A Word From The Publisher
A Word From The Publisher
We continue to be outraged that the County is moving forward with the proposed mass transit system which would run through residential areas of this village.
In last week's editorial we mentioned our surprise that the Nassau County Planning Commission had called a meeting for bidders on the HUB transit project during July. Evidently, we weren't the only people surprised, as it appears the Planning Commission did not mention the meeting to the Village or the media.
We feel that resident of the village, especially those who would be most impacted by having a light rail system next to their homes, should be informed about the county's transit proposal, now that it seems to have been fast tracked. To that end, we will be posting the 2005 study on our web site. The link should appear as a .pdf file following this editorial online.
The study includes several alternative transit schemes, but we believe the light rail system is the most likely to be considered in the final proposal. At half a billion dollars, it is, if you can believe it, the lowest cost alternative.
One of the things we found vague in the study was that the cost estimates didn't include "right of way acquisition costs". Now, the report may be referring to the areas in which there is no existing right-of-way, such as the sections north of Eleventh Street or in East Garden City. But maybe it doesn't. Nowhere in the report is it explained exactly how wide a right-of-way will be required, and whether the existing ones would even be wide enough.
Another question we have is why the transit proposal seems to have been fast tracked. Proponents of the Lighthouse have said that there is no connection between their project and the HUB. We think that is disingenuous. If the Lighthouse were to be scaled back to a more reasonable size, there would be no need for a half billion dollar transit system to be built.
Let's be real about this and consider both proposals together, because they are interlinked.
Disclosure: Because our coverage of the transit proposal might be perceived by some to be an attack on County Executive Tom Suozzi, who is running for re-election, we feel that we should disclose a business relationship between The Garden City News and Mr. Suozzi's opponent, Ed Mangano. Mr. Mangano is a partner in the company which has provided printing services to us for more than ten years. We don't feel this is an ethical issue because it is a long-standing vendor relationship, and (sadly for us) the money flows from us to them. However, we will leave it up to our readers to form their own judgments.
Meg Morgan Norris
Publisher
