Long Island school spending, elected officials' signs, West Hempstead housing complex, Proud Boy sentencing, restaurant in state park

Students need to be ones in cool rooms

The article on schools’ air-conditioning issues should raise a red flag for taxpayers [“Districts try to beat heat as classes begin,” News, Sept. 7]. With school districts spending a whopping $36,000 per student on average, why haven’t superintendents budgeted appropriately?

Are some school districts hiring a new superintendent and more central administration personnel, costing plenty in salaries, benefits and perks? It makes one question why money is not available for air conditioning. It is sad when students and teachers suffer from sweltering classrooms while central administrators do not.

I’ve worked in schools where administrators enjoyed the comforts of air conditioning and climate-controlled offices. We have too many Long Island school districts bloated with an excessive number of administrators above the school principal title.

Shouldn’t the children come first?

— Joe Campbell, Port Washington

It is an abomination that some murderers, child molesters and other dregs of society are in air-conditioned prisons while teachers and students suffer in classrooms without air conditioning.

— Arthur Bamel, Old Bethpage

Officials should pay for their own signs

As a Nassau County taxpayer, I wholeheartedly support the bill filed by Legis. Joshua Lafazan (D-Woodbury) to take down and ban elected officials’ county signs [“Signs touting Blakeman stir debate,” News, Sept. 4].

If elected officials want signs, they should pay for them out of their campaign funds, not from taxpayers.

— Steve Blick, Westbury

Elected officials who display their names on public property should include their cellphone number below their name.

After all, it’s all about the politicians wanting to be known and accessible to the common folk, isn’t it?

— John Minogue, Manhasset

When you drive to Long Beach, there is a giant sign for Jones Beach, under which there is another large sign which reads: Kathy Hochul, Governor. Newsday’s editorial board seems to be primarily concerned with Long Island Republican politicians’ names on signs “Pols don’t need names on signs,” Editorial, Sept. 7]. The editorial doesn’t mention that Hochul’s name is on a prominent sign.

— James Di Maio, Mineola

Apartment complex fits whose plans?

The “transit-oriented” apartment complex being built on an abandoned National Wholesale Liquidators site, next to the West Hempstead Long Island Rail Road station, will have over 400 apartments [“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Our Towns, Sept. 7].

What I found especially interesting is how Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin was touting this development. But doesn’t this development seem to be the type that Gov. Kathy Hochul has called for? The kind of development that Clavin and his Republican colleagues have railed against, accusing Hochul of trying to turn Long Island into Queens?

Didn’t Clavin circulate a petition against Hochul’s plan? This is just another example of hypocrisy.

— Scott Diamond, Levittown

Proud Boy just one more Jan. 6 casualty

It is unlikely that after former President Donald Trump told the Proud Boys during a presidential debate on Sept. 29, 2020, to “stand back and stand by,” that Proud Boys organizer Joseph Biggs could have predicted what his fate would be nearly three years later [“Long prison terms for 2 ex-Proud Boys,” News, Sept. 1]. Biggs now faces a 17-year prison sentence.

And, while his life has been upended, his family left to suffer, and his future on hold, former President Donald Trump strolls his many golf courses during his leisure time.

As he attempts to climb back to power in 2024, Trump has already shifted to brutality with not-so-subtle threats of retribution. As for Biggs, he is just another disposable life.

Biggs is clearly distraught. It was his failure to think critically that did him in. Authoritarians like Trump don’t want their subjects to think; just obey.

Biggs can take solace, though. As he climbs into his bunk at bedtime, he can remember that on Jan. 6 Trump said, “I love you.”

— Andrew Malekoff, Long Beach

Revive restaurant for new state park

The plan to turn the grounds of Kings Park Psychiatric Center into Nissequogue River State Park is wonderful [“Plan for a park,” Our Towns, Aug. 23]. Wouldn’t it also be nice, though, to reestablish the restaurant by the bluff?

— Irma Gurman, Smithtown