If you turn the other cheek, you sometimes end up getting hit twice.

That's why I'm responding to the newest Manhasset Park District (MPD) commissioner's op-ed piece (Thursday, May 17, 2001), which indicts almost all of his predecessors for alleged mismanagement while patting himself on the back for the progress he has supposedly made to date on "cleaning up" the situation.

Yet only three months after the newest commissioner won a seat on the board by seven votes, the Manhasset Park District raised its daily commuter parking fee to $3 from $2, a 50 percent hike. This will bring in an additional $120,000-plus dollars into the MPD's coffers, negating the $90,000 in budget cuts he says he instituted for this fiscal year.

The state comptroller's report on the MPD did point out ways in which we could have improved our performance in 1999-2000, but much of their report focused on the district's policies regarding the co-sponsorship of community affairs for which it became well-known on my watch. Indeed, the park district was criticized for contributing taxpayer funds to the annual tree lighting and the summer concert series at the Plandome Road Bandstand, the SCA Fair, the flu shot program for senior citizens and a popcorn stand for children's events. Perhaps these were projects we didn't need to undertake and it is likely that the MPD's contributions to all of them will now come to an end. However, I think it is fair to say that these initiatives benefited sizable segments of the community.

Finally, I have to challenge the overall impression he gives of the district's annual operating budgets in the years before his election. The late Commissioner Charles Jenkins, who was the MPD's treasurer for 19 years ending in 1999, was one of the most honest elected officials I ever had the pleasure of working with. He took his job very seriously and worked tirelessly on behalf of Manhasset's taxpayers. If the newest commissioner is truly interested in moving the MPD in a different direction, he ought to refrain from critiquing his predecessors, especially ones who aren't here to defend themselves.

Michael C. Adams

Commissioner, Manhasset Park District (1982-2000)