Boy, they really want to tackle this problem.
From our friends at the Community Alliance....
"8 minutes. That's all it took to kill off the last remnants of democracy at Hempstead Town Hall yesterday, where marauding Murray and the robber-barons that call themselves a Town Board turned "oversight" into "overlooked," as the supposed "review" of the special taxing district budgets became no more than a mockery.
8 minutes. Yes, that's more time than the Town clowns have spent looking over the shoulders of the special district commissioners in the last 100 years, but less time than the stalwarts of one-party drool take in bestowing citations upon Boy Scouts and basketball teams.
8 minutes. Barely enough time to summon the media, issue a Murraygram, or pose with Bernie Kerik for a photo op.
8 minutes. The Town’s equivalent of what it takes to reach political orgasm. Who would think the Town of Hempstead would devote even that much time to millions of taxpayer dollars, most of which are being flushed down the toilet at the water districts, or thrown out with the trash -- along with the Democrats' lawn signs -- by the sanitary districts.
The review of the local taxing authorities by the Hempstead Town Board amounted to little more than the Supervisor's query to the stunned audience, "Any questions?" Sure, we all read the proposed special taxing district budgets online. What more is there to know? Who are we to question?
But wait a minute -- or 8. Didn't Kate Murray win re-election by a resounding 68% of the vote? [Then again, Stalin used to pull down 100% of the vote.] Let's be honest here. This is not a mandate to Murray, so much as it is an acknowledgment that the Borg has total control over the goons who slither from under the floorboards and vote as they are told. As for the rest of us who certainly knew better? Tuesday's pathetic turnout by the electorate gives new meaning to the term, "silent majority."
Yes, it took but 8 minutes for democracy to fall in the Town of Hempstead, and but a moment's time for the Mondelloids to unfurl their "Mission Accomplished" banner, as if there is something to be proud of in proclaiming from the podium that what the people want in Elmont, in Oceanside, in Franklin Square, and in West Hempstead -- among other hovels that pass for hamlets in the Town's unincorporated areas -- doesn't amount to a room full of GOP committeemen.
8 minutes for every Town of Hempstead special taxing district budget to be rubber-stamped. 8 minutes to drive a deadly stake through the very heart of democracy. Frankly, we're surprised it took that long.
In a Town, as in a nation, governed by fear and intimidation, where dissent is taunted as disloyalty, to mock Murray and her ilk of the shallow gene pool is to court exile in the Gulag.
Then again, with the official designation of "blight" in Baldwin, "blight" in West Hempstead, and coming soon, "blight" in Elmont -- not to mention the undesignated and unofficial blight elsewhere in Hempstead Town (just a study waiting for a Victorian-style street lamp) - a few years in the vast wastelands of Siberia is looking pretty good right about now.
Democracy? You've got a better shot at representative government under Musharaff in Pakistan than you do under Murray in Hempstead Town. A government of the people? Don't tell Abe Lincoln, but "by the people" and "for the people" have drawn their last breath in America's largest township.
Democracy dies on the Hempstead Plain. The Eulogy was brief. The remains to be forever interred in the bowels of Town Hall at 1 Washington Street.
In lieu of voting, we hope you sent flowers."
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