Reader’s Write: GN has benefitted from Tamarin’s service

The Island Now

Fortunately for our Great Neck Park District, Ruth Tamarin will seek re-election as your park commissioner. 

To say fortunately is an understatement. Lucky is a more vivid and accurate description. Lucky because we as park district folks – regardless of faith or background – have been and are the beneficiaries of more than 15 years of her dedicated service and her many major accomplishments.

You know what I mean. Just sit on a bench by the far end of the expanded Steppingstone property for some quiet reading or just gaze at the sailboat silently gliding over the waters of the Long Island Sound. Stop to admire those lovely beds of flowers and other environment-linked, beautiful landscaping that highlights all our parks. 

Immerse yourself in our new park complex for that summer swim in the Olympics-sized pool; relax in a lounge chair. Watch your kids splash in the wading pool while you’re making new friends or take an invigorating stroll in the Lazy River. Pirouette in the renovated ice rink in season before or after that snack in the lounge. 

Tennis, soccer, Little League baseball, it’s all there, just a short walk/ride away. And if it’s top-of-the-line culture you want, indoors and out, music of all genres, shows, and the movies that may not be available on Netflix, just show your park card (bring along a friend, a relative), are all yours to enjoy. There’s no need to hassle with trains or subways.   

The fact is all these pleasures and treats have one thing in common. All have Ruth’s signature (Not alone, of course, but through leadership or in tandem with the other commissioners). The list of her achievements is endless. But reciting the cold facts is only one part of it all – and only one of the reasons why we are lucky. 

Her many accomplishments have been achieved not by a simple wave of a wand, but from many labors of love – from a voice that comes and sustains from within, from a voice up to the challenge to give us one of the best park districts on Long Island. And, I should add, carefully calculated and consummated within taxpayer-friendly budgets, without waste or squander. 

You get the point. Now it’s our turn to show Ruth how much we really appreciate being the lucky ones. Re-elect parks commissioner Tamarin on Dec. 10.

Bob Sobel

Great Neck

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