Coli-SeeYa?

Back To The Drawing Board At Nassau Hub

Could it have been the VOTE NO robo-calls running 4-1 over the VOTE YES phone tags, with sponsors postured disingenuously under monikers such as Association for a Better Long Island ("better" for whom, the developers that comprise the association?) and Committee for Smart Growth on Long Island (whose members wouldn't know "smart" if it came up and smacked them in the face)?

Or maybe it was the fact that the Referendum was foolishly held in the dead of summer, on a Monday, in the midst of the lazy days when even die-hard voters won't come out to the polls.

Perhaps the full strength of the most ardent of Islanders fans was no more able to secure a victory for the Mangano Plan than they were in bringing the elusive Stanley Cup back to the Island.

Did NIMBYism kill the Coliseum? Taxpayer disgust? The Tea Party?

While no one factor doomed the proposition, suffice it to say that the negatives tugged harder at the purse strings than the positives did at the heart strings, the Referendum to borrow $400 million on the taxpayers' tab going down to a resounding defeat on August 1.

Sure, we are all Islanders. Or not. Few argued that the outdated Coliseum should stand forever, the icon of the protracted debate of small-minded politicians and closed-minded residents. State-of-the-Art, circa 1970, clearly has no place in today's suburbia.

On the other hand, even those who wanted desperately to build a new arena had qualms about paying for it with our tax dollars, particularly when, just the year before, billionaire Islanders owner Charles Wang was ready, willing and most able to put up his own money to finance the overall redevelopment of the entire site that we call the Nassau Hub.

Bottom line: Not with our tax dollars, you don't!

Okay. The battle has been lost. What's next?

Islanders to Brooklyn? Cleveland? A Farmers' Market Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Coliseum parking lot? Guided tours of the county's answer to the ruins of the Acropolis?

There was to be no Plan B, according to Nassau County Exec Ed Mangano -- that is, until the Referendum failed, when, suddenly and without fanfare, there was to be a Plan B. Much like Plan A, there are no details and even fewer ideas (although the call for ideas now goes out), there not being much on the vision front in Mineola.

Politically, the Dems blew it (as they seem to do every year), and the GOP flubbed it. "Just say NO" appears to have won the day in Nassau County.

Credibility? Not Wang, whose billions remain in his pocket while taxpayers are out some $2 mil for the failed vote. Not Ed Mangano, whose every proposal since his surprise election has faded into obscurity or been left behind in the dust. Not even Islanders fans, who, despite some gallant efforts and a torrent of blogs and Tweets, could not muster enough YES votes to carry the measure.

So, now what?

Re-enter Town of Hempstead Supervisor, Kate Murray, quietly waiting in the wings to sing out (ala Mighty Mouse), Here I come to save the day!

Yes, it was Kate who denied us the Lighthouse. Too big. Too much. Too bad. Preserving the character of suburbia while figuratively cutting off its head. Lighthouse would morph into Lighthouse Lite, and then, to a new Development Zone, lower density, less height, more suburban. [If it seems that the Town of Hempstead has almost as many "zones" as it does special districts, it does!]

Kate's 77 acres under the Mitchel Field Mixed Use Development Zone has a lower profile, a smaller scale, and, perhaps, a more palatable appeal for the masses. Not so much a grand plan and yet, in the scheme of things, in giving the people what they want as well as what the Island needs (assuming LIers have any clue along those lines), a leaner model may just be that lean forward Nassau County could go for. A Plan B (or are we up to C? D?) that both preserves the suburban character and positions the county for growth.

Would Charles Wang go for the Murray Plan now that the Mangano Plan is dead, cremated, with ashes strewn over the Coliseum?

Depends. It all boils down to economic feasibility. The economy of scale. Would a Lighthouse Lite give Charles & Company sufficient bang for the buck to make this project pop.

We'll leave crunching the numbers to the analysts and wonks. Frankly, it would be difficult to imagine that there wouldn't be enough of a profit in moving ahead with the Murray Plan (details to be forthcoming, to be sure), given Charles' insistence that a new arena alone, as base for the Islanders, is a profit generator. Throw in 500 homes, myriad retail businesses, and a host of recreational facilities, and voila -- a suburban paradise!

Can residents be sold on a Murray Plan? You betcha. Why, even we, at The Community Alliance, are coming around to embrace a Lighthouse Lite. And if there is anyone who can sell the public on such a redevelopment scenario, short of P.T. Barnum, it is Town of Hempstead Supervisor, Kate Murray!

