The Garden City Board of Trustees faced many difficult issues in 2009, several of which Mayor Robert J. Rothschild and trustees will continue to grapple with in 2010. Here are some of the highlights from the past year:

January - Peter A. Bee, who would end his two-year term as Mayor in April, announced that the BOT planned to take a very cautious approach as they attempted to charter unfamiliar terrain and carefully follow the many steps involved before the St. Paul’s Historic Main Building and Ellis Hall are demolished. The trustees were very cognizant of the fact that groups opposed to demolition, most notably the Committee to Save St. Paul’s, would be watching their every move when it came to this issue.

At their January 8th meeting, trustees voted 7 to 1 to designate the Board as the lead agency with respect to the proposed project. Trustee John Watras voted against the item because he wanted the Board to investigate partial demolition, which would just include Ellis Hall.

February - This month the BOT turned its focus to the Village’s budget during special work sessions that quickly turned ugly as they looked for ways to balance the cost of services the Village provided with the level they believe residents expected.

Village department heads slashed their budgets in an attempt to lower an initial projected tax levy increase of 19.76 percent. At the same time, the Board called upon residents to offer their insight into ways to help alleviate the economic crisis. John Mauk, who was deputy mayor (and who is now a trustee who still serves as chairperson of the Board’s finance committee), warned that a tax increase was necessary due, in part, to a decrease in mortgage taxes and a minimal return on Village investments.

On Feb. 12, the Village’s capital needs were presented to the public by department heads during the 27th annual capital budget plan meeting. Every year the meeting gives residents an opportunity to learn and ask questions about projects tentatively scheduled for the next five years.

This year’s meeting was unlike any in recent memory since every department proposed that the majority of their capital projects be deferred at least one year due to the recession. If the economy was healthy, proposed capital improvement projects would have totaled $6.1 million. However, as the national and local financial picture grew increasingly gloomier, department heads cut their list to total $1.5 million.

March - On March 19, the Board voted five to one in favor of hiring the engineering and construction services firm Greenman-Pederson, Inc., for an hourly rate not to exceed a total of $35,000, to coordinate the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement for the possible demolition of the Historic Main Building at St. Paul’s.

The EIS, which was initially expected to take four to six months to prepare, will provide a study of the ramifications of taking down the buildings and include recommendations on how to mitigate any potential adverse impacts. After a public comment period and Board approval of a final EIS, residents will eventually be asked to vote to authorize the Board to issue municipal bonds to raise the estimated $5.7 million needed to demolish the Main Building and Ellis Hall.

The BOT continued to deal with difficult budgetary issues this month, and after holding particularly tense work sessions, finally decided on a budget which calls for the average Village homeowner to pay an additional $302 in Village taxes. The budget for 2009-10 totaled $52,779,567. In comparison, the year before the approved budget totaled $55,268,644.

The relationship between some members of the BOT and the Citizens’ Budget Review Committee became very strained during these budget work sessions. Trustee Mauk placed partial blame on a Board decision two years ago to follow a Citizens’ Budget Review Committee recommendation to take money out of reserves to keep the tax rate low to help explain why the Village was facing such tough budgetary problems. “Two years ago we had a zero tax increase,” he said. “We’re paying for it now.”

Mauk also said that the problems were worsened when the BOT removed $1.7 million that was set aside for St. Paul’s School maintenance to keep the tax rate low in 2008. The money was removed from the fund established for that purpose, added as revenue and returned to the taxpayers to reduce the tax rate. It is commonly called a “one-shot” because you only have one chance to do it. No revenue was found to replace the $1.7 million.

“Now we’re paying for it,” Mauk said. “If we had not done that, we would not be in the situation we are today.”

CBRC member Bob Sundius responded that along with the recommendation to use reserves to achieve a zero tax increase, were also stringent ways to cut costs and exert better management controls. “The trustees chose to treat the recommendations as a Chinese menu, and choose from one column and not both...You made the decision to cut taxes, you made the decision to use reserves, and you made the decision to not insist on better management and better cost controls.”

(In November, Mayor Rothschild announced that Brian Daughney, president of the Estates POA and chairman of the Joint Conference Committee, had prepared a charter to reconstitute the Citizens’ Budget Review Committee. Daughney said the four POA presidents met several times to draft a charter which will include the committee’s scope and goals. “We felt there were some great things about the committee, and some things that didn’t work very well,” he said.)

