Talk of re-establishing the national speed limit, at 55 mph, was a big topic of conversation this weekend. My sister and I were on our second roadtrip in as many weeks (yes, great timing with gas prices) and she asked what I thought about it. I was driving at the time because, well, relatively speaking, she’s a slowpoke.

My sister began driving in 1974, the year Congress first imposed the limit to save gas during the Arab oil embargo. (Ahem, she’s my older sister. By three years.) It was a pretty big deal, as I recall, when the freeway and highway signs changed to 55. Maybe that’s why she still goes 55. Me, I go with the flow of traffic. She always wants me to drive.

Our first roadtrip this summer, through the Midwest, had us going in places where the speed limit was 70 mph. Sandy, my sister (older sister, I might add, though not by much) couldn’t go 70 is she tried. Not her style.

This Saturday, we were driving to upstate Connecticut, near the Rhode Island border. It was no pleasure trip. Sandy’s son had taken ill at camp, and we needed to get there directly. She had me drive.

As for the 55 mph rollback, she saw merit in the idea. Safety was her top reason, and fuel efficiency. It could save about 2 percent of the nation’s highway fuel consumption and it would save thousands of lives in high-speed highway accidents.

Me? I think we could do it and make it pay off in another way. All speeding tickets would carry an infrastructure surcharge. The extra $5 or $10 would go into a national fund to fix bridges and roads that are in serious disrepair nationwide. If that was part of the deal, I’d support it, and maybe even drive 55, if that was with the flow of traffic.

As for the trip, we did pretty well, timewise (yes, I drove) and we got to reminisce about the roadtrips we used to take when we were teens. And, most important, my nephew is doing fine.
Here’s USA Today’s forum chat about rolling back the national speed limit.

Monday night, more than 50 people from around the county showed up at a Haverstraw Town Board public hearing on United Water’s plans to place a pilot water treatment plant on the Hudson. Recall that United Water been ordered by the Public Services Commission to come up with a long-term water supply solution to Rockland’s needs. The pilot plant is a precursor to a permanent water treatment plant (they don’t think “desalination plant” reflects what they are doing)  that would tap the Hudson to increase Rockland’s water supply.

And of course, yesterday, Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. was granted a 3 percent rate increase, over each of the next three years, by the PSC. Part of that increase is needed to make about $185 million worth of infrastructure improvements, including new substations and the upgrading of transmission lines, O&R spokesman Mike Donovan told Journal News staff writer Laura Incalcaterra. Why? The same reason United Water needs to boost the supply. Because demand has soared. Because the development trajectory in this county is straight up, up, up.

Are United Water and O&R responsible for curbing development? United Water has been clear that it is mandated to provide the water. That, though, doesn’t mean those concerned with United Water’s project should stop their fight. But they also need to demand real, real, real master plans from municipalities, ones that lay out development plans that are actually followed, and incorporate Smart Growth guidelines instead of knocking down woods for more one-acre zoned single-family McMansions.

Bring in more water (and electricity) and they will come? You betcha.

Some of our LoHud forum posters took issue with one paragraph in the news coverage of Brandon Berman’s funeral yesterday — the mention that only the driver was wearing a seat belt in Saturday’s fatal crash on the New York State Thruway. Brandon was one of five in the car returning from the Jersey shore. The driver lost control of the car while driving north on the highway. The car struck the center guardrail and rolled over onto the other side of the highway, according to New York State Police. Berman, a rear-seat passenger, was partially ejected from the car. It was his 19th birthday.

The crash was tragic. Brandon’s death is heartbreaking, wrong, wrong, wrong. Sad. A true senseless loss that causes so many pain. It was an accident.

But, the mention that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt should be made. Repeatedly. Putting on a seat belt is easy. It is also lifesaving. It is not disrespectful or insensitive to say that. It is a way to spread the word so others are reminded to click the belt and possibly save their lives. That Brandon didn’t—and according to police none of the other passengers did either—shows the tragic ramifications. It is as much a part of the story as the outpouring of support for his family, the descriptions of a funloving, supportive friend, a great brother an avid sports fan and participant.  He was a whole, wonderful, valuable, loved young man. His death is a great loss to our whole community.

