to Editorials • Viewpoints • Comments
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A JV © Toll Toll
When is a toll not a toll?? Give Up? ... When it's
illegal to impose a toll and it becomes a " vehicular
' use fee."
By any other name, the Jones Beach State Parkway
Authority which manages the causeways to
Robert Moses State Park and Jones Beach, will be
collecting $ 2 per car instead of $ 1. Unless, that is,
the Town of Oyster Bay obtains a court injunction,
which it is attempting to do as of this writing.
Since the State Parkway Authority does not have
the power to increase tolls ( a new law requires a 120
day waiting period and a public hearing on toll
increases), the parks department is exercising its
right to charge admission fees to the beaches. The
extra dollar, called a " vehicular use fee" will be
collected at the toll booths.
Contacted by The Post, James Aries of the State
Department of Parks and Recreation, said that
Oyster Bay and Babylon Town residents would be
charged the " fee" for the use of Ocean Parkway to
get to their town resident beaches. Commuters
using the Ocean Parkway and the bridges on the
causeways would also have to pay the $ 1 " fee,"
even though they were using no beaches at all.
The Town of Oyster Bay was granted " free access"
for its residents to use the roads to reach the
Town Beach when it deeded the land to the State for
the construction of Jones Beach. When the first
causeway tolls went into effect, the Town lost a
court case to the state because the state maintained
the funds were not for access but for police
protection and highway maintenance. Now,
there's another " vehicle use fee" which is nothing
more than a dodge by the State Parkway
Authority and the parks department to circumvent
the law.
Letters
From Our Readers
Dear Editor:
Supervisor John Burke, the
Town of Oyster Bay's answer to
Lewis Carroll, is at it again!
Notwithstanding the legitimate
protests of local residents,
Nassau OTB has recently signed
a lease for a betting parlor in a
neighborhood shopping center in
Jericho. It now proposes to put an
equally unwanted betting parlor
in a residential area of Far-mingdale.
As the law now stands, there is
nothing that local municipalities
can do to change OTB's unfortunate
site selection policies.
But laws can change ... no law is
infallible. A proposal has been
made in the Assembly to give
local Towns and Villages zoning
control over OTB sites has been
before the State Legislature for
four months. Home Rule Counsel
Quinn states that all it needs to
become law is the support of local
municipalities ... and that's
where Supervisor Burke comes
in.
What is Supervisor Burke's
position? He is quoted this week
as saying that " he cannot vote to
support the Yevoli bill as a
[ Continued on page 7]
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From Congressman
Jerome A. Ambro
I have said from the beginning
that the Chairman of the Ways
and Means Committee was doing
the Nation a great disservice by
suggesting that the Energy
package developed by his
Committee, including a tax on
gasoline as a method of
diminishing consumption, was
Congress' answer to the energy
problem.
The President has no program.
He merely attempts to raise the
price of gasoline and oil by adding
to the cost of imported
OPEC oil. The Ways and Means
bill was no real comprehensive
program. It merely attempted to
discourage the use of gasoline by
imposing stiff penalties on those
who rely solely on their cars for
work and school with no mass
transportation alternative, those
who are unemployed and underemployed,
and those who find
in these inflationary times the
solution most difficult to cope
with - namely, middle- income
Americans. Thus, I was delighted
that when the Ways and Means
bill did come to the floor, my
amendment to strike the gasoline
tax was overwhelmingly accepted.
There is, now, an energy bill
which has just been reported to
the House by the Committee on
Commerce and Health which
represents the solution to the
energy conservation and
distribution problem. The bill is
courageous in that it rolls back
the price of new oil to about $ 7.50
a barrel while keeping old oil at
$ 5.25 a barrel.
The bill contains tight
automobile fuel- efficiency
standards and sets up a gasoline
allocation program. It requires
the 2,000 largest industrial
energy users to develop plans to
increase energy efficiency by
15% in 1978 and 20% in 1982. The
bill mandates labeling of fuel-efficiency
of appliances and
requires them to show a 25%
improvement by 1980. The bill
mandates energy efficiency in
air, rail and bus transportation
vehicles; permits the FEA to
prohibit the use of natural,
gasoline as a boiler fuel; provides
incentives for increasing
domestic production of oil at
maximum efficiency rates;
requires the GAO to audit major
oil companies' finances and
records; provides standby
authority to the President to
ration gasoline if necessary;
permits the President to draw
down inventories to prevent
hoarding of oil and sets up a
federal purchasing authority for
foreign oil which would require
all oil imports be made by sealed
competitive bids.
