LI schoolteachers, housing, unfair convictions, European tragedies, Nikki Haley and Civil War

Different lessons about LI teachers

I’m amazed that teachers making six figures are complaining about their commute and cost of living [“Commute, costs are driving away East End teachers,” News, Jan. 3]. Long Island has historically been a commuter community. Many complain about their commutes.

For years, I drove from Northport to a courthouse in lower Manhattan, sometimes spending three to four hours a day in the car. It takes me 40 minutes just to get to the highway in the morning.

Many endure this waste of time. Teachers do it, too, but most get their summers off. Their commute home is not even during rush hour.

I’m not quite sure what they’re complaining about that’s any different from the rest of us.

— Adrienne Bryant, Northport

Although the article refers to the East End, the same will happen to the rest of Long Island with young teachers having to leave. A family member has been teaching for 12 years and doesn’t even earn what the State Department of Labor says is the median elementary school teacher salary on Long Island — $106,232.

Salaries must increase to allow young teachers to remain on Long Island and afford a place to live. The problem is, when will this happen, and will it be too late?

— Susan Redmond, West Sayville

Can we fix housing and keep suburbia?

Aware of the good work of Nancy Douzinas and the Rauch Foundation, I read with interest her op-ed about Long Island’s failure to provide sufficient multifamily housing [“Multifamily housing still an LI problem,” Opinion, Jan. 2].

But I am not sure what she was really saying other than Long Island’s suburban land use patterns have not been supportive of multifamily high-density housing.

As someone active in land-use issues in my community, I am interested in ways to address all of the issues associated with sustaining the suburban character of our communities, including meeting our housing needs.

Lately, I have been thinking about the concept of “suburban community.” Is it a permanent development mode for residential communities, or is it just a transitory state before echoing urban densification? Long Island’s development patterns point to the latter.

There must be a mode of development that we can all agree on — one that provides affordable housing for our changing demographics and at the same time protects the rural, suburban character of our area, our green spaces, harbors and bays and assures manageable traffic (the 20-minute community concept) and ultimately our quality of life.

— George Hoffman, Setauket

The writer is a past president of the Three Village Civic Association.

Convict is freed: Do lawyers pay price?

A man was put in prison for nearly 26 years for a crime in which evidence was unethically withheld [“Wrongful conviction settlement,” News, Dec. 23]. What happens to the prosecuting attorneys who put him behind bars by withholding crucial information from the defense attorneys? Are they free to continue using similar strategies?

— Brian Keane, Patchogue

Let’s not forget worse European tragedies

While I joined in mourning the 14 people murdered in Prague, I question it as the worst mass killing in Czech history [“Day of mourning held for Czech shooting victims,” Nation & World, Dec. 25].

On June 10, 1942, all 192 men in the of village of Lidice were shot and killed by the Nazis, who then destroyed the town, slaughtering a total of about 340 people. During the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered approximately 263,000 Jews who had lived in Czechoslovakia.

We need to remember all of this cataclysmic history along with the recent shootings not just to mourn but to ensure that these acts of mass murder are never repeated.

— Steven Nachman, Plainview

She didn’t know how the Civil War started?

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley served as governor of South Carolina, which was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860 [“Haley walks back Civil War gaffe,” Nation, Dec. 29].

It was one of the founding member states of the Confederacy in 1861 and was the site of the first battle of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, also in 1861. And Haley did not know that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War?

— Edward A. Marlatt, Mattituck