But we shouldn’t skip mentioning he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, according to police.  Some forum posters viewed the mention as “insensitive.”   Others, though, hoped the information would help others be safe. One poster, pal1111, who has posted s/he saw the accident scene, wrote, in part:

No one can bring you back, but hopefully by your death young people will be more viligant … Driving is serious and dangerous. Like someone else stated…lock the seat belts.

Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, one of the county’s largest employers and still riding high on its ever growing foray into open-heart surgery and advanced cardiac treatment, has announced it will lay off 34 workers, staff writer Jane Lerner reports today.

That was part of 80 who lost jobs in its parent company’s facilities. The cuts were, in part, pinned to declining Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements, reductions in HMO and insurance reimbursements,  health care for the uninsured and underinsured.

Good Samaritan invested $25 million in its new heart center, Active International Cardiovascular Institute, that opened in 2007. It’s the only facility to offer such cardiac services in New York west of the Hudson River between New York City and Albany. But that kind of investment won’t be earned back overnight. And, the program has been steadily growing, adding much in-demand services, like a complete electrophysiology laboratory that was opened in April. Its programs have rated well.

Health care is a tough business. There are lots of variables that are often out of a provider’s control. Add to that offering the right balance of services that will attract patients, and reimbursements. The cardiac care provided by Good Sam is much needed in the community, and the new program has earned good reviews.

In April 2007, the hospital reported a $14 million profit for its last fiscal year, though half of that was from a one-time source. But by February 2008, the hospital was laying off 59 people. Earlier this month, a Good Sam spokeswoman said no more layoffs were planned when the hospital reported it was likely to end its fiscal year with a shortfall.

Nyack Hospital’s had some rocky financial times. It, too, has invested in a specialty field — its Union State Bank Cancer Center offers treatments that are hard to find anywhere else in the region.

It’s kind of weird, isn’t it, that even local hospitals have to have a gig? A niche? For all of us who rely on them, let’s hope Good Sam and Nyack find out how to keep financially healthy.

Given recent events, asking for a volunteer to step forward for the South Orangetown School Board is like asking for a volunteer to lead the troops through a mine field.

After a contentious election and a divisive debate over whether or not Howard Sokol should take his seat he won in the district election, the board owes it to the public to allow voters to pick his replacement.

Sokol, at long last, finally did what he should have done immediately—stepped aside after getting cited for drunken driving one night after winning a term on the board.

The board can’t function properly for any length of time with the vacancy, but the answer to filling the seat is a special election—not appointment.

There’s a cost attached to holding a special election and it will take a while to get it all done, it’s true.

But fast and cheap don’t always add up to the best answer.

Giving voters the choice of who should replace a trustee who never really took office is the right way to go.

Does Beth Modica’s aberrant behavior serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who lives outside a Greek tragedy?
Today in Sloatsburg, there are only victims.
Her victims are the boys she “partied” with, supplying booze and pot, whom she used for sex. Her victims are her own children, as acting state Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bartlett rightly determined in her decision to allow Modica’s 16-year-old daughter to read a victim’s impact statement at her mother’s sentencing; a statement that, like that of her two brothers, called for the longest prison term possible.
Her victims are her community, which lived through the rumors, the sensationalism, the painful real truth worse than any gossip could be.
Her victim is herself. She has lost her livelihood, her home and her family — punishment for her own actions.
Modica is sentenced to two years in state prison, the maximum under the deal offered for her guilty plea. She will be under 10 years’ post-release supervision. She will have to register as a sex offender. The former county prosecutor has been disbarred. A family has been betrayed.
As her daughter told the court: “She doesn’t realize the amount of hurt she has caused.”

Tomorrow night, South Orangetown’s school board holds a special meeting to explore its option for filling the trustee seat left empty when Howard Sokol—after more than a month of pressure from many community members—declined his seat on the board. The night after his May 20 election, Sokol was charged with driving while intoxicated and aggravated DWI, both misdemeanors.
The board has a few options, and all of them are problematic, in some way:

• The board could decide just to leave the seat unfilled until May. The five-member board would then have just four trustees—not much wiggle room for absences or much representation for the community.


• The panel could appoint someone to serve until May’s election, but would first need to establish guidelines for that choice. Do they go with the next highest vote-getter for the seat, or accept applications, or set some other criteria?


