On Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001 there was a meeting at Assemblyman Marc Herbst's office in Hicksville regarding the "freight yard" on West John Street. Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and New York and Atlantic Railway (NYA) representatives were in attendance. There were several civics from Hicksville present in an attempt to discover why we have been kept in the dark while it appears Governor Pataki, Senator Kemp Hannon and Assemblywoman Maureen O'Connell apparently brokered a sweetheart deal for the residents of Garden City (Garden City Life, Aug. 24, 2001).

The LIRR and NYA entered into an agreement to eliminate any possible use of the freight yard in Garden City with the exception of using it for the circus when it is in town. The signal department and security would be moved from Hicksville to Garden City and Hicksville would be used exclusively for freighter.

At this meeting, we were told that a moratorium for the movement of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) by rail had been in effect, but for the last 18 months it has been lifted. This appears to be an issue now that conveniently Garden City does not have to deal with, but Hicksville does. We tried to find out if any other moratoriums not to use the Garden City freight yard had been in place. We were just told that the Garden City yard was not being used, but we couldn't find out why.

The Garden City yard can hold 35 freight cars while Hicksville can only hold 20. One may think that because of an anticipated additional use of rail freight ("More LI Freight Trains Would Ease the Toad Pain" - Newsday, Dec. 9, 2001), and the proposed third track, that the logical choice would be to use the larger yard. When Mr. Lieberman of NYA was asked would he support another moratorium on rail freight for MSW he said he would not.

There are obviously people who have known about this from its inception. We were made aware of this "deal" in August 2001. "This issue goes back more than a decade when many citizens in the Garden City community brought potential problems that freight rail would cause to our attention," O'Connell said in the Aug. 24, 2001 issue of Garden City Life. Wouldn't the same problems affect Hicksville? We were given no opportunity to participate in a very public matter. It was made public by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), the LIRR and NYA when they acted in concert with our elected officials. If this deal was so mundane or unassuming why wasn't is done to include all affected parties?

The equal rights of this democracy appear to be more equal to those with money and influence. It appears to be a shameful exhibition of government when our elected officials see fit to use "economic discrimination" against one group of residents to stay in favor with the affluent ones, instead of reaching an equal and fair resolution.

We would like all the good people who live in Hicksville to know the residents of Garden City are not better than Hicksville residents. We are willing to share the burden of rail freight, but will not be exploited because of any economic barriers. We will not allow our civil rights to be trampled on because of special interests.

We want the same consideration as Garden City. Although we know who brokered this deal, we also want to know who else knew about this secret agreement and denied us due process. If we do not put a stop to this abuse of power who knows what next clandestine deal will be "dumped" on Hicksville. We will not let this arrangement stand or be camouflaged by anyone interpreting this deal as good for Hicksville while no one knows what the long-term results will be.

We have been called "adversarial." It is a sad commentary by Assemblyman Marc Herbst that this characterization is used when we are only asking for parity with Garden City.

Any distraction from the facts and our pursuit to seek truth and equality as adversarial, in our opinion, is "politics as usual" and politics created this problem. Complacency is why Hicksville has been in decline.

To avoid addressing the issues of secretiveness and influence will only compel us to pursue all resources available to get to the truth and make others aware of how Hicksville residents continue to be treated as second class citizens.

As of this writing, nothing has been resolved.

The North West Civic Association of Hicksville

John Russo, president

Harry Petersen, vice president

Millie Jones, corresponding secretary

Terri Carson, recording secretary

Jo-Ann Broska, sergeant in arms

Irene Carlomusto, trustee

John Ptacek, trustee

Anthony Sorvillo, trustee

Greg Yatzyshyn, trustee