NextG’s Activities

To the Editor:

A big thanks to Rochelle Downing for her informative letter on NextG’s activities in the Village that appeared in last week’s GC News. I was shocked to learn that NextG employees, in an unmarked car, tried to install a pole in front of someone’s house, without a permit or any other authorization. What gall! Here may be another example of NextG stealthy aggressiveness: Within a day or two of Christmas, I found a typed note under my front door mat, informing me that, on December 29 or 30, someone from NEXTG would be on my property to examine the utility pole that runs along my rear property line. The note was unsigned, was not on any letterhead, and no contact information was provided.

While I realized that the utility company easement that runs with my land does not (yet) apply to NextG, I assumed that they had made a prior arrangement with the Village. With holiday goings-on distracting me, I just let it slide. I am now kicking myself for not objecting or at least inquiring. I think it might be prudent for the Village to inform residents as to what, if anything, NextG is permitted to do at this juncture, and to provide a phone number to call to report improper activity.

C. Landers

Response By Artist

To the Editor:

The letter entitled, “Adelphi University Display,” objects to a sculpture which reflects an artist’s response to the increase in fear among all peoples. This is the artist’s statement, which is available to all on our Web site:

“With the rise of terrorism in the public eye of the world, there has been a growing fear. The creation of an apprehensive society and a new standard of security have come about. What we create is partially due to what we fear.

Much like the actions of McCarthyism and the Cold War, we now have a new type of suspicion-with an advanced technological backing. Through the fanaticism of the extremist groups, the innocent youth are concerted into weapons of mass destruction”—An Ti Liu.

Lori Duggan Gold

Vice President for

Communications

Adelphi University

Our Onerous Tax Burden

To the Editor:

I just received the first of several tax bills and noticed another increase in both the tax and the assessment on my home even though the Nassau County Dept. of Assessment recognized by stating, textually, in an attachment letter that ‘due to the economic collapse that began in the third quarter of 2008, the real estate market in Nassau County for both residential and commercial properties has experienced a significant downturn’. Still, they increased my home value. After a long uncertain and depressing pause, I have a suggestion. Why not change the marriage oath to read: ‘Until death or taxes do us part’. These continuous yearly increases are placing us, homeowners, in an extremely dangerous physical and psychological ‘mode’. These shocks can provoke sudden mood changes, induce grave attitude alteration, nervous breakdowns which may, in turn, be the cause of separation or divorce if not sudden death. What is the antidote to this horrifying ‘plague’..? Perhaps a miracle which our new elected County Executive Edward Mangano may, could and must perform. There must be a new beginning for Nassau County. Undoubtedly, this will require an effort of epic proportions in order to change the mentality of our ‘public servants’ and their ‘modus operandi’. The fiscal and economic ills facing the County cannot be solved by the continuous taxation on homeowners already stretched to their limits in order to provide county jobs and services. Mr. Mangano publicly stated in a recent interview, that he only sleeps four to five hours a night. Well, I am afraid that he may l have to reduce his present sleep journey by at least another two hours in order to change the mentality of our elected public officials to curtail spending, to use restrain and even, do more with less. (This last one perhaps an ‘impossible dream’ which may require those two extra hours of additional loss of sleep).

Taxes are out of control especially School and Village taxes. St. Paul’s has become an absurd ‘affair’ still unresolved, even though the people of the Village expressed their unequivocal position a long, long time ago. However, the Trustees are undecided, divided in their opinions.

Municipal Unions, Schools Districts, Superintendents, Deputies, Assistants to the Assistants, Trustees, Directors, Mayors, POA’s et all, must institute, recommend, and initiate now, right now, drastic measures to avoid waste, costly, unnecessary, unpredictable projects and to increase productivity. If that is not accomplished, we may be facing a mass exodus in a not to distant future starting with the elderly but also to be followed, eventually, by families with children. As a result, when services start declining and home prices collapse, who would like to stay here...? Exaggeration...perhaps, but certainly when my family moved here, Garden City, was far more attractive, promising, tranquil, affordable, and definitely more friendly and close than it is today. Life was easier. Now, lots of families are having financial problems due to the economic crisis, loss of jobs, high original mortgages and ever increasing taxes. The multiple ‘For Sale’ pages in the local press continue to increase. Too many sales and few buyers even though prices have substantially been reduced and in some cases, ‘slashed’. Business vanishing and lots of empty lots and ‘for rent’ signs. Under these circumstances, I am not very optimistic for the future of Garden City. Taxes must come down as well as public expenditures. Otherwise, we are heading to the ‘cliff’ of disaster. Good luck and very best wishes to Mr. Mangano.!

