Editor’s note: The following is an open letter addressed by the author to Brooklyn and Queens voters. To my fellow Brooklyn and Queens voters:
I am mad as hell and sick and tired of the so-called leaders in Brooklyn and Queens. I am a disenfranchised voter who has the misfortune of living on the wrong side of Howard Beach.
I lived in Ozone Park for 25 years and was a victim of the political hacks gerrymandering on the 38th Assembly District in the 1970’s which was cut into pieces by the hacks of that era. At that time half of the 38th Assembly District in Ozone Park was lumped in the Brooklyn, East New York. The Assemblyman at that time was the flamboyant, Vito Battista, a Republican Conservative.
Now the same ilk have gerrymandered a small piece of my new home in Howard Beach and tossed us into an East New York-Canarsie Congressional District making a hodgepodge with possibility of he candidacy of the equally flamboyant, politically opposite Charles Barron.
Barron himself spoke out against this political chicanery and so am I.
My rights are being trampled on. Why doesn’t any one care about me? What about my right to vote and be part of a district where my vote counts, part of my borough, Queens, part of my School District 27, part of my Community Board 10, my churches my religious institutions.
How dare our so called leaders, Supreme Court Justices, ruin and decide my life, my family, my neighborhood. Who asked me? Where are the representatives of the Howard Beach community? Where are the loud-mouth leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike? Where are the cries of outrage from our sleeping community? Are you going to sit back and let this happen without a fight? Are we going to be marched like sheep to the slaughter without an outcry.
Come on, let’s fight this outrage, make some noise, and call your leaders in protest.
Mary Ann Carey
Howard Beach
