By Stephanie Mariel Petrellese

A resolution authorizing counsel for the Village of Garden City to begin litigation against the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency failed to pass at the June 19th Board of Trustees meeting.

The resolution was proposed by Second Deputy Mayor Thomas Lamberti. He is concerned that the IDA's decision on June 10th to approve the deal with Alrose GCH LLC, the reported buyer of the Garden City Hotel, will have a negative impact on Village and school taxes. Lamberti wanted the Board to move quickly before the IDA and Alrose go to closing on the hotel.

Only three of the eight trustees, Trustees Thomas Lamberti, John Watras and Donald Brudie, voted for the resolution. The other trustees said they preferred to wait to see how the Garden City Board of Education decided to handle the matter.

Trustee Robert Rothschild, who voted against the resolution, said the Village's probability of success is low. "I think it's a waste of money to do it," he said. "It may look good and it may get some people excited about it, but I think it's a waste of money at this point in time, on the basis of what I know."

Mayor Peter Bee said he spoke with School Board President Kenneth Monaghan, who revealed that the school district wants to litigate. Monaghan had told Mayor Bee that a special meeting would likely be held so the school board could vote to authorize litigation. If a special meeting is not held, the school board will probably deal with the matter at its next meeting on July 9th.

"I am dismayed by the Mayor and the other trustees who voted against my motion to sue the Hempstead IDA," Lamberti said in an e-mail to the Garden City News. "The IDA's decision to grant tax abatement to Alrose GCH, purchaser of the hotel, not only violates the law but deprives the Village of needed tax revenues. Our obligation is to defend our tax base. Common sense demands no less. The rationale given by the Mayor for the vote was that the school district has not yet sued. Does that make any sense? Didn't the residents elect us to make our own decisions?"

When informed of Lamberti's comments by the Garden City News, Mayor Bee responded: "Several Board members, including myself, said they would like to work cooperatively with the school board in any suit against the IDA. But we also wanted to hear from the school board first and to think about it for more than five minutes. We will deliberate and discuss the matter with counsel and I expect the Board to take action at its next meeting [on July 17th]."

The Village has taken the legal position that the tax abatement should be applied to the hotel improvements, not the current assessment, according to the Notice of Public Hearing and IDA's Uniform Tax Exemption Policy and Guidelines. According to Village Counsel Gerard Fishberg, Frederick Parola, the IDA's CEO and executive director, believes that the two cited sources are broad enough to cover the approved abatement.