Tuesday, August 15, 2006

And The Unopposed Shall Inherit The Earth. . .

. . . Or At Least The Town Of Hempstead

Sanitary District 6 Commish Coasts To Win With No Opponent

Its all over at Sanitary District 6 but for the sweepers (operated by the Town of Hempstead Sanitation Department, not the "autonomous" Town of Hempstead Sanitary District) scooping up the confetti.

Frances Kayne, the incumbent Commish, garnered 368 votes, running unopposed in last night's SD 6 "election."

In reality, there were more SD 6 personnel "working" at the polls than there were voters -- whether they punched the time clock at District HQ remains to be seen -- but then again, other than the few diehards who come out to vote no matter what, the only folks who likely cast ballots yesterday were District employees.

As to the outcome -- which was never in doubt, notwithstanding a last minute write-in campaign on behalf of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran -- the incumbent had this one sewn up before the deadline passed to file Petitions. [ As a relevant aside, there were, according to SD 6 officials, "a number of write-in votes." As of 8:50 this morning, District administrators (as in, "how many supervisors does it take to pick up a Hefty bag?") were still "waiting to find out" who those write-ins were for. (We suppose they're trying to find someone at the Sanitary District who can actually read!).]

Yes, in a special district where the prevailing view is that it is not only acceptable, but preferable, to pay more for garbage collection than for police protection, tacit acceptance of the status quo was the order of the day.

Clearly, had a district resident (any district resident) challenged Ms. Kayne in this charade of an election, and had residents in the Sanitary District -- which can boast the highest per household/business sanitary district tax payments in the Town of Hempstead -- given a hoot about the ever-increasing tug upon their wallets, the numbers would have been starkly different. [Kayne would have garnered more than 1000 votes, every Town employee and registered Republican (that's a redundancy, of course), coming out of the woodwork to pull the only functioning lever in the voting booth. Patronage does have its privileges!]

You can't say that residents in Sanitary District 6 are indifferent or apathetic. Well, you can say that, but then again, they wouldn't care. They enjoy having no less than 8 collection days per week, and paying full-time wages for part-time work. Indeed, not only would they "pay twice as much" for sanitation services as residents in neighboring districts pay, they do!

We have to assume, for purposes of this blogspot, that all is well in Elmont, Franklin Square, Garden City South, Lakeview, Malverne Park, South Floral Park, and West Hempstead, the communities serviced by Sanitary District 6. After all, the garbage is being picked up at the curb -- even where trash, litter, and abandoned shopping carts line the streets; recyclables are being picked up weekly -- even where brownfields dot the commercial landscape; and the sanitation trucks roll, at great taxpayer expense, on to the dump and the resource recovery plant -- even if they do so over roads that haven't seen a penny of that Town of Hempstead Highway Improvement bond money.

It all gives new meaning to the one word we've come to associate with the way our government does business, "waste!"
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This Means War!

Perhaps we're just not looking at the bigger picture.

Take the latest crisis in the Middle East, for instance. It is painfully obvious that the conflicts between Israel and its neighbor states can never be worked out over there.

So here's the solution: Let Israel, Hezbollah, and the Palestinians work out their problems OVER HERE!

Yes, turn control of the Town of Hempstead over to the Lebanese, with Tony Mohammed Al Santino presiding as Prime Minister. Hezbollah can fire off rockets onto the Hempstead Plain from The Heights in Hempstead Village, while the Palestinians can occupy the Town's west bank -- or West Hempstead, presuming the transplanted Israelis can be resettled in Franklin Square.

Israeli forces, acting under the command of General Harvey "Ben Moshe" Levinson, will commence aerial strikes, leveling that much of the township that doesn't already resemble downtown Beirut.

In steps the County Legislature, where Peter "Kadafi" Schmitt and Roger "Hosani" Corbin form yet another unholy alliance, orchestrating a truce whereby Hezbollah gets to run the printing press in the basement of Hempstead Town Hall for another century, the Palestinians get a homeland of their very own -- in Elmont -- and the Israelis, now secure and at peace with their neighbors (but for the falafel-haters over in Garden City), can wander the desert we call the Hempstead Plain for the next forty years.

As an added bonus, the Congress of the United States shall appropriate $300 billion to rebuild the infrastructure of war-torn Hempstead Town. New schools. New roads. Potable water. And a special district for every man, woman and child in the township.

God bless America!
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Don't Forget The Sunscreen!

Last year, The Community Alliance gave Town of Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray a great big raspberry for handing out campaign literature at Town beaches disguised as summer sun prevention tips.

Not to be outdone, members of the Nassau County Legislature are now mailing postcards to constituents warning of the dangers of melanoma, an often deadly form of skin cancer.

We would be remiss if we did not chide our county legislators for this thinly veiled ploy to use public tax dollars to pay for what is nothing more than self-laudatory campaign literature.

Ah, but this is August, after all. Can the November elections be far behind?

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