Readers Write: Open letter to GNP Deputy Mayor Ted Rosen

The Island Now

I know it takes a village, but hasn’t this village suffered enough? Must you run for Mayor?

Our communal suffering is based in part on the 35 years of ineffective service you have already delivered to the Village of Great Neck Plaza and its residents. In fact, after nearly four decades of you collecting a paycheck, health insurance, and a pension as a village official, don’t you think we deserve better?

Village government decisions over the many years you have participated have affected our property values and our quality of life. Your record is void of accomplishment for this community and your service does not qualify you to be Mayor.

Asking your neighbors to once again support insolvent leadership, complacency and disinterest are simply stunning. Wouldn’t you prefer to sit back and collect your pension from the sidelines? This village needs forward-thinking leadership, and you are not the answer.

As an elected official, you have abdicated your responsibility to be transparent, creative, tenacious and thoughtful. You have not shown leadership, ingenuity, capacity or commitment to the well-being of our community.

The reality is that low voter turnout, absentee ballots by the residents of the various assisted living centers who are discouraged from knowing that they have options, and a system that is designed to be less than transparent are the factors that have kept you in office all of these years.

I recognize that our village has a history of not electing people who weren’t first appointed by Mayor Jean Celender. Gerry Schneiderman in 2000, Shelly Goodman in 2007, Rafe Lieber in 2008, Pam Marksheid in 2009, Marion Green in 2010, and Lawrence Katz in 2012, to name a few, were all Celender appointments. Some went on to resign; others went on to be elected.

Now is your opportunity to halt this pattern and help the community reverse the decline you have helped to create. Speak to the people who live around the chaos you created on Welwyn Road, talk to commuters about the train station that is littered with debris, walk the downtown that is littered with “for rent” signs, drive the streets that are littered with potholes, or spend time on Gussack Plaza that is littered with inept politicians. Change is imperative for our hopes to return to a prosperous and vibrant Great Neck.

As we go forward, I hope this community will rise up against political greed and ineptitude, and turn toward a local legislative system that is transparent and open. Since you can’t run effectively on your record or on the record of Mayor Celender, I hope your neighbors will hold you accountable if your candidacy continues.

The people of Great Neck Plaza deserve better than what you are able to offer. They deserve voices in local government that address the core issues we face and I hope our village will remember that in March.

Michael S. Glickman
Great Neck

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