Spota, associates' actions are like something out of the Third World

It is absolutely appalling to me that former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke, and former Suffolk anti-corruption unit chief Christopher McPartland could be so corrupt for so many years without being exposed ["Unsealed Spota records reveal allegations of plot to topple Levy," News, May 2], The amount of cover-ups and corruption of these three powerful men reads like a story from a Third World dictatorship and is beyond comprehension for Suffolk County.

To cover up the many misdeeds of Burke, who beat a handcuffed prisoner while three other law enforcement personnel were present, and who carried a duffel bag containing sex toys and pornography in his police department vehicle certainly doesn’t sound like someone who should be respected and protected.

I always wondered why Steve Levy, who I had considered to be one of the most decisive, honest and decent Suffolk County executives we’ve ever had, had decided not to run for a third term. After learning of their alleged vendetta against him, now we know.

Al Lane, Yaphank

We’ve let Nassau County grow wildly

How can one not feel an overwhelming sense of decay, incompetence and corruption having infused itself into almost every aspect of Nassau County’s structure ["NIFA: Nassau surplus in ’20 not a long-term fix," News, April 30]?

We’ve allowed Nassau County to grow wildly out of any reasonable expectation of what a local government’s role in a society should be. And it’s astonishing that we are now approaching two decades since New York State, itself fiscally dysfunctional, inflicted the politicized Nassau Interim Finance Authority on county residents.

Still, the county governments cannot produce a reasoned, seriously restrained budget that does not insult residents with political chicanery and sloth. From appallingly outrageous police compensation to water management to the mess they’ve made of property assessment to the endless growth in offensive and arbitrary regulatory mandates to outrageously irresponsible retirement compensation, we now have salt poured into our festering wounds over the pretentiously phony concern that our county political class has "fiscal fears"? What shameless pretense!

Escaping, as tens of thousands of county residents already have done, from this pathetic carnival of insane negligence and political posturing, should be everyone’s principal priority.

Stuart Klein, Island Park

Systemic racism doesn’t mean I’m one

I believe that when President Joe Biden addressed Congress on Wednesday night and touched on systemic racism, some viewers could infer that most white people are racist [" ‘America is rising anew,’ Biden declares," News, April 29]. I know I am not.

I am the grandson of an Italian immigrant who delivered ice to the tenements of Lower Manhattan. My father, who worked for the New York Journal-American evening newspaper for 30 years, raised five children who never had an altercation with anyone of color. I served in the Marine Corps with fellow Marines of color and worked in construction with people of color. I worked for the Nassau County Police Department as a patrolman in Valley Stream and had the privilege of working with a Black man who was one of the finest humans I have ever met. I was employed for 36 years by the New York Telephone Company, where I worked with, for and supervised men and women who were people of color.

I, my family and many others like me are just humans interacting with other humans. We should not be painted with a broad brush that leads others to consider us racist.

Daniel Palermo, North Amityville

Pay tax if you receive a state pension

A reader suggested that all private pensions be free from New York State tax like the government’s state pensions ["Why New Yorkers are fleeing south," Letters, April 30].

Why don’t we have New York government pension recipients pay state taxes as private pension recipients already do? All income earned in New York State should be taxed.

More specifically, if a government pension recipient moves out of state, New York should be required to withhold an additional out-of-state tax because their pensionable money should be spent in New York for all the state residents to benefit.

If we followed what the reader recommended, the hard-working residents of New York would have less taxes coming in to help with the absurd ways our state government spends our money.

Bob Krauss, Plainview