Regrettably, your actions last night 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 nation-wide 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 pre-existing dry eyes, sensitive 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 hyper-sensitive 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.
Clearly, you possess awareness of this fact or you would not be personally instructing village residents to, “Look at — but do not stare at — the display of four LED lights opposite Village Hall.”
Think of it.
You are advising residents, “Look at — but do not stare at the lights you are personally choosing.”
Is this a game of semantics? If these LED lights are harmful — and poor choices — why are you knowingly and intentionally selecting these lights for our residential streets?
Perhaps, the bigger message to take away from this is that even now, in 2017, ordinary individuals world-wide are resisting these too bright lights.
They are viewed as aggressive, intrusive, alien and painful. This story is not about Amy Glass and me, although you are trying very hard to make it appear that way.
Amy and I are not the poster children for this world-wide 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 possess the unique opportunity to be the hero.
You alone can stand up with respect to public health, fight for public health and heed the warnings of the AMA.
They never endorsed LED lights — that is a wrongful interpretation.
They did set a threshold for human safety that even Montreal, Canada residents are wising up and listening up to.
Coincidentally, Montreal is also the home of the principal headquarters to Real Term Energy Consultants, the outside consultants you hired to perform our Village’s lighting evaluation — making recommendations.
Why are you welcoming to our Village the same lighting recommendations that Montreal and other cities, nation-wide, are currently rejecting with resident protests? Copy-cat installations with poor results benefit no one.
Aren’t we smarter than that?
Please consider the safer lighting limits that are currently satisfying other communities. Some 2,700K is the new 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 — if 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, American Medical Association 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 are 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.
Physician -— do no harm.
Judy Shore Rosenthal
Great Neck
