LETTERS: Tax revenue inequity, help emergency crews

Nassau's system guarantees inequity

I read with interest the editorial "Trying to find balance" [Nov. 14], especially the suggestion that the school portion of property tax revenue be regionalized.

There are but two special assessing districts in this state, the City of New York and Nassau County. The system may work well for the five boroughs of the city, because it has but one school district. There, the Empire State Building and other large commercial enterprises help pay for the schools citywide.

In Nassau County, assessments on power plants in Glenwood Landing and Island Park help pay school taxes in those school districts, yet the Long Island Power Authority derives money to pay those taxes from all of its ratepayers. The same is true for shopping malls at Roosevelt Field, Green Acres, Massapequa Mall and the Miracle Mile in Manhasset. Many Nassau County residents make purchases at those shopping centers, but only the school districts fortunate to have within their bounds these commercial buildings get the benefits.

Nassau needs to persuade the State Legislature to change Nassau County and its assessment system back to the same as all other counties in the state.

Leo F. McGinity

Baldwin

Editor's note: The writer is the former Nassau chief administrative judge.

Paint curbs with house numbers

The recent inability of an ambulance crew to locate the correct address on an emergency call, which led to fatal results, underscores the need for house addresses to be prominently painted on curbs in front of houses for all of Nassau and Suffolk County homes and buildings ["Change after 911 error," News, Nov. 30].

Leaving aside the dispatcher's error in this incident, Long Islanders who have long tolerated straining their necks and imaginations to figure out where precise addresses are located, especially at night, will certainly understand the life-threatening issues raised when emergency service personnel drive up and down streets puzzled about where exactly they're supposed to respond.

George Haber

Jericho