An article in Newsday on Friday, May 6, reports that Farmingdale Village officials plan to tear down an apartment house located at 150 Secatogue Avenue in Farmingdale which is dilapidated and 65 years old. According to the article, vermin, mold, exposed electrical wires, broken radiators, leaking ceilings and cracked walls are among the building violations and this is indeed supported by photos accompanying the article. Owner of the property, John Tosino, had been issued hundreds of summonses over the past years.

In view of the number of summonses, why did the village board not take action years ago to correct the situation? After eight or 10 ignored violations, it appears they would have been legally entitled to collect the rent and make the repairs themselves, rather than allow the building to continue to deteriorate so badly.

The article further points out that many low paid working Hispanic families live in this building which may be torn down. In planning for a replacement, these families should be considered first. It should be recognized that Farmingdale and indeed all of Long Island is very much in need of affordable housing for lower paid working families. It is in the interest of the wealthy as well as the poor to have such housing in our area because our economy depends on it. Without affordable housing for working families, there will be no work force and businesses will decline to come here or move out. Who will work in our hospitals and retails stores? Who will do the landscaping? Who will fill the lower paid positions in our offices, schools and government? Will our children have to move away because they cannot afford to live here.

If the building does have to be torn down, the village board should see that affordable rental housing is built on this location.

Eleanor Krebs

As a resident of the Farmingdale community for the past 14 years, with two children in the elementary schools, I want someone who has the experience and skills necessary to make both educational and fiscal decisions.

In representing our PTA as a board of education representative for the past two years, I understand firsthand in attending these meetings the difficult decisions that are made in the best interest of our children for both their education and safety. In today's global competitive economy our children need the best resources and technology in order to set them apart from the rest. I want to know that our board members represent all the interests of the community, first and foremost educating our children.

Our Farmingdale schools are recognized for its leadership and pioneering efforts not just on Long Island or New York State, but across the country. We should be very proud of the talent we possess both from our teachers and students.

It is my understanding that a candidate who wishes to be elected to the board of education should be deeply concerned with educational standards and schools needs, not to mention that this candidate be a supporter of public education.

We support Jane Schriro Rubinstein for re-election to the Farmingdale Board of Education because she has the experience, desire, dedication and success in developing/implementing educational sound solutions for our children.

Joseph Leone

It seems that some members of the Farmingdale BOE are now crying foul. They contend that when they voted to hold back $842,000 from the public and shift this heavy burden back to the taxpayers, they didn't realize what they were voting for. I can say that I was present for the vote that night and fully understood what was happening. Based on speeches made by some members of the board, when they were explaining their positions before casting their vote, it was my impression that they also fully understood what they were doing to this community. While I can honestly say that at least two of the members did seem confused, both of the individuals seeking re-election gave the impression that they knew exactly what they were doing that night. In fact, this $842,000 hold back was one of the topics at the candidate's forum this past Monday night.

At last night's meeting, it seemed to me that a few board members have come to realize that they made a "politically unpopular" decision with regards to this money and were looking to shift the blame. Personally, I don't know whether it's worse to not understand that you are voting to put an additional burden of $842,000 on to the backs of the already strained taxpayers, or to knowingly do so and then look to shift the blame to a political scapegoat when it comes back to haunt you. Either way, it was not their finest hour.

The children and taxpayers of this district can't afford costly "mistakes" like this. Coincidentally the difference between an approved and contingent budget is around $842,000. Had the board included this large sum of money, it would have meant that approving a budget would have virtually no additional cost to the taxpayers over a contingent budget. I have to believe that this would have improved the chance of the budget passing the first time around.

If in the end we wind up with a contingent budget, I can't help but feel that the "mistakes" made by members of the BOE who voted to hold back the $842,000 from us are directly responsible for the cuts that are going to hurt our children. They had the opportunity to present a more palatable budget to the taxpayer and they failed to do so.

Last year we found out that our schools were allowed to lapse into a state of disrepair, requiring more than $100 million in renovations to get them back in shape. I had the opportunity to tour these buildings and some of the conditions that I saw were terrible. This was at least in part due to the fact that not one person on the board had any real experience in the construction industry. We realized that we needed to elect a person to the BOE with the expertise to oversee these costly renovations and look out for our children's interest and the environment they have to learn in. We did the sensible thing and elected Russ Catanzaro.

I think this latest atrocity clearly indicates why we now need to elect a person to the BOE who has the ability to understand the complex financial issues that the board is presented with. Steve Wilson's background makes him the only sensible choice for this task. We just can't afford these $842,000 "misunderstandings" anymore; in the long run, these "mistakes" hurt our kids.

John Miller

I would like to thank all the 230 registered voters of the Farmingdale Union Free School District #22 who signed the petition that I initiated concerning the process by which we vote on our board of education trustees. Due to the diligence of two other district residents and myself, we obtained the required number of signatures in order for us to present the petition to the board of education. The "board" then voted unanimously to accept this petition for the May 17 ballot. This petition is only one of seven items on the May 17 ballot.

