Mr. Alan Hevesi is elected to be the fiscal watchdog for the taxpayers of the State of New York. He must resign or be removed from office for his admitted blatant abuse of the public trust.

It is incredulous to me that Mr. Hevesi thinks that he can continue to have any credibility to perform audits of municipal governments after admitting that he misappropriated public funds and betrayed the public trust. He, above all, should have known better. Another interesting thing to note is he never made any attempt to reimburse the state until he was caught with his hand in the till.

He has criticized people like me who generously volunteered their time to serve their community and never personally benefited from that service. In Mr. Hevesi's own words as quoted from his report, Anatomy of a Scandal - The Roslyn School District Audit, he said myself and my fellow colleagues on that board of education failed to adequately protect the public's money. One thing has become clear, however, and that is Mr. Hevesi not only failed in his job which was to protect and be the fiscal watchdog of the public funds, but, like the guilty criminals in the Roslyn case, he has admitted to the misuse of funds for his own personal benefit.

There should be no politics as usual in this case and no slap on the wrist by his friends in the state assembly. He should be removed immediately if he fails to resign and an independent forensic audit of his office should be commenced immediately.

Bill Costigan

Roslyn Heights