Catholic Schools Week began on Jan. 27. It is a time of renewal, a time to recommit to a child's education in the local Catholic school. Unfortunately, there have been two significant changes that have resulted in the Catholic elementary schools no longer being local and no longer affordable to the membership at large. Correcting this should be a Diocesan priority.

During the last ten years, many Catholic elementary schools have closed, a demise triggered by the increasingly high tuitions. Years ago, classrooms were taught by religious, who took vows of poverty; today, the good sisters have been replaced by full-salaried teachers. Tuitions for elementary students range from $3,000 to $4,000 per year, per child. This is a stretch for the many Catholic families who have more than one child.

Catholic elementary schools are the largest foundation of new souls seeking out "What Would Jesus Do?" It is the Catholic elementary school that is the major source of new Catholics who will enhance the church membership. Area Catholic elementary schools feed almost 100 percent of its student body into local Catholic high schools. Without this link, many high schools will close. Rarely do students from public elementary education suddenly choose a Catholic high school experience. Even fewer seek out Catholic colleges.

While the Diocese does contribute to Catholic schools, shouldn't funding them completely be a priority if the legacy of Catholic education is to thrive? If the elementary schools all close, Catholic high schools and colleges will experience an enormous drop in enrollment as well.

If the church does not take a forward look at where their new flock of Catholics will be trained and molded, not only will teachers, and the few nuns left in the elementary schools, be out of a job, but so will priests.

Sheila Mangiaracina

Assemblyman Lavine congratulated the City of Glen Cove for the excellent preparation of its grant request from Restore NY. What was not mentioned was that the City of Glen Cove applied for $2.5 million and was granted $695,000, less than one-third of the amount requested. Could it be that Governor Spitzer's Restore NY recognizes, as very many citizens of this community do, that a ferry terminal building of that size and style is totally out of character with the needs of Glen Cove? A public hearing was held on July 30, 2007 and during that meeting we were told all comments would be published. Last Friday, Jan. 25, nearly three months after the date promised, those public comments were published. One hundred twenty-eight members of this community wrote to express their opposition and outrage about this plan. There were 21 comments in favor, which translates to 86 percent opposed to 14 percent in favor. Why were these comments held back until after the election and after the notification of the Restore NY award?

The city still does not have a ferry operator. On Jan. 16 the Seastreak Ferry from Atlantic Highlands, NJ announced the discontinuation of its service. Last week, NY Waterways announced the suspension of service from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and on Dec. 21, NY Waterways announced suspension of service from Queens to Manhattan. Recently, the NY Post reported the lack of ridership in the Wall Street to Yonkers and Haverstraw ferry line. With all these ferry lines closing operations because of the cost of fuel, it seems that operating a ferry is not financially viable. Is it any wonder that the City of Glen Cove has not received any Request for Proposals (RFPs) from any ferry operator? Our question is: with all these ferry operators going out of business, why is the City of Glen Cove spending over $2.5 million dollars of our money with Urbitran, so Urbitran can collect proposals from ferry operators?

On Dec. 17, 2007 the Office of the State Comptroller sent the City of Glen Cove a letter which stated in part: "We have serious concerns about the city's borrowing" and "We do not believe that the city should take on significant new debt and its related expense, without first solving its underlying budgetary problems."

The cost of the ferry terminal and its associated roads is estimated to be over $32 million dollars. The source for this number is the NY Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC.) Under federal funding guidelines, there is always a 20 percent local funding match. That means the amount we, the citizens, will have to pay out of our local tax money will be $6.7 million. Not only that, the federal government funding is a reimbursement program. That means the city will have to enter into some form of borrowing in order to start the project. How is this going to conform to the State Comptroller's directive quoted above? Some people have said that it is better for Glen Cove to get the federal and state funding than another community somewhere else getting it, but when any funding must include a 20 percent match from our local taxes, and ferries are failing everywhere, this does not seem like a good idea to me.

Maureen Tracy