• The board could call for a special election. That will be tricky to pull off. Under state election law, a board has 90 days from the date of the vacancy to hold a special election, in this case by Sept. 28. That means notification for the election, and campaigning, takes place during the summer vacation. Then, the Sept. 9 election primary will tie up the voting machines that day, and 30 days after. So, the election could have to take place in early September. Plus, the cost of a special election will likely come in around $10,000.

Really hard choices in some ways, unless you consider what’s best for the district’s residents. Then, it’s tipped to a special election.
South Orangetown, like all school districts, faces major issues and key choices. Their new superintendent, Kenneth Mitchell, starts next week. He deserves a full complement of board members, and ones who have the mandate of the voters, to assist him as he steers the district.
Schools are our biggest investments, as local property taxpayers and as members of society. Leadership must reflect the community. Let the voters decide.

Yikes! The median price of a single-family residence fell 10.2 percent during the April-through-June selling period, typically the busiest of the year, according to the figures, compiled by the Greater Hudson Valley Multiple Listing Service, staff writer David Schepp reports.

As someone said, at least we’re not in suburban Las Vegas or some areas in California, where sales are even more sluggish sales and prices are plummeting. Cold comfort. A May report in USA Today sends chills down the spines of everyone who looks at their home as their savings, retirement, college education fund—“The national housing market shows no sign of a bottom,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. This isn’t new news, I know, but I keep waiting to hear some glimmer.

So, if you aren’t selling, and you haven’t slipped into being “upside down” on your mortgage (meaning you owe more than your home is worth) I guess you just wait, and wait, and wait. And pay closing-in-on-five-bucks a gallon for gas, to drive the supermarket and pay the same, if not more, for milk.

Can we say the “R” word yet?

What a painful, frustrating loss—again—from someone taking a familiar shortcut along train tracks in Rockland. Another young man killed last night when he was struck by a CSX train in West Nyack. In May, two young men walking along commuter rail tracks in Nanuet were struck by an NJ Transit train. One was killed, the other is, remarkably, healing from his myriad injuries. Then, we’ve had a series of pedestrians killed along rail tracks on the Spring Valley/Clarkstown border, accidents that were curbed when better fencing was put up to make the easy and popular shortcut less accessible.

In the latest fatalities, there were a couple similarities: All seemed to be wearing headphones, so their ability to hear the train, or horns, was minimized. Sound travels in weird ways, so sometimes people along tracks can’t hear the train until it’s too late. In the May accident, rain and Thruway noise likely further dampered train noise. Another similarity has been the tracks’ right of way providing a shortcut in a place where roadways splice through with little opportunity to cross. The deadly Spring Valley crossing was a way to get to Route 59. In the Nanuet case in May, the rail tracks provided a way to cross over the Thruway into the other side of Nanuet. The West Nyack accident occurred near where the tracks go over Route 59.

Trying to explain the why may seem futile, but maybe understanding how these accidents happened, beyond the simple wrong-place-at-wrong-time, can help us figure out how to stop accidents in the future.

One aside: I was shown a film in kindergarten about train safety. I don’t remember much, except that at the end, the narrator, a young boy, comes hopping out on one leg (no kidding!) to show how he had played near trains and suffered. Scared the hex outta me! I still have somewhat of a train track phobia … I used to think that it was irresponsible of the school to show such a gruesome film to such small kids. I’ve been rethinking that…

Did you get a chance to go to the Big Apple Circus during its stop this year in West Nyack? We went tonight. Great fun, as always, though every year the show is so different, it’s hard to compare.

One thing that hasn’t changed over the past several years is Big Apple’s association with Rockland 21st Century Collaborative for Children and Youth, or 21C. Every time the Big Apple Circus comes to Lot J of the Palisades Center, one show is a fund-raiser for 21C.

21C runs the Family Resource Centers in seven of the county’s eight school districts.

Rockland is the only suburban county in the United States to have such a partnership—there are 31 Family Resource Centers in Rockland public schools. 21C uses the school setting to help provide early education and care, school age care, family support, mental health, health, and social services.

A nonprofit helping a nonprofit. Nice stuff.