Letters to the Editor

Thanks Rye For Your Support

Dear Editor,

I really want to express my thanks and appreciation for all the support the Rye community gave me to help make my Walk for Celiac Disease an incredible success. To date, I have raised over $61,000 dollars toward my cause and 422 people showed up to walk with me on the day. This would never have been possible without everyone's support.

I also want to thank the Rye City School District, the Rye City Manager's Office, Rye Playland, and the Rye Police Department, especially Lieutenant Falk and Commissioner Connors, for their help and support in the creation of this event. Without their approval, my walk would never have happened.

All proceeds from this event will go to the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University and be put toward research and awareness for celiac disease, a disease that I have. I have lived and grown up in Rye and it means so much to have support from the community. Thank you very much and because of your encouragement I hope to hold this event again next year.

— Colin Leslie

Our Lightness, Our Loss

Dear Editor,

Darlene Seaver was, simply, a fact of life. Her incandescent friendship, her buoyant sense of loyalty and fair play, her invincible optimism — it seems to us these qualities were always with us in the quarter century we've lived in Rye. They were as constant and unchanging as those thousands of daily sunrises over Tom and Darlene's beloved Long Island Sound. So to speak of Darlene's death isn't just senseless; it's a stupefying slap in the face of life itself.

And yet. Maybe it takes the snuffing out of such a vivid flame to show us where real goodness comes from. Where real generosity of spirit comes from. It's not in Rye's water, or in the air we breathe. What we cherish about Rye doesn't come from having nice houses or green lawns or the Square House or the clubs out on Milton Point. It takes good people to make a good place to live, and Darlene Seaver was good people. Darlene Seaver was Rye.

A month ago we celebrated our 35th anniversary. Our son Perry said he knew it would be a great party the moment he saw Darlene's smile come through the door. It's going to take a lot of smiles — as many as we can all come up with — to make up for the one we've lost.

— Ellen and Mitch Silver

Latimer Has Earned a Second Term

Dear Editor,

For many people who haven't lived in Rye for 20 years, (like me), it's hard to believe that our Assemblyman, George Latimer, has been an energetic voice for Rye for all that time. Before his current two years in Albany, George served with distinction on the Rye City Council for four years, and for many more after that as our Westchester County Legislator.

Aside from his legislative work, George has served at one time or another on many of the community boards in town. He was a past Chairman and President of the United Way of Rye, former Board member of the Rye YMCA, and also the Rye Arts Center.

On the legislative front, way back when, George was the one who hammered out the plan to serve Milton Point with a mini-bus, rather than the big bus previously in use.

George wrote the law that protects the Marshlands as passive parkland in perpetuity. He also authored a law, (at the request of local elementary school parents), that lowered the speed limit on Playland Parkway.

While in the Assembly during the past two years, he helped secure funds for the Rye Senior Citizens and the Rye Arts Center. He has also fought for tougher laws against sex offenders and vandals of our religious institutions.

Most importantly, George is a friendly fixture at most events in town — enjoying special relationships with neighbors built up over these 20+ years in Rye.

He is unopposed for re-election this year — but he shouldn't be unappreciated. He's earned our support.

People like George Latimer just don't come along every day.

— Mark Gardner

Traffic at Rye Middle School

The following letter was written to Mayor Otis and forwarded to the paper by the author for publication.

Dear Editor,

I am a concerned parent among many who feels the traffic situation at Rye Middle and High Schools to be extremely dangerous.

It has come to my attention by Lucy Flynn that a letter from her has already been sent to your office regarding this. I too would like to see either busing reinstated in Rye for the safety of our children or designated crossing police at both the corners of Milton Road and Apawamis Avenue and the Boston Post Road and Parsons Street, where the juggernaut of dangerous traffic at drop off and pick-up times is an accident waiting to happen.

There has been a noticeable increase in school-aged children in my area alone (North Street) walking to school crossing Boston Post Road with no appropriate safety measures in place. If we want less school traffic, we need to create a safe way to walk to school by implementing lights, crossing guards, crossing signs and walkways.

We live in a high taxed, affluent community where the lack of street safety for our children is appalling! It is time the city does something about this.

– Andrea Weld