A record number of residents attended budget meetings this year, especially when it came time to discuss instituting new fees and raising current ones. A controversial proposal to institute a $30 per game fee for field usage was unanimously voted down. However, one fee that was approved, and which angered many residents, was a $75 per year charge on residents to register their alarm systems. Commercial entities will now have to pay $100 per year.

The Village Hall boardroom was also packed at some meetings this month with members of the paid and volunteer fire departments who were concerned about proposals that were being considered but ultimately were not implemented, including closing a firehouse and/or staffing with volunteers on weekends in an attempt to lower overtime costs.

On March 19, residents and the Board of Trustees turned their attention away from the year’s bitter budget process to focus on a sweet farewell to Mayor Peter A. Bee. Trustees Gerard Lundquist and Thomas Lamberti also stepped down. Lundquist served on the Board since 1999, and was mayor from 2005-07. Lamberti had been on the Board since 2005.

“I hope that there are places in Garden City that are a little brighter for my having been here, and if not brighter, at least less damaged than they might otherwise have been,” Mayor Bee said.

Bee, who had served on the Board of Trustees since 1993, offered some advice to the current and incoming trustees. “It is not such a bad idea to maintain a degree of civility, a presumption of goodwill and to remember that reasonable minds can differ.... I think discourse and debate can take place without rancor and personal animosity, and I urge the Board to get back to that kind of discourse.”

April - On April 6, Mayor Robert J. Rothschild, the forty-third mayor of the Village of Garden City, officially took the gavel to begin what was expected to be a challenging two-year term given the state of the economy.

Mayor Rothschild joked that along with the congratulatory wishes he received from colleagues and friends were also some offers of condolence. “I am counting on that not continuing,” he said. “I hope everybody is ready to move forward.”

He said he hoped that the Board could “work as one” to build consensus on a number of issues. “We need to do that in a very civil manner, and I do want to emphasize civil manner, on issues that are for the betterment of the Village.”

May - The Board of Trustees approved a draft scope for the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed demolition of the Main Building at St. Paul’s, and set June 4th as the date for a public scoping hearing and May 15th through June 16th as the public comment period. The vote at the May 7th Board meeting was 6 to 2: Trustees Donald Brudie and John Watras voted against approving the draft scope and setting the dates.

A proposed nine-story condominium project at 250 Old Country Road had some Mineola residents seeing green-and a group of Garden City residents, particularly those in the Cherry Valley Co-operative Apartments, seeing red. The condominium project would replace an office building currently on the site, which is located in Mineola less than 300 feet away from the Garden City border. The project is expected to generate $377,000 in real estate taxes for the Village of Mineola, and $1.9 million in school taxes for the Mineola School District.

The condos will be set back 10 feet from the road and measure 88 feet high, with an additional penthouse that would be set back from the façade but add 18 more feet to the building’s height. The proposed floor-area-ratio will be 6.01, meaning the building will be more than six times as large as the property on which it is situated. The property is 57,504 square feet (or 1.32 acres) and the proposed building will measure 345,867 square feet.

June - On June 4, the BOT held a public scoping meeting for the preparation of a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed demolition of St. Paul’s School.

The BOT, in an effort to boost business at local restaurants hurt by the cancellation of the Belmont Festival, unanimously approved the closing of Seventh Street so that the public could enjoy the culmination of Restaurant Week on July 24th.

Althea Robinson, executive director of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce, explained at the June 18th Board of Trustees meeting that many local restaurants were excited about Restaurant Week, which ran from Monday, July 20 through Thursday, July 23 from 4 to 7 p.m. Many area establishments offered three-course, price-fixed dinners. According to Robinson, it is a way for restaurants to recoup some of their losses from the Belmont Festival, which was cancelled on June 5th due to inclement weather.

July - The impact of the proposed Lighthouse project on the Village took center stage this month as trustees and residents commented on the issue at the July 16th meeting of the Garden City Board of Trustees.

The Lighthouse project, which is estimated to cost $3.74 billion, will redevelop the current Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum site in Uniondale and include a new multi-purpose athletic complex, conference and exhibition facilities, a minor league ballpark, luxury five-star hotel, 500,000 square feet of new retail space and one million square feet of new office space.

The Hempstead Town Board scheduled a public hearing for August 4th to focus on the project’s environmental issues at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse at Hofstra University.

