If the Safety of the Community is in Question Nothing Else Matters

The following letter was sent to Supervisor Petrone on October 18, 2014.

Frank,

 As someone who was born and raised in Huntington I can say I’m truly disgusted by you, the rest of our elected officials, and the police force in the Huntington Station area over the utter lack of care throughout the past 18 months about the 4 violent murders that have happened in our neighborhood. I am third generation for the town of Huntington as my grandmother and my mother both graduated from Walt Whitman High School and I’ve never been ashamed to call Huntington home until the past year. The contents of the audio recording released in the Huntingtonian last week show how inept you and your colleagues are at running the community. The fact that your Deputy Assistant was unaware of who Maggie Rosales post her murder is disheartening and he should be removed from his post immediately.

As a finance graduate from the University of Notre Dame, a former Goldman Sachs employee, and a Hedge Fund analyst I understand the importance of what you and your administration has accomplished on the fiscal side of things and commend you for Huntington’s AAA bond rating (although just last week Fitch revised our outlook to negative). But your track record on community and community safety is abysmal and only getting worse. The gang & drug issues in Huntington Station are drastically affecting the quality of life and something needs to be done to address this. As someone who will eventually move out of Manhattan to start a family, Huntington isn’t even on my radar because of these issues. Why would a family look to raise kids in our district anymore when the threat of gang violence is a constant, and the drug issues are rampant?  The problem areas of the community are fairly isolated and given the pay scale for Suffolk County police officers I don’t understand how there is not an expanded police presence on these streets and in these troubled areas.

I hope you understand the effects that these violent murders have on the community. You can spend all your time parading around about the revitalization of Huntington and the “110 Corridor” but if the safety of the community is in question nothing else matters. The trickle affect is very powerful and it will be immediately felt in the real estate value of our homes, the quality of the education, and eventually the flight of talent from our families.

It’s time to show some accountability for the issues going on in the streets and lay out a plan of action for how you and your administration plan on preventing the next violent murder. One murder is one too many, four murders in a single year is an epidemic and you need to take a long hard look in the mirror to figure out what you and your cronies can do to stop it.

Justin