Sound Shore

Good Wednesday morning. Here’s a a glance at today’s opinion content:

Tappan Zee Bridge: Editorial
We comment on news that President Barack Obama has fast-tracked a replacement for the aging Tappan Zee Bridge. We write:

Fast-tracking the elaborate permit process for a new Tappan Zee Bridge is just one of a bucketful of initiatives being pushed by President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. It’s the brass ring, though, for the Lower Hudson Valley region.

(more…)

The Journal News/LoHud.com Editorial Board holds endorsement interviews with candidates in key contests on the Nov. 8 ballot. Voters may watch LIVE online at www.lohud.com/editorialspotlight; questions can be submitted via our CoverItLive live-blogging feature.

The following endorsement hearings are scheduled:
Oct. 4: 1 p.m. Stony Point supervisor
Oct. 4: 3 p.m. Rockland Legislature, Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8
Oct. 5: 1 p.m. Putnam County executive
Oct. 5: 3 p.m. New Rochelle mayor
Oct. 11: 1 p.m. Rockland Legislature, Districts 9, 10 and 11
Oct. 11: 3 p.m. Rockland Legislature, Districts 13, 14, 16 and 17
Oct. 12: 1 p.m. Westchester Board of Legislators, Districts 1, 2 and 3
Oct. 12: 3 p.m. Westchester Board of Legislators, Districts 4, 5, 6 and 7
Oct. 18: 1 p.m. Clarkstown supervisor
Oct. 18: 3 p.m. Orangetown supervisor
Oct. 19: 1 p.m., Westchester Board of Legislators, Districts 9, 10, 12 and 13
Oct. 19: 3 p.m., Westchester Board of Legislators, Districts 14, 15 and 17
Oct. 25: 1 p.m. Rockland County Sheriff
Oct. 25: 3 p.m. Ramapo supervisor
Oct. 26: 1 p.m. Yonkers mayor
Oct. 26: 3 p.m. Mount Vernon mayor

Interviews for Westchester and Putnam candidates take place in our White Plains office, 1 Gannett Drive. Interviews for Rockland candidates take place in our West Nyack office, 1 Crosfield Ave. Candidates needing more information can contact Nancy Cutler at ncutler@lohud.com or 845-578-2403.

Voters guide
The 2011 local elections determine who represents you on the county, town and village level. Visit www.lohud.com/candidates to find out who’s running, and where the candidates stand on the issues.

Calling all candidates
The Journal News and LoHud.com wish to hear from candidates vying in local Westchester, Rockland and Putnam elections.

Please send us an email including your full name, home address, daytime phone number and an active email address to elections@lohud.com. In both the subject line and body of the email, be sure to indicate which office you are vying for. The information will be used by our news and opinion staffs to contact and correspond with candidates. Additionally, the email address will be used to send candidates a questionnaire that will form the basis of an online guide for voters.

Here’s a look at opinion content published over the weekend in The Journal News:

Saturday, Sept. 24
Troy Davis: Commentary
Alice T. Crowe, a Nyack attorney and playwright, offers a Community View on Troy Davis, the African-American man put to death last week in Georgia for the 1989 murder of white Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Crowe argues against the death penalty.

Sunday, Sept. 25
Infrastructure repair: Editorial
We comment on a report that 45 percent of Westchester County’s bridges are “functionally obsolete,” according to the state Department of Transportation. The figures are similar in Rockland and Putnam Counties. We argue in favor of President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act, which would fund badly needed infrastructure repairs. We write:

… Of course, many commuters travel great distances, and from state to state, so they experience the breadth of the region’s infrastructure woes, from rundown bridges to overmatched wastewater treatment facilities and broke water mains. The state Comptroller’s Office, looking at long-range maintenance needs for bridges, sewers and water systems, estimates that New York needs to spend $250 billion over the next 20 years; about $80 billion of that is unfunded. “The central theme is that we have immense infrastructure needs and very limited resources to tend to those needs, and that presents some significant challenges,” Deputy State Comptroller Tom Nitido told The Journal News and LoHud.com.

(more…)

Good Monday morning. Here’s a selection of opinion content published over the weekend and today:

Saturday, Sept. 17
United Water: Community View
Bert Dahm, a West Nyack resident and member of the West Nyack Hamlet Revitalization Committee, replies to a Sept. 10 Community View on United Water’s response to Irene. Dahm alleges that the utility’s response to the disaster was devastating.