The Garden City Board of Trustees voted unanimously on July 16th to enter into a contract with Greenman-Pedersen, Inc., an engineering and construction services firm, to review the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The firm will charge an hourly rate, but the entire amount paid out cannot exceed $40,000.

August - Garden City residents packed the Village Hall boardroom at a Board of Trustees meeting to ensure their voices were heard on several proposed amendments to the Village Code.

A large group of those who attended live in multiple dwellings within the Village and were upset with a proposed Code change that would institute a special sanitation removal fee for “excessive accumulation of waste.” The proposed change defined excessive as “collection of more than one and a half cubic yard container (Dumpster) or ten 30-gallon acceptable waste containers or bags per week.”

After hearing from several angry residents, the Board unanimously decided to adjourn the public hearing on the proposed change until the next Board meeting on September 10th so that it can be rewritten to exclude multiple dwellings and tax-exempt establishments. The trustees agreed that the original intent was to charge commercial establishments.

The Board also heard from another group of residents upset with a proposed Code change that establishes filing requirements and an annual license fee for those who utilize an alarm system. The Board voted 6 to 2 in favor of this Code change. Deputy Mayor Donald Brudie and Trustee John Watras were opposed.

In another matter, the BOT unanimously approved the establishment of a “Residence R-20C Corner Overlay District” affecting 22 corner plots located along both sides of major streets running north and south, primarily on Rockaway, Cathedral and Hilton.

The current zoning will remain. However, now the new district will also take effect, which will allow property owners to subdivide the property if the interior plot meets the R-20 requirements and the outer plot meets R-40 requirements. This means owners will essentially need a minimum of 60,000 square feet of property and 285 feet of frontage to subdivide.

September - As a Town of Hempstead zoning hearing on the proposed Lighthouse project approached, several members of the Board of Trustees and the public spoke about the issue at the Sept. 10th Board meeting. The Town of Hempstead had scheduled a zoning hearing on the proposed Lighthouse project for September 22.

Several residents also angrily protested new fees adopted by the Board. Trustees adopted seven new fees, as well as three amendments to the Village Code. The new fees will be added to the Village fee schedule, which is adopted annually at the reorganization meeting held in April.

After learning about the plight of 21 students who were notified that they will no longer receive busing and must now cross Nassau Boulevard to get to and from Stratford Elementary School, Mayor Rothschild offered the Village’s assistance. The Village and school district would go back and forth for three months on whether or not the intersection qualified as a Child Safety Zone; the school district said it did not qualify and the Garden City Police Dept. argued that according to their calculations it did meet the requirements.

In the end, the state Dept. of Transportation ruled that it did not qualify as a CSZ and in December the Board decided to assign a crossing guard to the intersection beginning after the holiday recess.

October - Mayor Rothschild and several Board members proudly acknowledged the solidarity created when residents from all four property owners’ associations joined together to voice their objections to the Lighthouse project at the zoning hearing.

“When you have issues like this, I think you really see what a great format of government that we have,” said the Mayor at the October 1st meeting of the Board of Trustees. “Now, we don’t all agree, we know that, on every issue. There are some people who don’t agree on this issue. But I think because we are, or we try to be at least, a non political, Democrat or Republican type of system, I think we wind up really looking at issues from the perspective of what’s best for the Village... It’s an interesting situation we have, but I think it’s a format that in my eyes really works and I think in this case it really showed itself that it does work.”

At the same meeting, the Mayor announced that the Historic Main Building at St. Paul’s is not safe for human entry because of the presence of high levels of lead and dust in the air. The Garden City Historical Society had requested the Village allow public tours of the building. “Unfortunately, the air samples that we got were not good, to a point of they’re at a level that we cannot allow tours of the building,” the Mayor said.

October was also the month when NextG Networks, Inc. representatives gave their first public presentation before the Board of Trustees. NextG has been hired by MetroPCS Communications Inc. to install their Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) on 15 light poles on residential streets within the Village. The systems, which consist of an antenna and box, would close gaps in their cellular service coverage.

NextG contends that under federal law, they have the right to deploy equipment in public rights of way, with the understanding that public rights of way are held in public trust. They assert that the right has been given to them because the state Public Service Commission recognizes NextG as a public utility. They said the right of way use agreement presented to the Board is not necessary, but is being offered by NextG in an attempt to be a “good corporate citizen.”

