Kudos to Michael Sol Warren (“NJ fishermen angry because popular lake is losing public access”) for shedding light on the dire situation at Greenwood Lake.
After decades of paying start-up and license fees as well as an excise tax on fishing tackle, Greenwood Lake on the border between New Jersey and New York is being privatized. The public has only very limited public access. According to the New Jersey Fish and Game Code, the lake is a public body of water that is stocked with thousands of fish each year, paid for in fishing dollars.
A worker looking for a place to start the lake for a day of boating and / or fishing during the week will have a hard time finding a ramp to use.
At a recent Greenwood Lake Commission meeting, fisheries officials were verbally disparaged and at one point a commissioner said, “Maybe you can’t afford to fish here.” The meeting was recorded and is part of the public record.
Fishing enthusiasts are not looking for a fight with the marina owners or the commissioners. What we want is access to the resource we worked for and paid for. Fishing is not a sport for rich people. It is a way of life, recreation and food for our families.
It is really easy. Greenwood is a public lake. I urge the State of New Jersey and its Fish and Wildlife Department to allow public access.
Lou Martinez, Fairview
Op-ed gave the wrong picture of the nursing home industry
The recent comment, “The Horrific Impact of Private Equity on New Jersey Nursing Homes,” paints a blatantly false picture of the long-term care industry in our state. The article was an attack on operators who work every day to care for our most vulnerable seniors.
The vast majority of long-term care facilities in New Jersey are run by people who live here, are trained in the industry, and are committed to providing the best possible care. One vendor negatively cited in the article is actually a privately held New Jersey-based company whose ownership is completely transparent.
Dealing with nursing home ownership or claiming they are controlled by “Wall Street” ignores critical facts:
- Wall Street private equity firms own less than 10% of America’s nursing homes.
- A 2020 study by authors at Weill Cornell Medical College found that nursing homes owned by private equity firms were comparable to for-profit and not-for-profit nursing homes.
- A report by Manatt Health found no correlation between ownership type and COVID-19 results.
Currently, all long-term care facilities in New Jersey, regardless of the owner, are facing rising operating costs and an underfunded, outdated Medicaid payment system. This has resulted in small operators, nonprofits and hospital systems selling their facilities and leaving the industry in unprecedented numbers.
Rather than pointing the finger, providers, public health officials, lawmakers, lawyers, and union officials must acknowledge their roles. You must honestly and openly discuss how to ensure that New Jersey long-term care residents and staff remain a public health priority.
Only together can we create a better future for our seniors and caregivers.
Andrew P. Aronson, President and CEO, Health Care Association of New Jersey
Claim score: three for three
The June 24th Nation & World page of the Star Ledger was a real classic. The three articles dealt with three people who were severely infected by today’s common authorization errors.
The first involved a Pennsylvania ninth grader whose failure to form a college cheerleading team led her to use shameful language and symbols on social media outside of the school environment.
The subsequent disciplinary punishment from Brandi Levy’s school unfortunately resulted in an 8-1 decision by the US Supreme Court in their favor. Where were her parents who should have raised her to see the real world?
An adjacent column highlighted Britney Spears, who is now 39 years old and has a lot of talent, but also a somewhat “wacko” story trying to break away from court-ordered paternal supervision and hopefully into adulthood and the nature of the to penetrate the real world.
Finally, we come to an article about Vice President Kamala Harris’ planned trip to the US-Mexico border. She appears to be waiting in the wings for a final personal breakdown from President Joe Biden, and her ineptitude makes her yet another victim of the real-world implementation.
While money, fame and power are among the humanistic goals, a sense of intergenerational justice that has become so evident in recent years is nationally degrading. It certainly does not add to the cause of America’s international leadership, which we still long for but which we are giving away. God help us!
Bob Safarik, Pequannock
End injustices against Palestinians
Regarding Linda Diamond’s recent letter “More Anti-Israeli Tropics in the Reporting”, I recommend looking beyond the recent provocations on both sides. These include ultra-nationalist Israeli parades through Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and fire balloons sent from Gaza to spark terror in southern Israel.
Instead, focus on the underlying causes of these tensions: the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the blockade and de facto occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and B’tselem, have documented how the Israeli government has worked to create and perpetuate pervasive inequality between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Palestinian protests against these abuses have been met with excessive violence and repression by the Israeli police.
The Israeli blockade of Gaza since 2007 has devastated its economy, with serious consequences for the Palestinians living there. This has only helped strengthen Hamas’ position.
Ending these injustices is not only necessary to protect the fundamental rights of the Palestinians, but also strategically necessary for the security of Israel – as many members of the Israeli security establishment have publicly stated – and essential to prevent the next outbreak of violence.
Dylan Shapiro, Princeton
The author is a student at Princeton University.
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