Let us celebrate the 25th Anniversary of New York’s bottle bill this June by urging our state legislators to pass the Bigger Better Bottle Bill. It would add a nickel deposit on cans and bottles of water, iced tea, juice and sports drinks, as well as require the bottling industry to turn over unredeemed deposits to the state for environmental initiatives.
These beverages come in the same types of containers as beer and soda but were not on the radar screen 25 years ago. They are often consumed away from home and discarded on our beaches and roadways, in our parks and waterways. Volunteers in our Annual New York Beach Cleanup have documented that these containers are found twice as often as those with the deposit are.
This issue is not just about aesthetics. Litter is not only unsightly; it is also a hazard for humans and wildlife. Think broken glass in the playground and on the beach or shredded aluminum cans in mown hay consumed by livestock. Let’s not allow this legislature to end its term on June 21 without a vote on this important legislation.
Barbara Toborg
American Littoral Society
Broad Channel
Block-the-box fines
I disagree with Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to enact congestion pricing in New York City, but feel is he right on the money in calling for a box-blocking crackdown.
However, what must be coupled with stiffer fines is stricter enforcement. Only then can motorists get the message that vehicular infractions will not go unnoticed and unpunished.
My neighborhood of Jackson Heights, on a daily basis, witnesses major traffic problems at 73rd Street and 37th Avenue. Often the trouble is caused by double-parked and idling trucks.
Law enforcement needs to pay more attention to spots like this across the city, not just in Manhattan. While congestion pricing may prompt more people to drop off their cars in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island to get to work, the traffic problems will still be rampant in these boroughs.
Bloomberg is on the right track to pursue classifying block-the-box violations as nonmoving violations so traffic agents can write summonses. However, there needs to be greater enforcement already even before such a measure is enacted.
I am proud that the West Jackson Heights Alliance has rallied hundreds of people to speak up about a myriad of problems in our community, but am realistic enough to know the problems are not isolated just outside my doorstep.
If we want to improve the quality of life in our city, we must work together. Unfortunately, it will take more than the threat of a steeper fine to change many drivers’ ways. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that it may put just a small dent in a big problem.
Alfonso Quiroz
Jackson Heights
Avella, Liu wrong on Sonny Carson
Mayor Bloomberg was totally on point for blasting a City Council proposal to name a Brooklyn street after deceased controversial black-separatist Sonny Carson. The Mayor said, “I think there’s probably nobody whose name I could come up with who less deserves to have a street named after him in this city than Sonny Carson. That’s probably the worst idea the City Council … has had in recent memory.”
To name a park, a street or anything else after a self-admittedly anti-white, anti-Semitic demagogue and convicted kidnapper, attempted murderer and racial arsonist is beyond the pale.
Queens voters should also know that Councilmembers Tony Avella and John Liu supported this proposal even though it seems unlikely that many Queens voters in the neighborhoods they represent would be comfortable with naming a street after a racist demagogue like Carson.
Lest anyone forget - this same Sonny Carson led the campaign of boycott and physical intimidation against Korean-owned delis in Brooklyn’s African-American neighborhoods. He marched with signs that read, “Don’t Shop with People Who Don’t Look like Us.”
A year later, he hailed the Crown Heights lynch mob that killed Hasidic scholar Yankel Rosenbaum, saying he was “very proud” of what had happened.
Queens voters should also remember Avella and Liu’s votes on this because even though they are both term-limited out, they are raising funds for higher office (Mayor and Borough President), and both have shown that they can’t be trusted to act responsibly by voting for this proposed street naming.
Phil Ragusa, CPA
Chair, Queens County
Republican Party
Unite families legally
The word “illegal” means just that! TV commentator Lou Dobbs has been chronicling daily the hazards of our “broken borders” - meaning that any and everyone, including convicts, people with extremely contagious diseases, lack of proper vaccinations, and other significant health problems, are managing to “sneak” across our borders, coming here for the “American Dream,” they believe will be their salvation!
To their chagrin, this “dream” is not working for all the people who managed to escape under very difficult circumstances.
If we really wish to unite families, instead of dividing them, going the legal way is the most efficacious and compassionate manner in which to achieve the real American Dream!
Leonore Brooks
Whitestone
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