Newsday's recent article about the MTA/LIRR Third Track Project demonstrates that gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer is either misinformed, ill-informed or uninformed about the administrative procedures much less the potential impact of this costly, massive undertaking. It will spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for some illusory economic renaissance that an increased reverse commute is supposed to create in eastern Suffolk County.

But Mr. Spitzer chooses not to challenge the economic assumptions of the MTA or the havoc such a project will cause to communities such as ours that has already borne the brunt and burden of Long Island's transportation needs. Instead Mr. Spitzer ludicrously laments about "LIRR expansion delays." The attorney general is impatient that plowing another track through our community isn't happening fast enough. The record, however, is clear that the "delays" Mr. Spitzer so bitterly complains of are, in fact, integral parts of the review and comment process that is altogether proper and pursuant to law. Moreover, the only delays to date have been by the MTA/LIRR bureaucracy, which is slowly preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that must respond to the nearly unanimous negative reaction it received at the six scoping hearings in June of 2005 as well as its vague and inadequate Scoping Document. The overdue DEIS is now scheduled to be completed in 2007 instead of this year as originally promised by the MTA.

Our elected representatives in both Albany and Washington have created a well-established protocol to fully and fairly debate this project, which seeks to use upwards of $670 million of our dollars for a potential boondoggle, which imperils and threatens our great communities in eastern Queens and through the heart of Nassau County. Unless Eliot Spitzer wants us to return to the unchecked eminent domain days of powerbroker Robert Moses, his unwarranted and unfounded attacks on these communities, elected representatives and the people they serve have no place today in New York or anywhere else in America.

The picture concerning Mr. Spitzer, however, is very confusing and it is impossible to reconcile his previous comments with the confidence he is now expressing for this project. It was none other than Mr. Spitzer who at the NYS Conference of Mayors in Albany said this about the MTA: "I would be hard-pressed to find an organization that is more inept, more poorly run with revenue projections and where the fundamental decision-making is more flawed." It is therefore appalling that in light of this assessment, Eliot Spitzer nonetheless fully supports the MTA and its third track without any reservations.

However, Mr. Spitzer seeks in the future to reconcile the infelicities of his position, and it will not change the simple fact that our communities are united to vigorously oppose this unneeded and unwanted mega project. We realize there are powerful interest groups afoot such as the Political Action Committee of the Long Island Association, which was an early contributor to Mr. Spitzer's 2006 campaign. But we're powerful too. After all, it is we who are fighting for our homes, our neighborhood and our way of life.

Eliot Spitzer may be the "Sheriff of Wall Street" but we're the "Caretakers of Main Street, Floral Park." If it comes to a showdown, that fact will count for an awful lot.

I arrived at our recreation center right before the conclusion of the contest to join Trustees Tom Tweedy and Jim Rhatigan at the poetry recital sponsored by the Floral Park Council of Cultural Affairs. I was able to congratulate all the young winners and participants whose creative spirit is something to nourish and cherish. There is something remarkably vital and uplifting about poetry whose language is closer to the human heart than anything else ever spoken or heard. The world needs it - we need it.

Like music, to which it is mysteriously and charmingly allied, the melody and rhythm of its verses can entertain, inspire, and when life wounds, offer solace. Perhaps above all else it fulfills our inner longing for beauty. All of these wholesome emotions spontaneously came alive this past Sunday afternoon in the Daisy Room of the Floral Park Recreation Center. We express our gratitude, once again, to all the aspiring poets for sharing the magic with us.