My comments concerning Supervisor Bosworth and the council in my first letter, titled “New Cassel-The New Racism” (The Westbury Times, July 13-19) were also based upon observing them at the January 2014 town meeting/ hearing on Viviana Russell’s proposal to remove overlay restrictions on basements in parts of New Cassel. These restrictions were enacted because of tremendous problems with illegal basement rentals.
About 95% of New Cassel/village attendees that testified compellingly opposed that boneheaded proposal. However, they were treated with condescension and imbecilic responses. Moreover in March 2014 Bosworth made the tone deaf comment to The Westbury Times: “I don’t understand the opposition to this proposal.”
Bosworth and the council did nothing about illegal housing until raising violation fines on 9/30/15. They only did that because of humiliation by my 9/23/15 Westbury Times article, “The 172.6 Million Dollar School Bond Farce” which exposed that their failure to enforce the housing codes caused the district overcrowding and contained the recommendation for the fine increase.
As proof of their insincerity, Bosworth and the council have not hired additional code enforcement officers since her re-election. This is like having criminal laws without police to arrest the criminals. Could this have been a ploy since it was done one month before the election? They also have not implemented any of the other recommendations from my previous letter. Furthermore the 70 pending cases against some landlords, as reported by Newsday, is “a drop in the bucket” compared to the size of this problem.
Consequently, Jon Kaiman/Bosworth and the council have transformed New Cassel into a “patient” needing the following “radical surgery” to survive: (1) A moratorium on rental permits and occupancy variances for rental housing; (2) adoption of the part one measures and eventually banning residential renting with certain exceptions; (3) a resource center to assist displaced illegal tenants, including relocation costs, financed from maximum fines and slumlord rent rebates (4) a plan with financial incentives to attract buyers for homes of “former slumlords,” with strict guidelines including prohibiting house rentals.
If the aforesaid steps are taken New Cassel will survive and thrive. District overcrowding would be eliminated because the illegal students would be removed. Therefore the District performance would significantly improve because smaller numbers of children of the stable new homebuyers and current private school parents would replace them. New Cassel/Village minority home values would rival those of the town’s predominantly white areas thereby removing the income gap discussed in Part 1. Do you think these are the reasons why Kaiman/Bosworth and the white council members never took these steps? Hmm.
All of the New Cassel/village minority homeowners must pressure Bosworth and the “White Citizens Council” to make the right choices to give us the destiny we deserve.
—Gregory P. Lewis
