Attention Senators, Members of Congress: Step Up to the Plate

Its presence is unmistakable. There is a presence of both voter apathy and a sort of distrust in our elected officials. How will they affect my life? What's the difference what politician is in office?

Our elected officials are here to represent us, to do what is best for the citizens of the areas they represent. A government such as ours has to depend on listening to the people. There is nothing worse in a democracy than a feeling among citizens that their concerns will fall on deaf ears, a feeling of being powerless in a community in which you've decided to live your life and raise a family.

With the four applications to the Village of Mineola by cellular phone companies to erect cellular phone antennas at three separate locations in the village, the residents feel their quality of life is threatened. That is why they need their Conresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who grew up in Mineola, and Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton to step up to the plate.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gives the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), jurisdiction over cellular phone antennas. The law states that local municipalities cannot deny cellular phone applications based on safety reasons. The federal government has taken away the power of the villages and towns to decide what is best.

Mineola's village board is petitioning the federal government to repeal that portion of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 so that municipalities can decide what is in the best interests of the residents.

Congress and the Senate must repeal such an act since it unfairly affects the quality of life of residents by threatening the citizens' sense of security in their own homes. Our elected officials must see this unless they aren't looking, unless they wish to turn their backs on the citizens who need them to right a wrong.

Credit Mayor John P. Colbert and the village board for listening to its residents but not approving the applications without a fight and credit the village residents for caring enough to speak up. But, this time, Mineola needs its congressional representative and its senators to practice what they preach and do what is right for the residents they represent.

Forcing people to live next to something they do not want to questions the very independence we enjoy in this country. In fact, if these cellular phone companies are granted permission to erect their antennas, it is an insult to every veteran who fought to preserve our freedom. The residents of Mineola deserve the right to say what they want to live with and what they do not.

Never mind that the federal government says the rays these cellular phone antennas are safe. What if they are? What if they aren't? We don't know. But there is a bigger issue here - the issue to giving people a say in what environment they want to raise their families in.

The federal government giving cellular phone companies the right to put antennas near residential property without residents being given the right to say that they do not want to live near antennas is just plain wrong and it needs to be fixed.

Mineola needs you Carolyn McCarthy, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. The community needs you to listen and do what is right. People here do not want to live next to more cell phone antennas. These convenient phones calls aren't worth it to them. You need to change the Telecommunications Act of 1996 so that the village has jurisdiction over what it wants in its community. You need to send a message to the children in the schools you care so much about that their voices do indeed matter.

- Joe Rizza