No one in the Nation could ask
for a finer piece of legislation to
deal comprehensively with the
energy crisis, and everyone
should review the bill and make a
strong plea to his Representative
in Congress to support it.
defiant
From Assemblyman Philip Healey
An Assembly Minority Task Force on Fire Protection, created
earlier this year, has been reorganized and expanded to develop
improved benefits for consideration during the next legislative session
and I am pleased to say I have been appointed a member.
The title has been changed to the Task Force on Volunteer and
Professional Fire Protection and will look into such areas as improving
the volunteer firemen's benefit law, including benefits to
firemen who suffer heart attacks while on fire calls. Statutes relating
to fire services will also be studied for possible recodification and
plans are underway to formulate fire prevention education statutes
and fire prevention codes. The registration of voters, as well as the
voting procedures conducted in fire districts, will be looked into and
regulations of administrative agencies will be examined to ascertain
that they conform with existing law and procedures of fire service.
In view of the tragic fire which recently broke out in the World
Trade Center in New York City, fire protection in high- rise buildings
will also be the subject of scrutiny for task force members. Legislation
providing toll exemptions for emergency equipment on the New York
State Thru way is under study. Potential easements of restrictions on
fire equipment which use some of our main highways because they
provide the shortest and quickest route in responding to alarms will
also come under careful attention.
The Task Force has already been ci^ itedwith influencing the
Governor to restore funds to continue the Acattemy of Fire Science at
Montour Falls in Schuyler County which provides technical training to
volunteer firemen from all over the State. At $ 40,000 appropriation in
the original budget proposal which was intended to ' mothball' the
academy was replaced with an appropriation of $ 172,000 for fire
training, $ 61,000 for continuation of the fire reporting system and
advisory services and $ 112,000 for continued fire inspection of state-owned
office buildings has also been achieved.
The funding restoration has been vitally important to our communities
which depend solely on protection from volunteer firemen
and now the task force will work toward improving benefits and safety
precautions for all firefighters in the State, both volunteers and
professionals.
Supervisor
JOHN W. B> URKE
In 1776 John Adams wrote: " I am apt to believe that this day will be
celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary
festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade: from one
end of this continent to the other from this time forward." The day
Adams was referring to was, surprisingly enough, not July 4th, but
rather July 2nd. Even though the philosophical and personal commitments
of the delegates to the Second Continental Congress were
firm on July 2nd, the legally binding document was signed on July 4th.
John Adams - a signer of the Declaration of Independence and our
Nation's second President - was correct in his foresight that future
generations would remember the event. This year, instead of the
celebration's emphasis being on massive new construction as it was at
the time of the first centennial one- hundred years ago, the emphasis is
on the restoration of historic buildings and other revitalization
projects. In other words, we, by means of the Bicentennial commemoration,
are preserving the past to better understand its
significance.
The Town of Oyster Bay is taking an active part in the localization of
the Bicentennial, thanks to the efforts of the Town of Oyster Bay
American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and other such
groups. These dedicated people have re- introduced such historic
landmarks as Raynham Hall, the home of New York's Chief Intelligence
Officer for General George Washington during the
Revolution. Other programs, which include a Bicentennial walk, are
being planned.
The community- oriented Bicentennial celebrations all point up the
fact that we are commemorating America's Declaration of Independence.
Our independence has been well- proclaimed during the
course of our history, and it is to the credit of idealistic men and
women throughout our Town and Country that we continue to strive
lor full, complete realization of these principals and freedoms for
which our Nation was founded.
This era and the Bicentennial commemorations are made special by
the fact that we are celebrating not only the fact of independence or
self- determination, but also because we have great opportunity to
recommit ourselves to the ideals of the founding fathers with the same
enthusiasm that made John Adams two days early with his announcement.