Because I feel that many of our residents only think of May 17 as the "Budget Vote" I have included here a brief synopsis of the entire ballot that we will be voting on:

1. School Budget

2. Farmingdale Youth Council Budget

3. Elect a member of the board of education. Currently, Jane Schriro-Rubinstein has this position. She is running for re-election with two opponents: Steve Wilson and Terry McPartland. You can only vote for one of these candidates.

4. Elect a member of the board of education. Currently Charles Russo has this position. Mr. Russo was recently appointed (as opposed to elected) to this position to complete the term of Marie Colalucci who resigned due to her moving. Joseph Stufano is Mr. Russo's opponent for this position. You can only vote for one of these candidates.

5. To authorize the board of education to re-allocate residual capital monies to repairs. When monies are allocated to capital projects and then those projects come in under budget, the unspent amount can only be re-allocated to other projects by a public vote. This will allow us to put $1.6 million (of money already on hand) toward needed repairs at Howitt Middle School and the High School.

6. A proposition to change how board of education candidates run for the position. Currently, as you can see from above, candidates run for a specific seat on the "board." We now have the opportunity to change this process to "At Large" voting. This means that all eligible candidates will run for the position and the candidates with the most votes will win the position(s) as opposed to running for a specific seat as we are this year. This would take effect for the 2006 elections.

7. To change the distance required for a sixth-grader to receive a bus. Currently, sixth grade is considered elementary and a student only needs to live over 1/2 mile from a school to receive a bus. This referendum is to change the mileage to one mile, which is the current distance for the grades above sixth.

I hope this helps to sort out all the issues and please don't forget to vote Tuesday, May 17, at Howitt Middle School between the hours of 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Terri Morrison

While one would agree it is quite sad that the tenants at 150 Secatogue Ave. say they have no choice but to live in unacceptable conditions, (Apartment Problem is Complex, Newsday, Friday, May 6) "vermin, mold, exposed electrical wires, broken radiators, leaking ceilings, cracked walls and other building violations", the Village of Farmingdale is not the problem.

150 Secatogue Ave. is an unsafe building. The Farmingdale Fire Department must cringe every time they receive a call from that building knowing that it is a hazard and a fatality waiting to happen. My message to Community House and others who believe Farmingdale is specifically getting rid of an area that's culturally diverse: It would seem that the Village of Farmingdale is specifically getting rid of a situation where people are living with rats in unsafe conditions. Farmingdale is a culturally diverse community. 150 Secatogue Ave. is a building, which happens to be inhabited by a vast majority of Latinos, that must be revitalized. A new owner is offering to come in and redevelop a property in need of repair. It is unfortunate that the current tenants will have to find new housing as a result. There are outreach groups available in the community that are willing to help the residents find affordable (and might I add more habitable) housing. I understand the residents are fighting to stay because they fear they will have no place else to go. However, the Village of Farmingdale also has a responsibility to take care of a completely intolerable situation.

Ruth Tarlow

(Editor's Note: The following letter was originally sent to the Farmingdale Board of Education and is being reprinted here at the writer's request.)

Each year at budget time the board of education mails to the community a newsletter containing a brief summary of the proposed school budget usually comparing it to the previous adopted budget. Often I have communicated with the board or administration to ask that additional information be provided.

In particular, I ask that the most recent available actual expenditures be listed alongside the budget proposals and be made available in summary form. Many school districts on Long Island provide this information. The reason for this request is that I believe that the taxpayers will have more confidence in the budgeting process if they were able to see the relative accuracy of the process. On the other hand, if there were significant discrepancies between the actual expenditures and the budgeted expenses, the taxpayers would be able to see where unanticipated events threw the plan off.

With regard to my interest of better informing the voting public at budget time, it appears that the lack of information has reached new heights. Does the board actually believe that the public will be more inclined to pass a budget about which they have less information?

This year for the first time that I can remember, the current proposed budget isn't even compared to the previous one in summary form. The only comparison is a bottom line number which shows a $7,402,733 increase from the previous year. There is not a hint as to why an increase of that magnitude is required.

In the 12-item summary budget the largest item is over $90 million. The smallest item is a quarter of a million dollars with a total of three items each under a million dollars. It would seem to make sense for an understanding of how money is spent that the largest item be broken down into more detail and the smallest items perhaps lumped together in some way.

One further comment about the budget numbers. The items in the proposed budget are given with a precision of $1. For the uninitiated, precision may easily be confused with accuracy. Of course we all know that a $90+ million budget item cannot be estimated with an accuracy of $1. My suggestion is to round all items in the summary proposed budget to the nearest $1,000. The presentation would be no less accurate and certainly more realistic and meaningful to the voting public.

The suggestions contained in this letter are made in the belief that the more informed the citizenry and the more honest the presentation, the more understanding there will be on the part of the public and the greater the likelihood of their support. The inverse is also true.

Seymour M. Weinstein