State-funded school meals are the responsible choice Letters to the Editor

While most understand the value of investing in education, there’s more to learning than going to class and doing homework.

We must give all children an equal chance of receiving a proper education, and one way to do so is by ensuring that all students are adequately nourished, navigating the school day on a full stomach.

Last Friday, New York state elected officials joined school administrators and advocates in Huntington to call upon Gov. Kathy Hocul (D) to include fully funded school meals for all students in the 2024 state budget. The call comes after federal waivers that enabled schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students during the COVID-19 pandemic ended before the start of the 2022-23 academic year.

The universal free school meals initiative may make some pause at first. While New Yorkers understand that there are countless people among us — many right here in our own towns — suffering from food insecurity, they are aware that some of our residents can easily afford to feed their children breakfast and lunch.

However, advocates for the Healthy School Meals for All program contend that many families are eligible for the supplement but do not apply because they are embarrassed to ask for help. Some make slightly more than the income requirements to receive nutrition assistance but could desperately use the help.

In an era when most families need both parents to work to make ends meet, and as salaries and wages increases have lagged behind inflation, ensuring free meals for all children can keep our students healthy while easing household budgets. In addition to helping households, the program would eliminate unpaid meal debt for school districts, which increased after the federal waivers expired.

According to the speakers at the March 24 press conference at Jefferson Primary School in Huntington, including the program in the state budget could help nearly a quarter million students on Long Island alone. The initiative is one that state legislators have gotten behind with $280 million in funding included in their budget proposals.

Now it’s time for Hochul to support it.

With states such as California, Colorado, Nevada, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut already implementing the Healthy School Meals for All program, it’s time for New York to embrace this initiative.

Research indicates that well-nourished students perform better on tests, are more present in school and retain information better. Advocates hope the program provides all children the opportunity to be fully prepared to take on a day of learning, something every student deserves.

We remind our readers that New York taxpayers are currently subsidizing a football stadium in Buffalo to the tune of $600 million — a deal brokered by the Hochul administration. Meanwhile, many of our school children here on Long Island are inadequately nourished.

The proposed school nutrition program is less than half the cost of the football stadium yet would go much further in advancing the interests of ordinary citizens. To our governor and state officials in Albany: The Buffalo Bills should never trump the health of our children.

Doing what’s right for our kids, and paving the way for a brighter future for all, starts with a solid breakfast and lunch. Our state officials are fighting for this. It is time for our governor to do the same.

Putting the park into parking in PJV

The parking problem has persisted since the noted Long Island planner, Lee Koppelman, made Port Jefferson’s first village plan in 1965. Multiple updates continued to note this problem, including the 2030 Comprehensive Plan Update.

As the village has increased parking capacity with more area and asphalt devoted to off-street parking, the less it has felt like an intimate village. Finding a spot, and the walk from your car — through other cars — to Main Street is not a pleasant start to a visit. In the planning to accommodate the car, the harbor front was converted from shipbuilding to parking, absurdly giving the car the best view of the harbor.

In 2006, sponsored by the BID, supported by the Village of Port Jefferson, we presented to the village community the concept of “Putting the Park into Parking” — as seen on the front page of this paper in 2006. The concept was to make a park on the harbor front and move the parking to a parking structure behind Main Street, replacing the asphalt wasteland with scaledback street mews walks.

With rising tide predictions, the cars should be replaced — before they go under — with a sponge sustainable functioning education park. Parking is just one concern for quality of life in our village.

Michael Schwarting Campani and Schwarting Architects Port Jefferson

Can we trust the Suffolk County Legislature?

We have had a “clean water” sales tax for years. When last I looked both Suffolk County and New York State took that “clean water” sales tax money and put it into their general budgets. Suffolk County was taken to court where it lost and was ordered to replace the improperly taken money. Suffolk then claimed this money was needed to offset the costs of COVID-19, won a referendum and never truly repaid this money. I call this legalized “stealing.”

Now we are being asked to increase and extend this legalized “stealing” [through a 1/8-cent county sales tax increase to fund water quality improvement projects, subject to a mandatory referendum]. Additionally, we are being asked to provide politically well-connected persons with positions as “a 17-member wastewater management district board of trustees” to administer this money.