Antonio Moreno

GC Has Great Facilities

To The Editor:

As a lifelong resident of Garden City, I have been involved extensively during the past 10 years in travel baseball, all around Long Island and the New York area. My children have also played in sports competitions around the region, and I have had my eyes open to the difference between Garden City and other places. With respect to recreation, these differences are profound, and easy to take for granted.

In many communities, there is no local village that serves as a legal entity to own or maintain ANY playing fields. For example, West Hempstead, on our border, is not a village, but a “census designated area”. The local kids must play their sports on school district fields or fields owned by Nassau County or the Town of Hempstead. There is no village Rec Department like we have. Instead, the churches and other community organizations organize the sports. The Pee Wee football teams work out at the local elementary school, and to practice on fall evenings (when it gets dark early) the parents have to put on the headlights of their cars to light the fields. (Compare that to a Thunder practice at Community Park).

In the Village of Garden City, our village owns maintains 14 baseball fields. (Our school district has several more, including two good 90 foot fields). In the Village of Stewart Manor, there are none. In many other villages, there are none. In Garden City, if there is morning rain, our maintenance crews can sometimes get the fields playable in the evening. In most other communities, there are no maintenance crews to begin with, and when it rains games are canceled without question. We also have two ninety foot fields, an adaptable skin field, a field at Grove which can be adapted to 75 foot bases, one regulation tee ball size field at the back of Stewart, and 10 well maintained 60 foot fields. Three of our baseball fields have lights for night games. There is no other village I know of in Long Island, or anywhere else, that has anything like this. This past summer, the Garden City Bombers 12 year old team played a team from New York City at Community Park, the New York players and coaches were astonished our facilities.

Many communities must rely on school district fields, which, with rare exception, are not maintained over the summer. By a certain time in the summer most school district baseball fields have overgrown grass, and often uncleared goose manure. In some communities, budget problems have caused maintenance of school district baseball fields to be halted entirely. For example, in Roosevelt, the High School baseball field is in such poor condition that it could only be used for 1 home game last year, and will be used for none in the coming year.

It is also rare for a village to own such a large basketball facility as we do, with the field house at St. Paul’s. This is the former practice facility of the Nets of the NBA. And the NBA is not the only major sports league to have used our facilities - there was a major league baseball exhibition game once played here, and the New York Jets wanted to use St. Paul’s as their own training facility, and did not only because the school wanted more cash than the Jets were willing to pay.

Most people have no idea how good we have it. Certainly we should always try to improve and do more. But as a village with 23,000 residents, we are far better off than most.

Joe Mohen

Bigger is Not Necessarily Better

To the Editor:

On a recent Thursday winter evening I watched my fifth grade son on a basketball court at St. Paul’s having a terrific time learning the game with a number of other boys. He was being coached by Mr. John Skramko, head of the Garden City Basketball program, who played with the boys for close to 90 minutes and taught them skills and moves similar to those being practiced by my older son’s high school basketball team.

As I watched the group of boys of all races, sizes, ages and athletic abilities enjoying the scrimmage together, I wondered what my son would be doing on this night if he were not in this program. He would probably have his eyes glued to a t.v. or computer screen after his homework was done. Instead, he was learning how to play a sport from the ground up. Mr. Skramko knew all the kids’ names as did the college-aged coach on the other court with the younger boys. I was very impressed with what I saw and with the commitment of a man who I’m sure had many other things he could be doing that night. I feel our family’s $50 investment in Garden City Basketball was money well spent, and I am saddened to learn that the program’s existence is being threatened by the fact that it was given such a late start time for its games on Saturdays due to the fact that the GCAA Basketball program has more participants.