Sunday, Sept. 18
Westchester’s housing settlement: Editorial
We comment again on Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s handling of the 2009 fair-housing settlement that requires Westchester to construct 750 affordable units that are affirmatively marketed to African-Americans. We write:

… Astorino and his minions ignore all that history in their public pronouncements, which on Friday were seconded by six Republican challengers for board seats. In a news release, they blamed the Democrats for signing off on the agreement and inviting Washington officials to intrude upon home rule. In the settlement, the county acknowledged its longstanding duties under HUD guidelines to affirmatively further fair housing, including crafting a policy addressing “the elimination of discrimination, including the present effects of past discrimination, and the elimination of de facto residential segregation …”

(more…)

Good Monday morning. Here’s a digest of opinion content published in The Journal News over the weekend and today:

Saturday, July 30
Norway attacks: Commentary
Tim Rutten, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, assesses connections between literature consumed by Timothy McVeigh, architect of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and that read by Anders Behring Breivik, who carried out last month’s deadly attacks in Norway.

Air pollution: Commentary
Adrienne Esposito, executive director, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, argues in a Community View that the federal Environmental Protection Agency should adopt “standards to slash mercury and other toxic emissions from fossil-fuel-burning power plants.”

Sunday, July 31
Rockland’s deficit: Editorial
We comment on Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef’s proposal to slash his county’s balooning deficit — Rockland’s debt could swell to $80 million by year’s end. We write:

Plenty of criticism can be leveled at Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef’s five-year plan to cut, consolidate and tax away the county’s $51 million county deficit — most obviously, asking why it wasn’t executed much sooner. But those who take issue with Vanderhoef’s plans should be prepared to find alternative savings. …

Good Monday morning. Here’s a glance at opinion content published over the weekend:

Saturday, July 23
We published a pair of commentary pieces that probed whether or not the federal Enviornmental Protection Agency should enact a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial practice used for extracting natural gas from bedrock. In New York, where drillers would like to extract gas from Marcellus shale deposits, the state Department of Environmental Conservation continues its review of the practice.
Fracking’s harm to the environment is overstated, Andrew P. Morriss, professor of business at the University of Alabama
Fracking’s ills are known, real, Arnold J. Mann, author of “They’re Poisoning Us! From the Gulf War to the Gulf of Mexico, An Investigative Report.”

Sunday, July 24
Gay marriage: Editorial
We herald the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. We write:

… New York’s giant step toward equality, though, is hamstrung by federal regulations that still restrict the rights of people based on their sexual orientation. Change, though, is coming.

(more…)

Good Thursday afternoon. Here’s a glance at opinion content published today:

Palisades Parkway rescue: Editorial
We cheer the rescue of Annamaria Badenchini, a West Haverstraw woman pulled from the wreckage of her SUV moments before it exploded Tuesday on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. We write:

… Todd Pezzementi of Stony Point quickly raced to the burning vehicle, joining other quick-acting men who pulled Badenchini through the passenger-side window to safety. They carried her out of harm’s way, and less than a minute later a fiery explosion engulfed her vehicle.

(more…)

Good Monday afternoon. Here’s a digest of opinion content published over the weekend in The Journal News:

Saturday, July 16
Debt ceiling: Commentary
Doyle McManus, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, assesses the struggle between Congressional Republicans and the administration of President Barack Obama over raising the federal debt ceiling. Any deal to do so, McManus argues, will not go far enough to prevent a fiscal crisis.

French-American School: Commentary
Mischa Zabotin, chairman of the French-American School of New York’s board of trustees, offers a Community View in which he argues in favor of his school’s plan to construct a new campus on the former Ridgeway Country Club property in White Plains.

Sunday, July 17
Affordable housing: Editorial
We comment on news that Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino announced in a Friday press briefing that “the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development had rejected, for the fifth time, the administration’s required analysis of impediments to fair housing choice in Westchester. That failure, according to the administration, stands to cost Westchester some $7 million in federal housing funds; the figure could surely grow, based upon fresh comments from Astorino. He excoriated HUD officials, accusing them of “unprecedented bureaucratic overreaching,” and disavowed key settlement provisions.” We continue:

Good Thursday morning. Here’s a digest of opinion content published today in The Journal News:

Mandate relief: Editorial
We comment on news that Moody’s, the credit-rating agency, reported this week that Rockland County could suffer significantly because of the state’s new 2-percent property-tax cap. The time for mandate relief is now, we argue. We write:

… County executives, especially, have blasted Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to push through a tax cap while doing little to undo unfunded state mandates, which are responsible for about 75 percent of counties’ costs. Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef has said the county’s Medicaid costs alone exceed the total amount his county collects in property taxes.

While Cuomo formed a Mandate Relief Task Force, its spring report — and lack of action — has been a disappointment.

(more…)

Good Monday morning. Here’s a glance at opinion content that published in The Journal News this past weekend:

Saturday, June 25
Rockland flooding: Editorial
We comment on the flooding that swamped large swaths of the Lower Hudson Valley on Saturday. We write:

… We’ve known for a decade or more that only major mitigation work is going to make a difference along the Hackensack and the Ramapo rivers. Both are multimillion-dollar projects that have been put off and delayed only to be postponed and delayed again. The result: Places like West Nyack and Suffern brace for the worst whenever there’s a sustained storm or even a really heavy passing thunderstorm.

(more…)