We are told there will be one, countywide, sewer district with “zones of assessment.” Taxes collected within an established zone of assessment would be required to be kept segregated from taxes collected in other zones of assessment, except upon approval by the county Legislature on the recommendation of the district board of trustees.

Can we trust the Suffolk County Legislature? What do you think?

Francis G. Gibbons Sr. Terryville

Uphold

democracy by attending the April 3 village board meeting

When we think of dying democracies, we think of faraway lands, where democracies are overthrown by a military coup — like Myanmar in 2021 — or by rampant corruption and fraud, as in Haiti today. But there is a slower blight democracies die from: a gradual loss of trust in the electoral system. We can see that in our own backyard when local officials ignore and thus thwart the will of the majority. People still have the right to vote, but they no longer bother to do so.

This fate threatens the Village of Port Jefferson today. We have some 6,000 registered voters in the village. Yet only about 1,200 vote in the mayoral election and even fewer for trustees. The current officers were elected with fewer than a thousand votes each in 2021 and 2022.

Why is this? The residents have seen issue after issue decided by the Board of Trustees without considering the input of voters. The residents no longer even hope for a voice in village decisions.

Such recent decisions include building of apartment complexes in Upper and Lower Port despite strong opposition from residents; the $10 million bond that was floated to fund the “shield” solution to East Beach bluff erosion; and the parking lot built on the newly cleared forest at Mather Hospital.

But just last week, the Port Jefferson

Board of Trustees added the keystone to the arch of despair that has developed over the years. The board and mayor unilaterally extended their terms of office from two years to four with no public debate whatsoever. Whether that extension would be bad or good for the village is not the issue. The issue is that, once again, the village residents’ rightful expectation that their will would be considered in their village government’s decisions was quashed.

Village residents voted to incorporate as a village because we wanted to have selfgovernance, to make our own decisions about things that affect us the most. But this is now not the case.

As representatives of the Civic Association of Port Jefferson, we strongly urge the Board of Trustees, in their April 3 meeting, to rescind the undemocratic resolution to extend their terms they made at their last meeting.

We also urge the residents of Port Jefferson to show up at 6 p.m. at the April 3 board meeting at the Village Hall to express their disapproval. Don’t let democracy in our village die the death of apathy.

Ana Hozyainova, President Holly Fils-Aime, Vice President Port Jefferson Civic Association

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Opinion

My predictions for the action in the stands as baseball begins

No, I’m not going to predict anything about the on field action this year as the “boys of summer” take the field this week for the start of the 2023 baseball season.

hey’ll win some, they’ll lose some, and it’ll rain, and they’ll have to play some other day.stadiums and be too awestruck to speak. He may have been to other games, but returning to his favorite stadium and looking at the shimmering green grass, the bright foul lines, and the oversized baseball bag will take his breath away, even if only for a moment and even if no one notices the goose flesh on his arms despite the warm temperature.

will reach into history. Who was the best left fielder? Should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame?

Fans will celebrate birthdays, waiting for that fleeting moment when their name appears on the screen with best wishes from Joe, Mo, Mary and the rest of the crew.

making it tough for them to focus on the game. Some of those people will have to leave the game and go back to the office, while others will talk through a document or deal amid a series of ongoing crises.

Someone will share some of their favorite lines from baseball movies, suggesting that the team is a “bunch of lollygaggers,” or that, in as deep a James Earl Jones voice as they can muster, “the one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.”

People will propose marriage. Most will say “yes” and will cover their mouths in astonishment. Some will storm off, throw the ring back, or yell something, leaving others to wonder whether the scene was real or staged.

Awestruck people will realize their fantasy and will catch a foul ball. They will raise the ball as if it were a trophy, giving the strangers around them a chance to applaud. A generous fan will likely hand a ball over to a nearby child, knowing how valuable that souvenir will be for him or her.

D.

None of the above

Instead, I’m going to make some predictions about the action in the stands. After all, the number of people and stories from the stands far exceeds the paltry size of the teams, umpires, grounds crew and everyone else involved with “The Show.” So, without further delay, here are a few predictions for the upcoming season. Someone will walk into one of the local

During long day games, fans, clad in T-shirts, jerseys or tank tops, will forget sunscreen and will develop a sunburn. For some, that sunburn will be a reminder of the game. For others, it might provide sore or red skin.

Debates that border on arguments will occur in every part of the stadium. Some disagreements will arise over whether the umpire made the right call, while others