Regrettably, your actions at the Aug. 1 meeting reflect complete indifference and disregard for the residents you serve. For two years, Amy Glass and I stood before you at public meetings, representing the many Great Neck residents—men, women and children who experience physical intolerance, eye pain and discomfort upon contact with the new LED products. Our phones may not bother us. Our computers may not bother us. But the products like newer LED car headlights, police flashing lights, highway safety lights and LED fixtures (both inside and outside) are a source of physical pain to each of us. They also blind us.
At each and every public meeting we attended to raise your consciousness, we represented thousands of individuals nationwide who are physically intolerant to this new technology as it currently exists today. Light sensitivity is an equal opportunity health issue. Men, women and children alike may have preexisting dry eyes and mature eyes. Some of us have cataracts, medical conditions that render us extremely light sensitive or even neurological conditions that cause individuals to be hypersensitive to environmental factors. Regardless of the reason, this is real and this is our reality.
Shall we bring you a doctor’s note? If necessary, my Great Neck ophthalmologist will easily attest to the above.
Mayor Bral, if you cannot relate to what I am saying because these LED lights do not personally bother you and your family members, I say, good for you. But for the thousands of us nationwide who are suffering with these lights in various communities, the complaints and backlash are always similar—the lights are too bright for us to handle.
Perhaps, the bigger message to take away from this is that even now, in 2017, ordinary individuals worldwide are resisting these too-bright lights. They are viewed as aggressive, intrusive, alien and painful. This story is not about Amy Glass and myself—although you are trying very hard to make it appear that way. Amy and I are not the poster children for this worldwide debate—it is bigger than the both of us.
It wasn’t that long ago that DES, thalidomide, asbestos, cigarettes and duplicator fluid—and so many more products—were viewed at one time as the next best thing. Until, they weren’t.
Your consistent public defense that Saddle Rock, Great Neck Plaza, hospitals and schools have already installed these lights is no defense at all. In fact, I’m fairly certain that you were raised, and instruct your own children today, not to follow the crowd. Where I come from in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, my parents raised me with the warning, “If others jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you follow, too?”
Mayor Bral, you, alone, have a unique opportunity to be a hero. You, alone, can stand up with respect to public health, fight for public health and heed the warnings of the American Medical Association (AMA). They never endorsed LED lights—that is a wrongful interpretation. They did set a threshold for human safety that even Montreal residents are wising up and listening to. Coincidentally, Montreal is also the home of the main headquarters to Real Term Energy Consultants.
Please consider the safer light limits that are satisfying other communities. 2,700K is the preferred lighting threshold as indicated in several newspaper articles I recently submitted. If you start off with 4,000K at the end of each residential block and you select bare bulbs (as you have already indicated), you are demonstrating disregard and disrespect for the residents who are depending on you to get it right.
Please refer to the June 14, 2016, AMA press release with specific language that prohibits the use of bare bulbs (as you intend to use). In fact, there is language that specifically refers to LED lights being properly shielded. Real Term Energy Consultants is not intending to shield the bulbs properly—only offering to do so on a case-by-case situation. There are so many red flags.
Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth has been paying careful attention to our numerous submissions and demonstrates appreciation and respect for our hundreds of non-paid hours performing this public service. The greatest compliment of all is in the fact that Supervisor Bosworth has told me numerous times that she will wait “until she can be sure to get it right” for residents of the Town of North Hempstead.
Thank you for your consideration.
—Judy Shore Rosenthal