New Islip codes aren't necessary

The Islip Town Council has approved a redundant law concerning local code violations ["Plan to battle blight with registry, annual fees," News, Jan. 12].

Islip Town has already enacted countless good laws to address the quality of life in our town. In these difficult times, the supervisor and his slim majority on the council are slashing workers under the guise of saving taxpayers money, and this has led to the code enforcement baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

All one needs to do is look at our neighborhoods and see that slashing staff has resulted in more outstanding violations. Adding insult to injury is that code violation revenue has decreased when logic would dictate that yet another terrible effect of the Great Recession would be the number of fines increasing.

Now, the Town Council has staged this public relations act to divert attention away from the hard cold realities. Every item listed under this cooked-up "points system" is already a violation of local code.

It is time to stop using feel-good lawmaking and get down to enforcing the codes already on the books.

Tom O'Hara

Brentwood