

Nesconset

September 26, 2016

Dear Editor,

Thank you for featuring the “Face-Off Over Climate” article (Sept. 22) and bringing the issue of climate change to the forefront. 

I am proud of Congressman Zeldin for taking a step toward finding solutions to global climate change when he is a minority in his party to do so. He is an example disproving the stigma that all Republicans don’t care about the environment. Zeldin’s actions show me he is concerned with environmental and economic impacts we face on Long Island due to climate change, and he’s ready to combat those issues in collaboration with other national leaders. 

I cannot wait to see what the congressman brings to the House Climate Solutions Caucus. We should all applaud and encourage the congressman’s venture!

ALISON KUBICSKO

Of the People

Springs

September 26, 2016

Dear David,

Our do-nothing Congressman Lee Zeldin continues to do nothing about closing the “terrorist-gun loophole” by voting against background checks for violent criminals, domestic abusers, dangerous felons, the mentally ill, and terror suspects. Mr. Zeldin wants to allow suspected terrorists to buy guns after only a 72-hour waiting period, which Newsday calls “useless” and pleases only the Washington gun lobby and the National Rifle Association.

As an American citizen and gun owner, I cannot support Lee Zeldin’s re-election to Congress only watch him do nothing for the next two years, and I urge you to elect former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst this November 8. Anna provides a common-sense approach for our common good. Anna has demonstrated that fiscal responsibility, low taxes, economic well-being, and local and national security issues are compatible when working toward the greater common good of all our citizenry. 

Anna will help end the gridlock in Congress and get government working for us, again. 

Anna is of the people; Mr. Zeldin is in the pocket of lobbyists, special interests, and, most-disturbingly, the best friend and defender of Donald Trump. 

Lee Zeldin: He isn’t just lazy, he’s useless, uninformed, and dangerous.

ALEX MILLER

Not Constructive

Amagansett

September 26, 2016 

Dear David, 

Lee Zeldin votes consistently in Congress against measures for climate  control. He has said he’s not convinced the problem is “as serious as some believe.” But he’s smart like a fox. He knows some people in our Congressional district realize that’s closing his eyes to our rising bay and ocean waters. So he got himself in the House of Representatives Climate Solutions Caucus. Based on his approach to gun control in Congress, we know exactly what he’ll do in that caucus.

As the N.R.A.’s best friend, Mr. Zeldin has opposed the mildest controls on gun ownership, even a bill that would require background checks of people on the terrorist watch list. But, in a mocking show of concern about that issue, he put in a bill of his own whose insincerity defies description. It would allow the government to require a person on the terrorist list to get a background check before buying a gun if it first refuted — in court — the contention that the possible terrorist had never committed a terrorist act!

Maybe to a citizen not paying close attention, Zeldin’s “gun control” measure would look on his resume like a statesmanlike compromise. So might his joining the climate control caucus look constructive to hopeful people in our community. But Zeldin has shown he’s deceptive, not constructive, on issues that require compromise of his extreme views. If voters who care about gun control and climate control forget his record and elect him instead of Anna Throne-Holst to represent us, they’re not fostering helpful compromise leading to useful legislation, they’re putting the fox in the chicken coop.

JEANNE FRANKL

For Anna Throne-Holst

East Hampton

September 26, 2016

Dear David, 

I write this letter to urge my fellow East Hampton Town residents to be sure to vote for Anna Throne-Holst. Although it has been my practice to support a candidate whose positions I believe will benefit our community and not focus on the negatives that I attribute to the candidate’s opponent, I believe the upcoming election of our Congressional representative requires that I do both.

Anna’s life of public service and what she has accomplished, as well as the positions she has taken, best illustrate why her election is important to our community and, I might add, the nation as well, with regard to those matters that have impacts beyond our borders. Anna ran the Bridgehampton Child Care Center, a commitment on her part that demonstrates her concern for those in need. She was among the founders of the Hayground School, which was dedicated to providing students from all walks of life with a first-rate education, including those with special learning needs, and offered scholarships to those who could not afford the tuition. During these early years of her service to our community she became the mother of four children.

After serving these two venerable institutions she decided to run for the town board in Southampton, and became the only elected Democrat on the board in 2007. In that office she discovered runaway deficit spending had been in play for a long time, which resulted in a downgrade in the town’s credit rating. Upon joining the town board she focused on cleaning up the practices that brought about the deficits, and midway through her first term was nominated to run for town supervisor by the Southampton Town Democrats. Anna was elected supervisor of the Town of Southampton and continued her efforts to stabilize the financial condition of the town and at the same time free up funds to invest in education, senior services, environmental programs, and job creation programs, all the while holding the line on taxes. Anna also had a significant role in implementing sustainable building codes and effective alternative energy incentive and funding programs.

Anna prioritized water quality programs and the maintaining of open spaces, knowing and valuing the fact that without fishermen who can work in waters that are supportive of marine life, and farmers who work the fertile open lands that we are blessed with, eastern Long Island would no longer be what it is and always was.

In essence, her public service has been hallmarked by an abiding concern for working families and their children, as exemplified by her involvement in child care and educational institutions, followed by an active political role in preserving our environment and the opportunities that are created and maintained by doing so. As a representative in Congress, Anna’s practical experience will be projected into the all-powerful role that a congressperson can bring to bear on the matters that concern her constituents.

Lee Zeldin has no history whatsoever that is comparable to Anna’s. By that I mean he has never been involved in the executive capacities that Anna has dedicated her public life to. Mr. Zeldin is essentially a “no” man who votes along with his conservative Republican congressional colleagues against the needs of working families. Accordingly, he is against funding food stamps for the impoverished and the Affordable Care Act, which ensures that all Americans can have health insurance, and in favor of further reducing marginal tax rates on the super-wealthy. Unlike many elected officials in the Republican Party as well as many of its leaders, he supports everything that Donald Trump supports, which includes among other things the embrace of Putin, the reduction of funding of contributions to NATO, and anti-woman issues including a woman’s right to choose, public funding of abortions for victims of rape, allowing employers to deny women access to birth control, and supporting the outlawing of some of the most effective forms of contraception. He even co-sponsored his own national abortion ban.

Most remarkably and irresponsibly, Lee Zeldin voted against a bill that would have prohibited sales of guns to persons suspected of terrorist connections.

In short, Lee Zeldin does not represent the values of the residents of the town of East Hampton and Anna does.

I trust that my fellow East Hampton residents will agree that it is important for East Hampton for them to vote for Anna Throne-Holst. 

DAVID J. WEINSTEIN