I am writing in response to the letter by Ruth Shalom who voiced her concerns about corruption free elections and legislation written by State Senator Jack Martins correcting an unfair situation within the catering industry.
Ms. Shalom desires elections that are clean and free of corruption but hypocritically pens a letter that factually misleads the reader on the catering issue and falsely accuses the Senator of impropriety. By doing so she herself stands guilty of corrupting the election process. Both misleading the public and throwing false charges in the air surely corrupts the process and produces elections that are unfair. If we are truthful with the facts then the public can cast an educated vote.
The Senator’s legislation concerning the catering industry, which received support from both Democrat and Republican State Senators, concerned the unintended consequence of a poorly written legal decision. The catering industry had used accounting procedures approved by the N.Y.S. Dept. of Labor and were consistent with Federal and State tax laws.
The court decision disagreed with this approved accounting system and reinterpreted the Labor Law of our State. But a consequence of this decision was an effort to enforce the new interpretation retroactively which would have hurt local businesses and jobs, including Leonard’s right here in Great Neck. Is it fair to hold a party financially responsible today for activities in the past that were perfectly legal when performed? I hope not. The Senator’s legislation corrected this unintended consequence and it received bipartisan support. In our State Assembly the Senator’s legislation was sponsored by local Democrat representatives such as Michelle Schimel, Charles Lavine, and Harvey Weisenberg.
Senator Martins has worked across the aisle with Assemblywoman Schimel and her colleagues on countless issues. This one is no different. So let’s not allow outside groups and special interests, intent on bullying the Senator into bad policy, to win the day.
Norman J. Gersman