My son participates in GCAA sports as well. I don’t understand why there has to be competition between these two groups. There are so many children in town looking to keep busy and keep fit. Garden City Basketball runs a wonderful program with a sound mission of nurturing a lifelong passion for the game. I wish I had known about a program like this when my older son was learning the game. I want to thank Mr. Skramko and his volunteers for their efforts on behalf of the youth of our village. It is appreciated by many families.

Peggy Schlatter

GC’s DNA

The following letter is re-printed due to typographical errors.

To The Editor:

Congratulations to the Garden City Historical Society for its successful sponsoring of the designation of Saint Paul’s School as one of Long Island’s most endangered properties. Grand Gothic Victorian architecture is honored in most Long Island precincts, but not Garden City Village Hall.

In the online Newsday article concerning that designation, the longtime Garden City Village Administrator is reported to have concluded that “demolition is the only prospect left for the school as several alternatives have been rejected.” One prospect never considered is the best and tried and true alternative - tax credits.

The Village of Garden City has never issued a request for proposal (RFP) which would require a potential developer to limit the project to the footprint of the building and no more and adhere to the U.S. Department of Interior guidelines for structures on the National Register of Historic Places in order to obtain the 20% federal tax credit (as good as cash) available for restoration. This 20% tax credit calculated on the gross restoration costs is the economic engine that all over this country has been is fueling the restoration of historic buildings. If given the time, it will be the economic engine for the restoration of St. Paul’s.

The Village of Garden City is behind the times. Go into lower Manhattan and take a look at the old Police Headquarters on Centre Street, restored as apartments, and see what can be done with the 20% tax credit. The examples throughout the country are too numerous to list.

There may be no hope for this generation of Village leaders but do not deprive the next generation of the opportunity to preserve Garden City’s DNA by demolition of the structure. The present leaders and voters, if demolition occurs, will be remembered for what they destroyed, not what they preserved.

By the way, what will be the method of demolition: blowing it up in one grand explosion or piecemeal demolition? Either way, it is government sponsored vandalism.

James M. Kenny

History Of St. Paul’s

To the Editor:

Last week’s report on St Paul’s making the endangered list seems to convey the notion that something wonderful has occurred that changes the painful facts on the ground.

I suggest strongly that such is not the case.

Let’s hop into our time machine and go back 15 years, when all of this began. I recall that the impulse to save the building was almost unanimous throughout the village, and, early on, it seemed more than possible. We had, we thought, a bona fide offer that would have saved the building and also provided income to the village. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, and things went downhill from there, ending up in a scenario where a minority group was willing to give a developer village land worth millions, and absorb tax liabilities worth many millions more.

In the course of all this, alternative deals were sought and suggestions abounded and were analyzed and finally discarded after failing reasonability review. Because this stage went on for so long, the same suggestions were repeated over and over, either because people forgot, or, sometimes, because the suggestors were new to the village and didn’t know the history. Hundreds of thousands were burned through by maintenance and administrative procedures, and that continues.

About 10 years into the exercise, after much prompting by interested citizens, an opinion poll was taken to ascertain the taxpayer’s view, (The building belongs to them, and the expenses are paid by them.) The preponderant choice was demolition. Fast forward another five years to another poll. The same preponderance: DEMOLITION. This was not a hasty, uninformed choice. THEY GET IT! THEY HAVE HAD 15 YEARS TO MAKE UP THEIR MINDS.

Dissenters are certainly entitled to their opinions, but not to override a majority view. The ongoing discourse seems to suggest that even if 95% of villagers preferred demolition, they should not prevail. That is just not right!

Frank Kiernan

Ironic Letter

To The Editor:

Such irony! Here we have the letter writer of last week suggesting that the Village “look at the old Police Headquarters on Centre Street [in NYC], restored as apartments” as something that could be done at St. Paul’s. Wasn’t he the person who started the lawsuit to require only public use of the building? And if the Village could obtain a 20% tax credit, worth say $10M on a $50M project, where does he suggest the remaining $40M come from? Nothing in the RFP that was issued prevented a developer from proposing a plan conforming to the present building footprint and obtaining tax credits, and no doubt a credible plan of that sort would have received first priority. But none was received.

Bill Bellmer