News this week that the Garden City Hotel deal might be off was undoubtedly welcomed by opponents to the tax incentives offered by Hempstead Industrial Development Agency. Although the vast majority of Garden City residents appreciate having such a fine hotel in the Village, many people felt it was unfair for the IDA to give away some of the school district's and village's tax revenues. Many have argued that the improvements that the buyer has proposed will not particularly benefit the residents (who will have to make up the lost tax revenue).

The coverage of the issue in Newsday has been handled in an interesting way. The story has been covered extensively (and well) as a dispute between municipal agencies and business interests. While the coverage has touched on the loss of tax revenues, there has been no sense of outrage that tax money can be taken from schools and given, without the permission of the taxed, to a business.

Perhaps the reason this angle has been ignored is because Garden City is perceived as a wealthy community, whose residents can easily make up the lost school money. We wonder whether the coverage would have had the same tone if the losing school district was one of Long Island's needy districts, such as Hempstead. We think there would have been a much greater sense of outrage which might have attracted the attention of state officials to review the laws governing IDAs.

We hope other districts take heed of what has happened here, and consider asking the state for changes to the law.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher