How about this for a great start?

To the editor:

In the past 45 days, our local U.S. Post Office here in Kingsbridge has lost, misplaced or otherwise disappeared three essential pieces of mail entrusted to them, sent to me: A notice of anniversaries from my synagogue, a commission check from a company I represent, and a payment by check sent the city for a minor traffic violation, which resulted in a 50 percent increase in the fine paid.

That’s a hat trick. It’s also no compliment. Additionally it’s a sign to senior citizens and others in our community who often rely on snail mail, that the U.S. mail here is no longer reliable. 

Dovetail this local problem with the antics of members of our local officialdom, be they elected officials or just members of the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club, herein called “the machine.” It calls attention to a serious issue raised recently in New York City’s paper of record: “What’s wrong with New York state’s Democratic Party?”

The only electoral “red wave” predicted this past election cycle happened here in New York: a small, but significant one at that. It occurred while the machine went AWOL.

AWOL as in a junket to Israel the week before the elections. While members of “progressive political groups” like Bend the Arc and Indivisible were out door-to-door canvassing for fellow Democrats in the Hudson Valley, in Westchester County, on Long island, the machine could not be bothered.

We all know the results.

The very same way the machine cannot bother itself with concerns about life in our local jurisdictions and our local districts. If you are a member of the machine, you are taken care of. If not, it appears with few exceptions, good luck.

We have been complaining about 10463’s main post office for years.

Similarly, we complained for 30 years about the lack of a promised traffic solution for the intersection in front of the Winston Churchill. But the machine could not be bothered. Not even when a member of our community was mowed down at that intersection and was killed.

Imagine that: 30 years to get a traffic light installed, and then just like the very red Ohio Republicans in East Palestine, the latecomers — the machine — takes credit for something it took 30 years to affect.

The very definition of chutzpah.

Will it take the same amount of time for our machine congressman Ritchie Torres — so loved by the Democratic Party for his “pro-Israel” stance (excuse me, but who in their right mind would be willingly labeled “anti-Israel” in Riverdale?) — that it was essential he ignore the close election, and to continue to ignore local problems, local tribulations, local issues?

I vote here, Congressman — not in Israel. My concerns are local. I know we can likely not vote you out at the present time, but support you? Tip O’Neil exclaimed that “all politics is local.” When the machine and its federal representative ignore pressing issues of local concern, then if we can’t oust the representative, let’s oust the machine. Then, we can oust you.

Failed Councilman Eric Dinowitz — euphemistically called “Baby Dinowitz” on the street — speaks about matters through his daddy, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz who, by the way, is great at mailings, but when was the last time we in the neighborhood actually saw him at a co-op meeting? A neighborhood association? A synagogue? Church? Or, God forbid, a mosque in-person?

What’s wrong with the New York state Democratic Party is typified by what’s wrong with the local machine: entitlement, sinecures and smugness.

Instead of working within the district to serve us, the constituents — these smug yuks masquerading as public servants — serve themselves, work for themselves, and then throw the rest of us in the community a bone every now and then, hoping it will appease us.

From the failed post office, to the machine ditching U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman here in Riverdale, as he made too many waves. Continuing with the failure to get a traffic light — a safety issue for 30 years, what do we have? A failed institution.

The “Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club” needs to go to Florida and retire. And make whoopie with the other self-serving politicians they have so much in common with — the Republican Party.

They’ve outlived their usefulness. And if the state Democratic Party doesn’t straighten out, we’ll have a zealot rightwing Republican as governor in the next election as well.

We already have an ex-cop, New Jersey-dwelling, Instagrammable Republican as mayor.

Enough already. Getting rid of these smug and arrogant dinosaurs will be a start.

A great start.

Adam Stoler