Letters To The Editor
Email: editor@ gcnews.com

Ugly Response

To MOU

To the Editor:

Last Thursday I attended the Board of Trustees meeting where one of the agenda items was the approval of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Village and Avalon Bay Communities. This MOU describes what both the Village and Avalon Bay will attempt to do to reach an agreement for the successful development of the main building at St. Paul's. The MOU is non-binding on either party, contains no specific rent, sale or lease terms and was meant to form a road map to guide the process along. The Village or Avalon Bay may "walk away" from the process at anytime.

The Committee to Save St. Paul's (CSSP) was one of the original respondents to the Request for Proposal (RFP) issued by the Village for the redevelopment of St. Paul's. The CSSP submitted a plan for development with a "partner" called Canus Development. One of the reasons the selection process was delayed was a lawsuit against the Village initiated by members of the CSSP which was dismissed by the Court. Additionally the CSSP received over six months of time extensions from the Mayor's Committee on St. Paul's to refine their proposal. When the BOT reviewed their proposal and compared it to the Avalon Bay submission, not one Trustee voted for the Canus/CSSP plan. Rather than have a side by side comparison in a public meeting the CSSP withdrew their proposal. The plan then was to " work together" with the Village to develop an acceptable MOU with Avalon Bay.

Instead of working together, the process and the meeting has turned ugly with attacks on the MOU, Avalon Bay and one Trustee by members of the CSSP and their supporters. Additionally there have been numerous "letters to the editor" and even a full-page ad with exaggerated and incorrect statements concerning what Avalon Bay would do with the property. One individual at the meeting said that he read that Avalon Bay was planning 160 units at St. Paul's. This is totally untrue. That number refers to an Avalon Bay proposal at Mitchel Field, not St. Paul's.

How are these unreasonable attacks helpful to the decision making process? Avalon Bay has already made presentations to the CSSP, the Property Owners Associations and the Chamber of Commerce. Nowhere have they mentioned numbers or dollars in the magnitude expressed by the CSSP. Their claims of a "give away" by the Village only serve to inflame residents who have not yet heard the presentations. The plan which Avalon Bay discussed in just their "proposal". The MOU is a document to allow Avalon Bay and the Village to rework the plan to their mutual benefit. The Mayors' Committee and finally the full Board of Trustees must approve the plan. It is my understanding that at the time all of the residents will then have an opportunity to express their opinion through some type of survey or actual vote.

Please let the Mayor's Committee and the Board move forward (with constructive suggestions only if you will) so we can finally put the issue to bed.

Hal Hecken

Former Garden City Mayor

The Road From

A to B

To the Editor:

In Sean O'Casey's memorable "Juno and the Paycock," the "Captain," plaintively, sums up his miserable outlook by uttering the famous line: "All is in chassis (chaos.)" Hmmmm.

The letters about St. Paul's are coming faster and faster, and they are getting longer, more repetitive, and more confused and confusing. The passing years, the number of interested parties, and the changes of official representatives have all helped in letting this admittedly complex matter get away from us. The letters, of course, reflect the conflicted official proceedings and the quality of communications to the taxpayers. I suspect that a great many of our neighbors have been totally turned off by this long road to nowhere. It is difficult to remember all the steps in this tortured path, but a retracing of the basic elements might shed some light on the past and, hopefully, at the end of this interminable tunnel.

Originally, we bought the St. Paul's complex in 1993 for 7 million dollars, all of which reflected the value of the land. The main building was essentially worthless and useless and, in normal books of account, would be carried as a liability, because of known maintenance and demolition costs. Let's call this Point A.

Trustee and auxiliary advocacy groups, at some point, began to assert that the facade of the building had significant intangible value to our taxpayers. To my knowledge, no specific value was identified. Many years later, in an attempt to identify taxpayers' perception of that intangible value, a survey was taken, asking what level of taxes would be acceptable to save the facade. 77% of the respondents would not accept a tax increase of more than 40 cents a day, including about 40% who thought that retaining the facade was not worth any increase. Let's call this Point A1(virtually unchanged.)

I have heard that a memorandum of understanding is now being drafted to cover the Avalon Bay proposal with the Village. It will include a transfer of ownership of some 7 acres of taxpayer's property worth several million dollars, an agreement to pay substantial rent for the use of some of the restructured building, (millions more,) and a very large tax forgiveness for the first 35 years of the lease (tens of millions.) Let's call this Point B.

So, on the journey from Point A, when the whole 48 acres and buildings were worth 7 million dollars to the taxpayers, through A1, to Point B, the facade increased in intangible value to the taxpayers from zero to somewhere north of 40? million dollars.

It never occurred to me that there was a process going on that could produce this result. What was the stream of logic that carried this along? Were there periodic adjustments on an interim basis? Is there any theoretical limit to our taxpayer's involuntary liability? Shouldn't the taxpayers be brought up to speed on things of this magnitude? How can we just assume that they will accept anything? I dread to think that we might accept attendee reactions at the Avalon Bay presentation meetings as general approval.

I think we should sponsor a research project to find out what kind of protocol is used by other similar jurisdictions for projects of this size and complexity.

Frank Kiernan

Cap Spending

To The Editor:

It's budget time again, when our local municipal government and school districts cry out for (MORE, PLEASE). Taxpayers have been deluded if they believe that their local municipalities and school districts will reel in costs without some real pressure to restrain spending. There is a push now by the County Republicans to freeze property values for the next five years in a vain attempt to reduce taxes. But as reported in Newsday, November 1, 2007, when Peter Schmitt, the legislative minority leader, was asked what would happen following the five year freeze, his reply was that any increase in property value during the freeze would be phased in afterwards at six percent a year until the exempted taxes were recouped. A 'don't' pay now, pay later' mentality One should point out that your tax bill lis made up of two numbers, your property value assessment and your tax rate, and if either go up then so do your taxes. The freezing of one value, while placing no limit on the other, makes no sense.

