The River Reporter Online - Letters to the Editor

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The River Reporter welcomes letters on all subjects from its readers. They must be signed and include the correspondent's phone number. The correspondent's name and town will appear at the bottom of each letter; titles and affiliations will not, unless the correspondent is writing on behalf of a group.

Letters are printed as they are received, or at the discretion of the editor, and without correction to grammar or spelling. It is requested they be limited to 500 words; correspondents may be asked to cut longer letters. Deadline is 1:00 p.m. on Monday.

As a reader of The River Reporter, I appreciate Chris Conroy’s news stories. The one on the jet skis on White Lake and Kauneonga Lake in the Town of Bethel hits home for other homeowners on Washington Lake, in the hamlet of Yulan located in the Town of Highland. We have had an increase in the jet ski activity. The noise level makes it uncomfortable to stay on our beach lake area and potentially unsafe for casual boaters and swimmers, many of whom are children. We are not informed on the regulations regarding our lake. If you can provide me with any information on whom to contact at the state, county or local levels, I would appreciate it.

This week President Bush signed a new law that is important to everyone. The federal corporate reform law includes new assurances for investors and the public of the integrity of corporate governance and accounting and provides stiff new penalties for the greedy corporate criminals who would break the law.

It would be my policy to use the influence of the State Comptroller, as sole trustee of the $112 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, to be a leader in the fight for reform to protect shareholders and achieve the highest ethical standards of corporate governance.

This week I proposed a comprehensive Corporate Governance Reform Plan with 38 recommendations, which builds on the new federal law and provides a leadership position for public pension fund managers in continuing to reform corporate governance in America.

The private sector’s creativity, initiative and entrepreneurship have enabled America to enjoy the highest standard of living in the world. There can be no greater protection for our pension investments than for America to continue to be the driving force in world economies. To assure this goal, it is imperative that we return to the core values of integrity, confidence and honesty as the cornerstones of our economic system.

Assemblyman John Faso
Republican, Independent, Conservative Candidate for State Comptroller

In June, a local columnist announced: “Smart Money Says Casinos Are Coming,” citing “huge sums of money ... connected ... high-powered lobbyists [and] top notch [$700 per hour] lawyers” as well as “[the] political muscle [of] Schumer [and] Pataki” as the reasons for his optimism. A month later, he was forced by Park Place Casinos’ announcement to admit that casinos would not be coming anytime soon. [Because of a lawsuit, he evidently found unworthy of mention in his “Casino Time Line.”]

Well, he finally got it right, if only partially. In a David and Goliath-like confrontation, ordinary citizens, armed uniquely with indignation, knowledge, tenacity and their own money have managed to arrest Park Place’s progress—very probably for much, much longer than he acknowledges. I figure that he can put his column on ice for a few years and come back to find Park Place’s ground-breaking shovel in mint condition ... and The Concord’s ... and, sad to say, The Woodstock Project’s as well.

More to the point, the media seems to have come up a little short in reporting what this lawsuit is all about. This has led much of the public to believe, incorrectly, that ours is simply a nuisance suit based on technicalities and designed only to delay, rather than its being the principled, constitutionally important effort that it clearly is. [In fact it has been Pataki’s lawyers who have consumed large amounts of time with technicalities—but that’s a whole other story.]

We urge our local media to examine this lawsuit and to report their findings to the public. The public, so incompletely informed on this subject, needs and deserves to know more about it.

This writer is a former Roman Catholic seminarian of the Diocese of Brooklyn, Queens, New York. George Pataki, a Roman Catholic, is again running for the elected office of governor of New York State. Mr. Pataki is supposed to be submissive to the teaching and authority of the holy Catholic faith. He allegedly believes as an article of faith that the Pope speaks infallibly in matters regarding faith and morals.

The Popes have made it very clear by their infallible instruction in the moral matter of abortion that the deliberate killing of the unborn human child is a grievous, immortal sin against the Creator of the universe. Mr. Pataki, a well-educated man, has chosen to ignore the teaching of his Church in the matter of abortion. Mr. Pataki believes that a woman, a mother, has the legal right to kill the fruit of her womb created in the image of God. Mr. Pataki is pro-abortion or pro-choice as the demonic-poets-of-death call abortion.

In the moral matter of abortion, either Mr. Pataki is right or the Pope is correct. Mr. Pataki is a politician. His political decisions, which always have moral implications, are made to consensus. By supporting abortion, Mr. Pataki violates the sacred and infallible Fifth Commandment, “You shall not kill.” He is a rebel to the perfect instruction issued by the perfect God. Because of his public rebellion against a Commandment of God, which is ratified by the Holy Spirit, Mr. Pataki commits a sin of blasphemy against the Spirit. Jesus instructs that a sin against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven. Therefore, George Pataki is destining himself to Hell where God will not have mercy on his soul and where the devils will prevent him from resting in peace. Damned George Pataki will be joined by his voters, including Catholic priests.