In another matter, a group of approximately 20 Garden City residents, concerned with the increase in air traffic over their neighborhood, sought assistance from the Village’s Environmental Advisory Board at a meeting held this month. Residents said that over the past 18 months, and especially since the summer, they have noticed a significant increase in the number of airplanes flying over their homes, at lower altitudes, as they descend to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Some evenings they claim planes will fly every 90 seconds along the same flight path from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., and then resume at 4:30 a.m.

Also this month, a Garden City Chamber of Commerce committee began an aggressive 15-week advertising and marketing campaign designed to drive business to the Village and to keep residents shopping locally.

The campaign was organized by the Merchants Group, an independent committee of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce consisting of several independent Village retail establishments. The group, which formed several months ago, held 12 meetings to brainstorm ways to increase local business.

The group’s chairperson, John Wilton of Garden City Properties, Inc., said local merchants have been faced with significant challenges. Many landlords, who initially showed compassion to struggling businesses and attempted to avoid rent increases, have now reached a frustration point as they too have difficulty surviving in a difficult economy that shows little sign of recovering in the immediate future.

For more information on the Garden City Shopping initiative, visit www.gardencityshopping.com.

November - A new $150 parking permit fee, which affects the Village parking field on Fair Court, which is located at the corner of Old Country Road and Washington Avenue, and Village Parking Field 5, which is located behind the Garden City Medical Building at 520 Franklin Avenue, angered many tenants and the landlord of affected office buildings along Old Country Road that use the Fair Court lot.

Mayor Rothschild said the Board had sent the parking permit fee issue back to the Village’s Traffic Commission for review. He also referred it back to Village Administrator Robert L. Schoelle, Jr. and Dept. of Public Works Director Robert Mangan to work with the property owners’ associations to help reconfigure the lots by adjusting the hour restrictions and/or possibly eliminating permits. Their analysis has not been completed.

Also in November, the Village continued monitoring the development of the Hub. Mayor Rothschild said he, along with Village Administrator Schoelle, Deputy Mayor Donald Brudie and Trustees Nicholas Epsicopia and Dennis Donnelly recently met with Patricia Bourne and other representatives from the Nassau County Planning Commission.

He said this meeting was arranged after the Village was concerned that the Board was not notified of a July 23rd bidders conference held by the county’s Planning Commission on the Nassau Hub study for those interesting in constructing a mass transit system. A Power Point presentation shown at the conference revealed the possibility of a light rail transit system running through the Village, along the unused right-of-way behind Arthur Street homes and the inactive railroad line between St. James Streets North and South.

“It was a very good meeting,” the Mayor said of the more recent gathering. “They laid out exactly what that conference was all about.” The county told the Village that they have internally selected a consultant and will make the announcement in January or February.

The consultant will work with the county on transportation alternatives, which include a light rail, bus or AirTram system connecting Long Island Rail Road train stations with activity centers, including the proposed Lighthouse development.

“We were very definitive in our notice to them that we are honestly not happy and we will fight to the end on light rail,” Mayor Rothschild said. The county said they understood the Village’s position, but had to include light rail as a possibility because they received money from the federal government to conduct this study. If they arbitrarily removed an alternative they would be required to return the money, according to the Mayor.

He added that this is all dependent on what happens with the proposed Lighthouse development. The county told the Village that no matter what happens, they plan to still move forward with the transportation study because they believe there is a need for a bus system in the Hub district.

December - The BOT sought to reassure nervous residents that the Village is carefully evaluating-and has not yet made any decision—on an application by NextG Networks, Inc. to install thier Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) on 15 light poles on residential streets within the Village.

Mayor Rothschild said the Board has been discussing several issues with NextG, including possible health concerns associated with wattage emitted from the equipment, as well as its appearance and location. They have also been meeting with Village Counsel and administrators, as well as an outside legal firm.

“This is not a done deal... We have not resolved anything with NextG at this point,” he said.

As expected, at its last meeting of the year, the BOT approved the assignment of a crossing guard at the intersection of Nassau Boulevard and Stratford Avenue. A crossing guard will be reassigned from the Garden City High School to the busy intersection after the holiday recess.

Turning to St. Paul’s, Mayor Robert J. Rothschild announced at the Dec. 17th Board meeting that the draft Environmental Impact Statement is expected before the year’s end, which means Garden City News readers should anticipate the issue will once again make the front page in 2010.