The Great Neck Social Center very successfully promoted an April 24 program on senior scams, sponsored by state Sen. Elaine Phillips (R–Manhasset).
Many people responded to the flyers and posters with Phillips’ photo front and center; the turnout for the program was tremendous.
The room was filled with seniors who had been looking forward to hearing Phillips’ presentation on senior scams.
Fifteen minutes past the scheduled start time, Phillips was nowhere to be seen.
The audience began to get restless.
Finally, two women from her office began the program without her.
The presenters spoke at length about how to increase retirement income by investing money in certain funds.
They even gave out names of some investment firms.
Halfway through the allotted program time, with not a single piece of information about senior scams addressed, the audience, feeling duped, began to get angry.
People began to leave because they came to hear about senior scams, not investments; they came to hear Phillips, not two assistants who clearly didn’t address the topic.
A well-spoken member of the audience politely asked the speakers why the senator was not present and why they were speaking about investments rather than the scheduled subject of senior scams.
And a suggestion was offered that a call be made to the senator’s office to see why she was a no-show.
There was no apparent response from the presenters.
Five minutes before the program was scheduled to end — and just in time for photo ops (as well as the article that appeared in the April 28 Great Neck News) — Phillips walked in carrying give-away bags with her name on them in large letters; she also began glad-handing audience members.
However, once the photographs had been taken, she left as quickly as she had suddenly appeared.
Phillips largely owes her senatorial victory to conservative, hedge-fund-supported, pro-charter school PACS.
Phillips spent excessive amounts of those dollars running a nasty, anti-Semitic smear campaign against Adam Haber, consistently sending out literature such as Haber’s head photo-shopped onto a caricature from “Fiddler on the Roof,” and photographs of Haber paired with George Soros — an outspoken Jewish liberal, known for his destructive power of greed without conscience.
Many constituents of the Great Neck Social Center are Jewish liberal voters.
Clearly, Phillips has no use for such a constituency — in her eyes an audience of “throw-aways” who she thought could be placated with phony smiles and plastic bags and pens with her name on them.
The audience was not fooled.
The bottom line is that Elaine Phillips did not keep her word.
She did not show up for her promised program on senior scams knowing that there would be no political gain for her.
She showed her true colors.
Elaine Phillips: Not my senator.
Muriel Pfeifer
Great Neck
