Thursday, October 28, 2010

Of Trees And Taxpayer Dollars

I Think That I Shall Never See, A Murraygram That Hasn't Killed A Tree

Not exactly Joyce Kilmer here, but a Letter to the Editor that appeared in this week's Herald newspapers caught our attention.

The suggestion of an "opt out" for all of those Town of Hempstead mailings. Imagine that -- cost effective and environmentally sound e-mails in lieu of those mailbox stuffers, tree-killers, and tax-dollar wasters.

Could it happen? In a heartbeat. Will it? Not as long as Kate Murray, Supervisor, needs to get her smile, and her name, in our collective faces.
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Is Supervisor Kate Murray really an environmentalist? 

To the Editor:

If you live in the Town of Hempstead, you are familiar with the steady flow of mailings from Town Hall. So far this year, I have received 24 mailings from Town Hall (approximately one mailing every 11 days).

On Aug. 3, I spoke to Supervisor Kate Murray at a Town Hall meeting, and suggested to her that the town give residents the option to receive Town Hall news by email. At that meeting she indicated to me that that was a wonderful idea.

Despite the fact that I had given Murray a wonderful idea, nothing got done. I went back to Town Hall on Sept. 7 and 21, Oct. 5 and 19 to press the issue. Each time it came up, Murray ducked the question and refused to give residents the option of receiving Town Hall news by email.

I have estimated that the Town of Hempstead has used more than 5 million sheets of paper (about 600 trees were needed to produce this paper) and spent over $1.1 million this year to pay for the mailings to approximately 246,828 households in the Town of Hempstead.

Murray claims to be an environmentalist and a member of the Sierra Club. You would think she would be more conscientious about the unnecessary use of natural resources.

Contact Town Hall at (516) 489-6000 or on the web at www.toh.li to tell Supervisor Murray you want an option to receive Town Hall news by email.

Felix Procacci
Franklin Square
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We're sure that the folks at Kate Murray's HELPLINE would be happy to pass along the word. Can the Murraygrams. Send us an e-mail!
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4 comments:

  1. Good Idea!

    Clavin wants to send tax bills by email, why can't Kate send Murraygrams by email?

    What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

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  2. I never read those ridiculous mailings. Most of them insult the average taxpayer's intelligence. They're a huge waste of taxpayer money. Other politicians do the same thing but 1 every 11 days is irresponsible.

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  3. Forget the opt-out: she should just stop sending these things immediately. Given the lavish four-color format she tends to favor, given the volume of mailings, I'm willing to bet that the annual expense is well over $1.1 million, especially when you consider the internal staff time that probably gets sucked up creating these things. Meanwhile, this is little more than a lot of shameless self-promotion at taxpayer expense. I agree with previous concerns expressed about the environment, but frankly given how hard the economy is these days, I think the more relevant issue is the amount of money being wasted on this crap, which is just unconscionable.

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  4. And another thing....

    (see, now you've done it, you got me upset...)

    I'm also sick of hearing Kate Murray on Bloomberg radio with those endless commercials hawking the fact that Hempstead is "business-friendly." Any business person with half a brain knows that Hempstead is anything BUT business friendly. Just ask Charles Wang.

    So here's another example of a oomplete waste of money as Murray flushes God knows how many bucks into one of the gazillion sewer systems in our great "Township."

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