A GAZETTE LETTER FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: LET'S STOP BLAMING TRUMP FOR OUR OWN SELFISHNESS AND PROFLIGACY

August 24, 2019 - The following letter was published in this week’s issue of the Gazette.

To the editor:

 

It has only taken 10 years, but Croton is finally going to enforce the vehicle idling law. As I noted in this paper more than a year ago (The Gazette, week of July 5/11, 2018) the law has been blatantly ignored on a daily basis, including by the J&S taxi drivers who occupy a prime space granted by the same village which has previously refused to enforce the law.

 

Of course this is Croton and we do things the Croton way. So it is only after much jawboning and 10 years of delay that we act. Better late than never, I suppose.

 

And this is Croton 2019, where you can’t stub your toe without at least implicitly blaming Donald Trump and engaging in sanctimonious virtue-signaling. So Brian Pugh announces that Croton will finally enforce the law (The Gazette, week of August 15/21), but not without taking a swipe at actions “at the national level” contrasted with Croton, where the “Village Board’s Democratic majority will continue, consistent with the interests and values of our community, to empower residents to take environmentally responsible steps and protect our local habitat.”

 

While not technically inaccurate, Mr. Pugh is misleading: Croton’s Village Board is a Democratic monopoly. And for most of the period since the anti-idling law was passed but not enforced, it has been a Democratic majority or monopoly on the Board of Trustees which has refused to enforce the law.

 

Indeed, Croton is overwhelmingly a Democrat village: in 2016 the village went 69% for Hillary Clinton versus 25% for Donald Trump. Both Nita Lowey and Chuck Schumer got over 72% of the vote in Croton.

 

So it stands to reason that the cluster of vehicles which have been idling at the Croton train station belching toxins and greenhouse gases for the past 10 years of non-enforcement are not exactly a hotbed of Trump supporters. Statistically speaking, it is likely that most of the people in Croton who are breaking the law and idling their vehicles are not Trump voters. Most of the gas-guzzler SUVs you see driving around Croton are owned by Croton residents, and it was not “industry actors” at the “national level” who forced Croton residents to purchase those SUVs. READ MORE AT http://www.crotonunited.org/news-views/2019/8/24/lets-stop-blaming-trump-for-our-own-selfishness-and-profligacy