So, why did the Town of Hempstead have such tremendous difficulty removing the snow from our Levittown streets (and the entire Town of Hempstead)? It recently hired a consultant to find out the answer. Not just any consultant- they hired Levittown's own Frank Scarangella, a retired deputy commissioner for the town highway department, and longtime Republican committeeman. So, what advice does Frank Scarangella have to offer the town for his $15,000 fee, that they cannot get from their current commissioner, Anthony Califano, who has 20 years experience, and the two deputy commissioners? What exactly can Frank tell them about their operation that is so different from the years that he spent working for the same commissioner that he will be consulting now?

I guess that maybe he can mention that over the past decade the number of men in a highway truck crew has gone from three to one. This certainly has an effect on morale, and makes it harder to do the job. Maybe he will mention that personnel who have resigned or retired from the highway department have not been replaced so some trucks sit idle most days and were not ready to be put into use on the day of the storm. I guess he will mention that even though the rubber tips on the snowplow blades cost less, and therefore save the town money, they do not do the job as completely as metal blades. Probably he will say the order to the work crews to only sand intersections, while saving money (sand must be very expensive) was very short-sighted and put the residents of the town at risk. I imagine that he would mention that taking work crews from sanitation and parks to "plow" the streets put some inexperienced and untrained workers on the streets. Also, it doesn't help that many of the trucks being used are old, and need to be replaced.

What he will find is that the Republican administration, while amassing an $11 million surplus in the highway fund (part of the town-wide surplus of approximately $60 million), was totally unprepared to deal with a major snowstorm. Staff cuts, deferred equipment purchases and shortsighted decisions, while adding to the budget surplus, created a situation where the safety of the taxpaying homeowners was compromised tremendously.

The town administration doesn't need a consultant to tell it what it is doing wrong. It just needs to listen to its workers, and their union reps. They know, because they are trying to do their job every day.

Teresa Butler