LI lawmakers who voted on school cameras, remember to vote! (Hempstead: 2014, attorneys)

[primeline31]

Here’s how Long Island state legislators voted on a bill to install 125 school-zone speed cameras on the Island.

Remember them when you vote next month!


Senate
Nassau
Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City) …Y.
Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset) …Y.
Jack Martins (R-Mineola) …Y.
Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) ...Y.

Suffolk
Phil Boyle (R-Bay Shore) …Y.
John Flanagan (R-East Northport) …N.
Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) …N .
Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) …N.



Assembly
Nassau
Brian Curran (R-Lynbrook) …Y.
Earlene Hooper (D-Hempstead) …Y.
Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove) …Y.
David McDonough (R-Merrick) …Y.
Thomas McKevitt (R-East Meadow) …Y.
Michael Montesano (R-Glen Head) …Y.
Edward Ra (R-Franklin Square) …Y.
Joseph Saladino (R-Massapequa) …Y.
Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck) …Y.
Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont) …Y.
Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach) … absent.

Suffolk
Steven Englebright (D-Setauket) …Y.
Michael Fitzpatrick (R-St. James) …N.
Andrew Garbarino (R-Sayville) …Y.
Alfred Graf (R-Holbrook) … absent.
Edward Hennessey (D-Brookhaven) …Y.
Chad Lupinacci (R-Huntington) …Y.

Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk) …Y.
Andrew Raia (R-East Northport) …Y.
Philip Ramos (D-Brentwood) … absent.
Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst) …Y.
Fred Thiele Jr. (I-Sag Harbor) …Y.

Source (requires a login), Newsday April 30, 2014 by journalist Yancy Roy:
How LI lawmakers voted on school-zone speed cameras - Newsday

[veryangry]

In all honesty, all politicians suck. They should all be voted out and the slate wiped clean. We need a reset of govt.

[ovi8]

Please tell us what the alternative to getting funding for cops raises is... then decide whether this - ticketing only violators - was actually a bad idea.

[zeekat123]

I don't get it at all. There are plenty of warnings for the cameras. Flashing lights, YOUR SPEED flashers and don't forget the signs that say PHOTO/VIDEO enforced school zone.
Its really ridiculous. They also give a 10MPH buffer. SLOW down!!!

[skeeter31]

Originally Posted by zeekat123

I don't get it at all. There are plenty of warnings for the cameras. Flashing lights, YOUR SPEED flashers and don't forget the signs that say PHOTO/VIDEO enforced school zone.
Its really ridiculous. They also give a 10MPH buffer. SLOW down!!!

Exactly. The counties have to close their deficits somehow. And at least they're only in schools and not all over.

[mikeroz]

Originally Posted by zeekat123

I don't get it at all. There are plenty of warnings for the cameras. Flashing lights, YOUR SPEED flashers and don't forget the signs that say PHOTO/VIDEO enforced school zone.
Its really ridiculous. They also give a 10MPH buffer. SLOW down!!!

I am with you

[Tracer88]

I'd rather them raise taxes a couple of dollars than deal with this.

[TEPLimey]

Originally Posted by ovi8

Please tell us what the alternative to getting funding for cops raises is... then decide whether this - ticketing only violators - was actually a bad idea.

The alternative is not capitulating to the public workforce and continuing the spiral of what will prove to be ultimately unaffordable employee compensation instead of trying to harangue the last dollar out of locals under a guise of "public safety" in such a pathetic manner that the people implementing it are not even trying to pretend is it is anything other than a money-grab.

Speed cameras, 2% tax hikes, etc... none of them address the real budgetary problem. The 2,200 Police and fire employees in Nassau County average approximately $158,000 in base salary per year. Think about that number. Without counting the generous benefits that come with the job, the *average* base salary is approximately the same as the the national mean for a pediatrician (who had to attend 4 years of medical school and 3 years of residency just to start earning) and higher than the national mean for attorneys ($132k), pilots ($131k), aerospace engineers ($103k), and about three times as much as nurses ($68K), social workers ($44K), and the national average for law enforcement officers ($55k).

I will grant you that the cost of living his higher in Nassau county (in no small part due to the tax burden), but the premise that Nassau County police officers make 50% more than the average rocket scientist or judge boggles my mind.

Public employees used to have a pact with the government whereby they accepted lower salary than the private sector in exchange for job security and superior benefits. Now, they have retained the latter two while obtaining salary as good as, if not better than, those in the private sector, which is largely perpetuated by the fact that politicians have little incentive to trim those budgets. Its not sustainable in the long- or medium-term and speed cameras are like giving an aspirin to an Ebola patient.

[manekeniko]

Originally Posted by TEPLimey

The alternative is not capitulating to the public workforce and continuing the spiral of what will prove to be ultimately unaffordable employee compensation instead of trying to harangue the last dollar out of locals under a guise of "public safety" in such a pathetic manner that the people implementing it are not even trying to pretend is it is anything other than a money-grab.

Speed cameras, 2% tax hikes, etc... none of them address the real budgetary problem. The 2,200 Police and fire employees in Nassau County average approximately $158,000 in base salary per year. Think about that number. Without counting the generous benefits that come with the job, the *average* base salary is approximately the same as the the national mean for a pediatrician (who had to attend 4 years of medical school and 3 years of residency just to start earning) and higher than the national mean for attorneys ($132k), pilots ($131k), aerospace engineers ($103k), and about three times as much as nurses ($68K), social workers ($44K), and the national average for law enforcement officers ($55k).

I will grant you that the cost of living his higher in Nassau county (in no small part due to the tax burden), but the premise that Nassau County police officers make 50% more than the average rocket scientist or judge boggles my mind.

Public employees used to have a pact with the government whereby they accepted lower salary than the private sector in exchange for job security and superior benefits. Now, they have retained the latter two while obtaining salary as good as, if not better than, those in the private sector, which is largely perpetuated by the fact that politicians have little incentive to trim those budgets. Its not sustainable in the long- or medium-term and speed cameras are like giving an aspirin to an Ebola patient.

I'm friends with many liberal/progressive writer types living in other parts of the country where union workers are often underpaid. When I express these points you made, they reject everything I say and they leap to defend union workers. Expressing these realities pushes their defense of the workin' man buttons, and I keep getting stereotyped as anti-labor, right-winger, reactionary, Tea Partier, whathaveyou. They just don't get it.

Right-wingers in other parts of the country blame Democrats 100% for union abuse everywhere. They refuse to accept that politicians belonging to both parties on LI got us to this stage. Like the liberals, they also don't get it.

LI sets the standard for out of this world patronage, waste and reckless abuse of taxpayers. Only another Long Islander would understand this.

[ovi8]

Originally Posted by TEPLimey

The alternative is not capitulating to the public workforce and continuing the spiral of what will prove to be ultimately unaffordable employee compensation instead of trying to harangue the last dollar out of locals under a guise of "public safety" in such a pathetic manner that the people implementing it are not even trying to pretend is it is anything other than a money-grab.

Why didn't you just say to abolish public sector unions if it's that easy to deny these people?