New Mayor Reaches 'Pinnacle'
By Stephanie Mariel Petrellese

Nassau County Legislator Vincent T. Muscarella (left) administered the oath of office to Peter A. Bee.

After more than 25 years of serving the Village of Garden City in various capacities, including 14 years as a village trustee on the Board of Trustees, newly-elected mayor Peter A. Bee took the official gavel at the annual organizational meeting on April 3rd and pledged to residents to live up to the responsibility.

"Tonight has been a long time coming for me," Bee said. "I am thoroughly gratified. Without a doubt, this is the pinnacle of my life as a volunteer civic official. Most of the people in this room tonight are volunteers, and they will understand how proud I feel. The office of mayor of Garden City, which I now hold, is the public symbol of your collective volunteerism."

Mayor Bee took the oath of office along with trustees Gerard P. Lundquist, Nicholas P. Episcopia and Thomas M. Lamberti. Trustee Robert J. Rothschild, who was also recently re-elected, was absent.

Mayor Bee listed the challenges the Board is expected to face in the next year. Soon the Board will decide on the future of the historic main building at St. Paul's. Mentioning that this year there will be no tax increase, the mayor said residents will have to decide in the future how much they are willing to pay for the level of service they want.

Bee also mentioned issues outside the Village that will affect residents. "We will face litigation, political attack and accusations of insensitivity to the needs of our Nassau County neighbors." He mentioned the pressure villagers will face to accommodate affordable housing and mass transportation linking the Hub in Uniondale to the Mineola train station.

"While I hope to cooperatively work with Nassau County officials on the rebirth of Nassau County's economic center, I see it as my top priority over the next two years to resist any attempt to place poorly planned mass transportation within the boundaries of our Village," he said.

With the memory of some past Board debates that became very tense and veered away from the issue at hand, and with trustees expected to face the controversial issue of St. Paul's soon, Bee called upon trustees to relearn how to debate without rancor and to argue merits without attacking personalities. "All of us must constantly bear in mind that we can be adversaries on an issue without becoming enemies," he said. "A little common sense and courtesy goes a long way."

Mayor Bee ended his speech by addressing the criticism that the Board moves too slowly. "We do what we do because we recognize that much has been given to us, therefore from us much is expected," Bee explained. "Perhaps that is also why we sometimes move so slowly. A gift has been entrusted to us and we are ever mindful, and should be, of the possibility of damaging that gift while it is in our care."

Trustee Lamberti, who has been in his position for two years, took the opportunity of his re-election to comment on ways the Board can improve. He said trustees should be more open with the public and build more confidence with residents.

He also said decision making has not been as thoughtful or deliberate as he would like and called for the Board to follow the lead of the Garden City Board of Education, which meets once a month for a work session. He said to discuss substantive issues after a regular meeting ends around 10 p.m., when Board members are tired and want to go home, or at 7 p.m., when everyone feels rushed to make a decision before the regular meeting begins at 8, "is not the best way to conduct business." Lamberti said the Board will serve the public better when they get organized and address the backlog of issues that need to be discussed.

In one of its first official actions, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the 2007-2008 budget, which Mayor Bee proudly announced calls for no tax increase.

"Special thanks to the staff and the committee for controlling expenditures and making this a reality," Bee said. The budget totals $53,703,458, an increase of 2.29 percent from the 2006-2007 budget. Last year the average homeowner had to pay an additional $147.84 in Village taxes per year. This year marked the first time that a Citizen Budget Review Committee was actively involved in the budget process.

As reported in the March 23rd edition of The Garden City News, at the suggestion of the committee, trustees decided to reduce the amount of money in the retirement reserve so the tax levy (the total amount of taxes collected Village-wide) would not increase.