Mr. Pataki, don't go away mad, just go away.

Outgoing Governor George Pataki has called the State Legislature back for some last minute business. One of the items on his agenda is a repeat of a deal made back in 1998. It calls for the authorization of more charter schools, coupled with a pay raise for the legislature.

The debate on the efficacy of charter schools is still ongoing. It has not yet been definitively decided whether charter schools make a positive mark on the education system or whether they detract by drawing off the best and the brightest students, while taking away funding that is much-needed by our public education system, thereby causing the need to increase school taxes.

Meanwhile, the state's debt continues to mount and, as pointed out by the Citizen's Budget Commission, a business-based monitoring group, lawmakers should address that problem before raising their own salaries. In addition, there is something wrong with a lame duck legislature raising salaries after the election without a hint of that idea before the election. So why not wait for the new administration to be sworn in and let them deal with all the problems in an all-encompassing plan, not piecemeal. Let the new governor-elect fulfill his mandate.

Stanley Bergman,
former Chairman of the Nassau County
Working Families Party and a former candidate
(Dem/WFP) for State Assembly