Letter: Cutting services will harm county

I write this letter today as an irate Nassau County resident ["Nassau layoffs: Everyone loses," News, Jan. 2]. County Executive Edward Mangano assumes that most citizens support his decision to lay off union employees in an effort to close the budget gap. This is a shortsighted, reactionary position.

Years of mismanagement by both political parties have delivered us an intolerable situation. There is no question that the new reality is that labor and management need to work together to resolve problems.

Does telling people they no longer have a job mean the work is not necessary? Do we really want to be a county short of labor? That's what will happen. You will be destroying rather than building.

Every year we pay higher costs for our way of life. Is raising taxes to preserve jobs reprehensible? Isn't preserving dignity and human respect worth the cost of a few dollars to our county residents? We should all be willing to share the burden without recrimination.

The county should continue to strive for cost efficiencies, but not at the expense of county employees. Adding to the unemployment rolls is simply putting costs on a different side of the ledger. It solves nothing.

Richard J. Sackmann, Levittown