If you knew your mayor moved a village stop sign for someone special (recently appointed to the Architectural Review Committee) to accommodate his 20’ to 30’ tall corner shrubs – instead of enforcing village code-mandating 3’ maximum height to ensure everyone’s public safety – would you care?
Can we trust this part-time mayor and full-time gynecologist to make thoughtful, deliberate decisions with respect to future development of Middle Neck Road? Do roosters lay eggs?
Hypocrisy is a tricky business.
For resident Carl Abraham, his cup runneth over with an A-List of exclusive goodies from Mayor Bral.
In addition to moving the stop sign, Mayor Bral is responsible for removing a village dumpster serving the merchants and apartment dwellers of Middle Neck Road. It offended Mr. Abraham more than most because, his pride and joy, his visibly overgrown and overdeveloped garden, was in close proximity to a communal dumping site.
Payback to the mayor came in the form of Mr. Abraham’s full-page advertisement in the Great Neck News, just in time for the June 2019 re-election campaign.
And now, a published opinion piece in the same Great Neck News, Dec. 27, 2019, when the mayor’s tarnished image was in need of some positive public relations.
I have watched my mayor attempt to diminish, demean and shame the testimony of articulate female residents, as well as non-resident experts. Conjuring up all the venom and viper-like, razor-sharp criticism he can muster, it’s like witnessing a public thrashing — although a verbal one.
Patti Wood, an environmental expert and contributor to this newspaper, shared her own experience at public comment interacting with Mayor Bral, “I felt like I was in a Third World country.”
What crime have these individuals committed? A) Their opinion differs from the mayor’s opinion B) They express insight he might wish to suppress C) They don’t reside in the village D) They are not regular attendees of village meetings.
Is it acceptable for truth-seeking citizens, especially women, who exercise their Freedom of Speech in public, to be labeled as idiots and dissidents, as Mr. Abraham plainly and offensively states in his Opinion letter?
His cruel and demeaning condemnation of women, who present intelligent and oppositional arguments in public, is decidedly un-American.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, are you listening? Nassau County Planning Commission, are you aware of the gag order this mayor placed at a recent board of trustees meeting in order to silence the women’s condemnation of a controversial development project he will, no doubt, approve at future date? (733-41 Middle Neck Road)
It would not surprise me if the teenager responsible for the YouTube live feed was asked to edit out the offensive remarks made by the mayor. After four years of participating in village meetings, I believe the mayor’s motto to be: conceal, conceal, conceal.
The most active community advocates among us easily recognized the mayor’s hand in commanding Abraham to do his dirty work for him. We saw right through this ploy – the mayor’s sentiments with Mr. Abraham’s signature at the bottom.
To be fair to the above-mentioned resident, he dipped his toes into a highly charged political scenario with limited knowledge of the full facts.
Months ago, he revealed to me his absence at the Public Hearings where the mayor and his revitalization plans were overwhelmingly condemned. There was no substitute for witnessing the multiple public tongue lashings of Mayor Bral’s ill-conceived development plans for our community.
Let’s talk more about hypocrisies taking place in our Village today. By applying the mayor’s logic: an individual with little or no prior attendance at Village meetings can’t contribute anything of importance – then Mr. Abraham has little to offer in the way of credible remarks since he acknowledges in his opening statement, “I have had the opportunity to attend a few of the village meetings.”
Finally, my mayor states he finds various stagnated properties on Middle Neck Road an embarrassment to him. They are dilapidated, he is fond of stating.
Well Mayor Bral, the community has been embarrassed by your failure for years to maintain a highly visible village-owned property located behind a chain-link fence on East Shore Road.
Receiving a healthy income as a parking lot as of late, there was never good reason for village-owned property to remain dilapidated and decrepit for all to behold. And we know you drive past this location every day.
Hypocrisy is a tricky business.
Judy Shore Rosenthal
Great Neck
