Letters to the Editor - The Millerton News - 8-11-22

NECC is grateful for support shown at brunch fundraiser

The North East Community Center (NECC) was proud to host our 11th annual Chef and Farmer Brunch this year at Lime Rock Park. The event was held in person for the first time in three years. We at the NECC would like to thank those members of the community who attended our event on Sunday, July 24th, as well as those who were unable to attend but still showed their support through generous donations.

Our organizational efforts, including through events like these, would not be possible without the sustained support of the community who have helped the NECC grow and thrive over the years.

Northeastern Dutchess County is an area of five deserts: food, child care, mental health, housing and transportation. The NECC has developed programs that begin to address all these desert issues. With your help, we have impacted the lives of so many of our friends and neighbors.

As always, the event gave everyone a chance to come together and enjoy the special, tight-knit and rural community that remains so important to the NECC.

Through our shared events, fundraisers and direct-care programs, we will continue to be a beacon for those in need, and a haven for those in search of community friendship. All of this is the direct result of the programs you helped NECC to build.

Thank you again,

Christine Sergent

NECC Executive Director

Millerton

Ryan is the one we need to elect for CD 19

I suggest that Congressional District (CD) 19 Aug. 23 voters, if considering voting for current Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, first examine what Molinaro stands for.

Pat Ryan has made his positions clear: He supports a woman’s right to choose; health and financial benefits for his fellow veterans; support for consumers against large corporations and utilities like Central Hudson who overcharge customers; and democratic values over the extremism of our former president.

Molinaro, in 2019, opposed New York State (NYS) legislation to codify abortion protections. Not surprisingly, he recently stated that he would oppose similar federal legislation.

Molinaro also has a history, as a NYS assemblyman, of voting against pro-worker and pro-community bills. He voted against: Helping small businesses make health care benefits available to employees; guaranteeing workers meal breaks and rest stops; fair wages; protection for freelance workers; and authorizing an inter-city bus permit system for those needing mass transit.

As for his support of the former president, his views, as the Ithaca Voice stated on July 5, “remain evasive.”

I believe that Pat Ryan is the candidate who deserves our votes.  As Ulster County executive, he has consistently served the people. He spearheaded rehabilitation of the former IBM site, leading to over $200 million in regional investment; increased mental health and addiction recovery services; put Ulster’s first electric buses on the road; and started a green careers academy at SUNY Ulster.

Let’s elect a veteran and true patriot: Pat Ryan.

Amy Rothstein

Pine Plains

Schumer, Gillibrand should cosponsor mother and child law

According to the World Bank, the worldwide maternal mortality rate in 2017, the last year for which they have data, was 211 per 100,000 live births.

While it has improved significantly since then — the Gates Foundation reports that the 2020 rate was 152 per 100,000 live births — we still have a long way to go to reach the U.N.’s 2030 target of 70 per 100,000.

The Gates Foundation projects, for example, that the rate in 2030 will be almost double that, at 133 deaths per 100,000 live births. These rates are particularly troubling in poorer countries, with a 2017 rate among low-income countries of 453 per 100,000, middle-income at 253 per 100,000, and high-income countries clocking in at only 11 deaths per 100,000 live births.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 94% of all maternal deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

Child mortality is also a huge problem. In 2020, the global mortality rate for children under the age of 5 was 37 deaths per 1,000 live births, and 66 deaths per 1,000 live births in low-income countries.

To frame it another way, of the 5.04 million under-the age of 5 deaths that occurred worldwide in 2020, more than 1.45 million, or just under 29%, occurred in low-income countries, despite these countries accounting for less than 10% of the global population.

Enter the bipartisan Reach Every Mother and Child Act. The bill, sponsored by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), aims to create a strategy to be implemented over a five-year period to work toward reducing maternal and child mortality in low-and middle-income and conflict-affected countries, as well as those with “weak health systems.”

The bill mandates that the strategy should identify these countries, identify factors of maternal and child mortality in these countries, and establish targets that work toward mitigating those factors.

The bill also says that the strategy shall “promote investments in community-based activities that empower women, support volunteerism and provide respectful maternity care,” as well as address the regression in access to maternal healthcare as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Borgen Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that advocates for foreign anti-poverty aid, the bill has garnered support from more than 20 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including UNICEF.

For these reasons, I urge Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to cosponsor the Reach Every Mother and Child Act of 2021.

Emma Benardete

Amenia

Molinaro is the man for CD 19

The odd circumstances surrounding this year’s redistricting of New York’s Congressional Districts (CD) may have been confusing for the voting public, but there is a very important special election coming up very quickly now on Aug. 23 (early voting starts on Aug. 13) to determine who will fill the vacancy in the current 19th CD created by the resignation of Antonio Delgado to become New York’s lieutenant governor.

To fill this vacancy, please support Marc Molinaro, who has a lifetime of experience and service to Dutchess County and its surrounding communities. Consistent with his record as Dutchess County executive, Marc favors common sense approaches to the economy and our national energy policy, and he will work to help control the size, spending and intrusiveness of the federal government, while always looking out, as he has for many years, for the less-advantaged among us.

The redistricting has resulted in changing the boundaries of the 19th CD from 2023 on, and Marc will also be standing for election in November in the new 19th CD, which will be extending further to the west of us and (sadly for us) will no longer include Dutchess County.

Marc Molinaro has earned our support over many years. There is no finer public servant in the Hudson Valley, and we can count on him to represent our interests well in Congress.

Michael Chamberlin

Amenia Union