As late as 1980, New York and Massachusetts were first and second in the national ranking of combined state and tax burdens relative to income. The latest tax ranking for Massachusetts puts it at 28th, while New York has remained in the top three for the past 25 years. What happened to Massachusetts was "Proposition 12-1/2". It was passed by voters in 1980.

Proposition 2-1/s placed a limit on annual increases in any municipality's tax levies at 2-1/2 percent and also limited total property taxes to 2-1/2 percent of market value.

The results have been more than favorable. Massachusetts per-pupil expenditures have increased faster than the national average and faster than New York during the first 23 years after Proposition 2-1/2 was enacted. It has been so successful that Governor Jon Corzine recently signed into law a 4 percent annual cap for New Jersey, and Governor Rell of Connecticut has now proposed a 3 percent cap. There is a bill now pending in the New York State Assembly, Bill #A08775A (The Property Taxpayers Protection Act), if enacted would limit school tax levies to 4% or the rate of inflation (whichever is less). It is worth while noting that this type of proposal was introduced back in 1995 by New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who had his own "Real Property Tax Limitation Act" which passed the State Assembly by a vote of 144 to 1 but never became law. In 1997, a similar act was proposed with tax levy limitations but was later excluded from the enacted Star Program by the State Legislature.

Long Islanders and our state representatives better wake up. Star rebates don't work for they only provide school districts with further incentives to increase their spending. Also, the idea of freezing property value assessments won't work. Limiting spending using caps is the only proven way to hold the line on taxes.

Bob Orosz

Mauk Should

Step Down

To the Editor:

At the Board of Trustees' meeting held on February 7, the Board voted to approve a "Memorandum of Understanding" with AvalonBay respecting the proposed redevelopment of St.Paul's. Although that document, as described, will not formally bind either party to any particular form of development, it lays the groundwork for a potential give-away of the Village's most valuable historic asset. As described in a letter that was published in this newspaper last week, the publicly disclosed outlines of the proposed 99-year lease of St. Paul's suggest that AvalonBay will be getting a fabulous deal, with residents and taxpayers getting little in return. We have nothing against AvalonBay itself. It is a reputable company with a fine track record for making money from upscale rental housing developments. But, what is good for AvalonBay may not be good for the village residents. It is crucial, there-fore, that the Village's negotiation team includes preservation advocates, public use proponents, and land use experts. Most importantly, the team must be free of prodevelopment prejudice and free of potential conflicts, and even the appearance of conflict, which could doom its work to failure.

Just as other residents have done, The Committee to Save St. Paul's conducted simple searches on the Internet and discovered some disturbing facts that tie Mr. Mauk's employer, CB Richard Ellis, and one of its affiliates, to AvalonBay. We brought some of these facts to the attention of the Board of Trustees on February 7 (see news article on page 1 of this paper). We also brought to the Board's attention a very recent public filing by AvalonBay claiming development rights in Garden City for 160 housing units - far more than have been disclosed in any plan for the redevelopment of St. Paul's.

In view of Mr. Mauk's pre-eminent role as chairman of the Mayor's Committee and the main proponent for a massive privately financed redevelopment at St. Paul's, and the zeal with which he has been attacking a dissenting Committee member (Trustee Lamberti), we have to wonder whether Mr. Mauk truly has our best interests at heart, or whether his pro-development mindset subconsciously favors a give-away that coincidentally is consistent with the interests of his employer, its affiliate, and the "build big" mentality of AvalonBay.

Over recent weeks and months, Mr. Mauk's open hostility toward Trustee Lamberti has also compromised the pub-lic's confidence in the work of the Mayor's Committee. At the recent Board meeting, Mr. Lamberti disclosed how Mr. Mauk tried to force him off the Committee, how Mr. Mauk tried to hold a Committee meeting behind his back, and Mr. Mauk's general penchant for secrecy and non-disclosure. Mr. Lamberti has also spoken against Mr. Mauk's suggestion that public sentiments be gauged through a "telephone poll." Trustee Lamberti points out that a poll is quite different from a vote. If Senator Hannon is insisting on community con-sensus, does Mr. Mauk really believe he can achieve it through a "telephone poll," which everyone knows can be easily manipulated?

Interestingly, at this very same Board of Trustees meeting, when discussion and action was requested in regard to a proposed Village of Mineola rental apartment project of 285 units on the Garden City border, Mayor Peter Bee recused himself because the landlord of the building where his offices are located is a participant in that project. If Mayor Bee has the good sense to avoid any appearance of conflict on a matter even far less significant than St. Paul's, shouldn't this be a standard for the entire Board of Trustees?

We hope that the Board and its counsel will seriously consider the appearances of conflict and secret dealing and that Mr. Mauk should be excused from further involvement in the process of finding a solution that is truly in the Village's long-term best interest. Perhaps Mayor Bee should consider reconstituting the Mayor's Committee on St. Paul's, even expanding the committee to include some residents with broader viewpoints. The fate of Garden City's historic building and the surrounding acreage in the center of our Village is one of the most important issues in the history of our community. Residents deserve answers and full disclosure. Let's do it right!

The Executive Committee

Of the Committee to

Save St. Paul's