State Sen. Jack Martins says he is worth our votes based on his record as our representative in the state Senate.
A closer inspection actually does reveal what this so-called “public servant” really cares about and what constituents he chose to serve.
You might recall that a small group of citizens, I was one, sued the Village of Kings Point to try to stop the village’s plan to clear cut a portion of the northwest corner of Kings Point Park in order to build a new department of public works garage and storage facility in that location instead of using the acreage where the original department of public works facility had stood for decades.
The citizen lawsuit was successful — after a few years of litigation New York’s highest court ruled unanimously in favor of protecting our park.
Not deterred in the slightest, the village then decided to approach New York’s Legislature for a new law granting the village the right to do what the courts had declined to do.
But to get its special new law passed up in Albany, the village had to convince our elected representatives to introduce a special bill in the state senate and the state assembly.
Because [state Assemblywoman] Michelle Schimel is not running for re-election, I omit a description of her environmental crimes and focus on the behavior of “our” state senator — Jack Martins.
Environmental details could not paint a clearer picture of Mr. Martins’ priorities.
On the one side were citizens trying desperately to save what little open space we have left, to protect the unique area of hardwood forest that the village wished to clear-cut for a facility which can only leak innumerable toxins into the rest of Kings Point Park.
On the other side was the Village of Kings Point, which wished to sacrifice precious, irreplaceable parkland in order to construct a department of public works facility which could easily be built on the original location.
And what role did Jack Martins play in this conflict?
In the spring of 2014, after the New York State Court of Appeals issued its unanimous ruling in favor of saving the park, Martins swore to us that he would never introduce a bill in the New York State Senate which would permit the village to proceed with its plan to destroy parkland.
But the next thing we knew, in the winter of 2015, we learned that Michelle Schimel was going to introduce a bill in the Assembly allowing the village to do what it wanted.
And instead of being true to his 2014 word, Martins was suddenly unavailable to us.
Of course we secretly feared that Mr. Martins might succumb to some kind of political pressure from the village, but his pronouncement to us in the previous year had left no room for doubt that he was going to protect the environment and stand firm against the village’s grab for precious parkland.
However, the Jack Martins of 2014 who was firmly on the side of thousands of park users, the Jack Martins who even today claims himself as a protector of the environment — that Jack Martins did a disgraceful 180.
I wonder what the village said, and promised, to Mr. Martins to make him change his mind so drastically?
Because in the winter of 2016, without a word to the citizens he’d been sweet-talking for years, Mr. Martins secretly introduced the state Senate bill that would seal the doom of that portion of our parkland.
Environmental damage? Who cares? Promises to constituents? Who needs ‘em? Damage to his credibility?
They’ll forget. Legislative success? Doesn’t matter.
Now Martins wants to take his values and morality with him to Washington so he can do on a federal level what he did in our state.
He actually expects us to reward him for his prior “service” to us.
What a chilling prospect.
To borrow a phrase — “Just say no!”
Elizabeth Allen
Great Neck
Readers Write: Martins did not serve Kings Point
