Editorial Letters to the Editor Electrify our line

The decades-old plan to electrify the Port Jefferson Branch line of the Long Island Rail Road has transformational implications for our community, region and state. Yet for far too long, this critical infrastructure need has gone unmet, passed over repeatedly for other projects.

The MTA’s long pattern of negligence has condemned our commuters to ride in rickety train cars powered by diesel, an antiquated, environmentally hazardous fuel source. For a better ride, our residents often travel inland to Ronkonkoma, the MTA siphoning ridership to the main line and adding cars to our already congested roadways.

A fully electrified rail would provide the necessary recharge for downtowns still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. It would free up mobility for our residents, connecting them to every restaurant, bar and storefront along the North Shore within walking distance of a train station.

Electrification would give students and faculty at Stony Brook University swift access to Manhattan, producing even stronger ties between the southern flagship of our state university system and the global capital. This project would unlock the full commercial, environmental and educational potential of our region.

Throughout history, generations of New Yorkers have participated in engineering feats of great scope and vision. In the early 1800s, our citizens constructed the Erie Canal, bridging the world’s oceans to the American frontier. A century later, we built the state parkway system, laying thousands of miles of road, linking Montauk Point and Niagara Falls along a continuous stretch of pavement.

Generations have taken part in our state’s rich public works tradition, which has united New Yorkers around herculean aims, facilitated greater movement and improved the lives of ordinary people.

Yet, at every stage, the North Shore has been systematically shut out from any public investment of considerable scale. MTA has continually repurposed our tax dollars with no giveback to North Shore communities.

With our money, MTA recently opened its Grand Central Madison terminal ($11 billion), opened the 9.8 mile Third Track between Hicksville and Floral Park ($2.5 billion) and laid the groundwork for a proposed Interborough Express between Brooklyn and Queens ($5.5 billion estimated).

For us, Port Jefferson Branch electrification is our shared vision of change. This is our noble cause, our generational investment, our Erie Canal. The funds for the projected $3.6 billion Port Jeff electrification project are there if we can start getting them to come our way. And to do that, we must begin applying maximum pressure upon our elected officials.

From village and town boards to the county and state legislatures to the United States Congress, every public representative between Huntington and Port Jeff must be in alignment, letting out one common cry, “Electrify our line.”

We must treat electrification as the paramount infrastructure concern of our region, demanding our elected representatives and public railroad match our level of conviction. We should cast no vote nor contribute a single campaign dollar for any candidate without their unyielding support of this project.

This October, MTA will publish its 20-year Capital Needs Assessment. Port Jefferson Branch electrification must be included within that document for it to have any shot to prevail over the next two decades.

Write to your congressman and state reps in Albany. Write to the MTA and LIRR. Tell them to electrify this line, lest there be consequences at the ballot box. With all our might, let us get this project underway once and for all.

Setalcotts do not warrant exemption from state mascot policy

While a Jan. 26 TBR News Media story [“New state mascot policy threatens aid to Comsewogue School District”] about the New York State Education Department’s initiative to end the widespread, institutionalized use of race-related, Native “themed” sports team identities in our public schools did a good job of exploring the nuanced complexities of this longstanding and often emotionally volatile education, human and civil rights related issue, it could still use some clarification.

First, to avoid potential noncompliance penalties such as the loss of funding, which the article’s headline highlighted as a “threat,” affected schools only need to affirm commitment to making changes by the end of the current school year, not put them in place as the article erroneously stated. Completing changes would not be required until 2025.

Quoting the Comsewogue School District superintendent [Jennifer Quinn] saying that questions remain about the pending changes until the Education Department releases details about them, neither the superintendent nor writer apparently knew that the proposed regulations were made publicly available weeks before the article’s publication.

Similarly, had the author known about the availability of the proposed regulations, the article may not have vainly suggested the Comsewogue district might be spared from making changes because the president of the Setalcott Native American Council [Helen Sells] appeared to endorse these once acceptable but now dubious “traditions.”

However, as the Setalcott is not a federally or New York Staterecognized tribe, it does not qualify under the state’s proposed guidelines to provide an exemption.

The writer continued with the Setalcott theme by saying the stereotypical icon of a side-profile, male “Indian head” used prolifically by the district was of a historic Setalcott when it is in fact a generic, near duplicate of that once used by the Washington, D.C., NFL team which first announced plans to change its team’s racial slur name and Native “themed” identity some 30 months ago.

Finally, rather than relying on a single Native voice, the article might have been improved by including an alternate source of information, such as from the National Congress of American Indians, which is not only the oldest, largest and most representative Native organization of its kind, but has endorsed ending these practices for decades.

Although New York State will not be the first to formally enact overdue changes to practices like these, it stands in good company and may yet serve as a worthy role model that other states would do well to follow.

Robert Eurich Endicott

Editor’s Note: The writer is a longtime advocate for the removal of Native American mascots in schools.

The Setalcott Nation, from which the name Setauket is derived, is a member of the Suffolk County Native American Affairs Advisory Board. On that board, Setalcotts are given equal representation as the state and federally recognized Shinnecock Nation.

A matter of human decency

… We welcome your letters. They should be no longer than 400 words and may be edited for length, libel, style and good taste. We do not publish anonymous letters. Please include a phone number and address for confirmation. Email letters to: editor1@tbrnewsmedia.com or mail them to TBR News Media, P.O. Box 707, Setauket, NY 11733

WRITE TO US

This week MAGA members of Congress engaged in the glorification of the AR-15 rifle by wearing a pin of the aforementioned weapon on the lapel where most members would normally display an American flag. The pins were distributed by Rep. Andrew Clyde [R-GA9] who proclaimed that it was to “remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.”

Two freshman members of Congress explicitly stood out as those who chose to adorn themselves with this despicable display, Reps. Anna Paulina Luna [R-FL13] and Long Island’s own George Santos [R-NY3]. Luna should be particularly ashamed of herself — as if Republicans can experience that emotion — since only days before she chose to accessorize with this unscrupulous trinket there was a mass shooting in the city of Lakeland in her home state. As for Santos, well there is no excuse, other than maybe he convinced himself it was a boutonnière, and rather than engaging in his congressional duties

(as if), he was attending a winter formal at West Beverly High. How must surviving victims and families feel when members of Congress have the audacity to revere the very weapon that has injured, maimed and killed so many people in this country? It is blatantly obvious that these representatives simply do not care and will continue to push their ignorant agenda no matter the cost to the sanctity of human life. I would include this in the “you can’t make this s**t up” category, but we are so past this point in our country of division that the actions of these Trump sycophants no longer rely on shock value to get their point across. This is not a Bill of Rights issue, it is a matter of human decency, something which surely requires personification by those who represent us at the highest level of government.

Stefanie Werner East Setauket