— — With the snow melting, I took a friend to the newly named Veterans Park on River Road. What a disgrace. There is garbage everywhere, ruts in the grass and the inlet is all plugged up with trash and debris. The mayor says he is a veteran, yet he lets this insult prevail to all the men and women who came before him, some dying. You should be ashamed.

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If you really want to see where your tax dollars go, you should go to the Web site seethroughny.net for the money being paid to all employees of the city. For example, police department/fire department averages somewhere close to $80,000. I, for one, think that is ridiculous.

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Letters about new wetlands in NT came in my mail from the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation and from some politicians. I’ll write to DEC agreeing with the accuracy of these wetland maps as per the public notice. Everyone I know is going to boycott the political meeting, so let the politicians spend their time bleeding the developers for more campaign contributions. They don’t understand wetland laws as they attempted to sue the DEC with city taxpayer money to benefit developers. Proper development doesn’t include wetlands!

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I’m calling to everyone’s attention the signal at Webster and Sweeney streets. I can see a signal for the one direction that is now a parking lot, but the other side of the intersection that side of Sweeney Street is a one- way street going toward Manhattan Street. Why do we need a signal for there when no one can use it?

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I find it sad and appalling that the state Senate and governor can’t submit a budget on time, but they can tax us. increase fees on us and increase their own spending budgets by more than 30 percent while telling us the people of New York, “too bad about your parks, too bad about your taxes!” It makes me wonder why everyone in this state (I used to say great state) does not just move out. That seems like the only way those idiots in charge will get the message! Sad and appalling!

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So it has been a month since the article regarding the rezoning of NT to allow perspective home buyers to purchase homes in NT. Is there a followup article or are we continuing to create obstacles for home purchases in NT leading to additional vacant homes? Which, of course, leads to increased crime rates within our community.

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Bob Confer is very wrong about the U.S. Census. The Founding Fathers desperately wanted more information about the new nation they created, and believed the census to be much more than a headcount. In fact, the first census asked for relationships, age and race. All of the questions are important for communities. Even the age question tells us if more kids are going to enter the school system or if more senior citizen centers are going to be needed soon. All of the questions on the census form are mandatory by law. The Supreme Court has ruled numerous times — as early as 1870 and as late as 1999 — that the census questions are constitutional. I don’t think the writers should be encouraging people to break the law.