Although Sen. Michael Nozzolio has continued to run opposed until now, the more than one-half million dollars in his campaign bank account assures his being re-elected again. (He was a state Assemblyman from 1983 to 1992 and since 1992, a state Senator.)

Recently the senator showed opposition to the governor's plan to change legislative districts and one has to wonder why? Simply put, since a higher ratio of prisons in the state are in his district, counting state prisoners as residents of their home neighborhoods, rather than their upstate prisons, would significantly shift his political power.

However, Gov. Spitzer believes that “for the purposes of drawing legislative districts in New York state, prisoners should be classified residents of their home communities rather than residents of the area where they are incarcerated.” (His belief is apparently based on the U.S. Constitution which prohibits redistricting plans which give one area more power than it should.)

The senator is also strongly opposed to closing any prisons but the governor points to the declining inmate population as the reason for the three recommended closures. (The senator needs to be reminded that there's a projected savings to the taxpayers of $33.5 million by doing so - and yes, this would mean the loss of guard jobs - and the senator's voting constituency.)

Taxpayers should be especially alarmed by the change in ratio of guards to inmates since the senator stepped into office. For years, the ratio was 30 inmates to 1 guard. Now it is a 2 to 1 ratio. (Even when Auburn's Thomas Mott Osborne was the warden at Sing Sing and then later at the U.S. Naval Prison in Portsmouth, he proved that he could run a prison with a ratio of 50 to 1, simply by “treating men like men ... rather than beasts.”)

Joyce Hackett Smith-Moore

Moravia