What better time, in an election year [There's an election? Really? Hey Gary Port, did you hear that?] for Kate and Team Murray to triumphantly proclaim (with respects to Andy Kaufman), Here I am to save the day!, unveiling and, yes, championing the Murray Plan for the Nassau Hub. [General Marshall, you had absolutely nothing on Supervisor Kate!]

Kate. Charlie. The puck is, as they say, in your arena...



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The Community Alliance

Today's Vision. Tomorrow's Reality.

Voices From The Ledge

A "Thumbs Up" And A "Thumbs Down" On Nassau Hub Plan

The vote is scheduled for Monday, August 1.

The pols have spoken. The Unions have chimed in. The Isles have broken the ice. Even we at The Community Alliance have put in our two cents (or was that $58, $13.65, or a tax figure to be added to the bottom line later?). Soon it will be your turn to give the Coliseum Referendum a YEA or a NAY.

Now, two more voices can be heard: Eric Alexander, Executive Director of Vision Long Island, and Jay Jacobs, Chair of both the NYS Democratic Committee and Nassau County Democratic Committee.

Reprinted from the Editorial pages of the LI Herald, the debate sallies forth:

Pro and con on Nassau Coliseum redevelopment


Vote ‘yes’

After years of meetings planning the future of the Nassau Hub area, it is time to support the bond act that will refinance Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Public financing of the arena would allow the Islanders to stay on Long Island, preserve the tax base and provide the opportunity for mixed-use development and revitalization in the surrounding area.

A responsibly financed Coliseum redevelopment would enhance the quality of life in Nassau County by providing the state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex the county deserves. It would be a strong first step toward a new town center at the Hub, one that would expand the tax base, provide jobs and create tangible economic development benefits well into the future.

For the many residents, civic associations, small businesses, chambers of commerce and other local organizations that supported the Lighthouse project and other past proposals for redevelopment, supporting the bond is a logical choice. There are many reasons why the Lighthouse project did not move forward, despite wide and deep public support. Chief among them was the Town of Hempstead’s fear of the project’s impact, as well as the failure to secure necessary state and federal infrastructure funding by former county officials.

The kind of “smart growth” proposal offered by the Lighthouse project is critical to Long Island’s future. The current redevelopment proposal offers similar promise while using different methods. Redevelopment of the Coliseum would serve as a companion to the town’s recently approved mixed-use code in the area around the arena, which includes housing, office and retail with new development guidelines.

The county is expected to prepare a request for proposals for development around the Coliseum. Vision Long Island encourages this development to include an integrated mix of uses, various housing options, including a work force component, accessibility to public transportation, walkable streets and a strong, safe link to Hofstra University, Nassau Community College, Museum Row and offices in the area. Additionally, we hope to see ample state and federal dollars for infrastructure improvements around the new development, which was absent from previous proposals.

Long Islanders need jobs. One of the region’s most pressing challenges is to keep workers, including young workers, from leaving the area. Revitalizing the Nassau Coliseum would not only create a regional high-quality entertainment hub that would cater to a wide demographic range, from the very young to seniors, it would also create expanded employment opportunities for residents of a densely populated area.

According to Nassau County’s economic impact statement, the project would provide a positive cash flow of $2.2 million annually, in excess of the debt service of $26 million. The new Coliseum would attract about 1.37 million visitors each year, versus the no-build alternative of 100,500 visitors — or far fewer if the Islanders ultimately move.

The $400 million bond proposition would provide key infrastructure and facility financing in and around the Hub area. This bond could spur critical economic growth for Nassau County. After careful analysis and discussion with business and government leaders, we believe this plan to be responsible and appropriate.

We are happy that the public will be able to weigh in on this project via a referendum on Aug. 1. Vote “yes” in that referendum.

Eric Alexander is executive director of Vision Long Island, a nonprofit smart-growth planning organization that has long supported redevelopment in the Nassau Hub.

Vote ‘no’

Two weeks ago I was featured in a Newsday story about County Executive Ed Mangano’s plan to revamp Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum with $400 million in borrowed money. The paper described me as “one of the loudest opponents of the proposal,” and I described the Coliseum bond as “something that is not going to pass.”

After the story ran, the Nassau Democratic Committee received a dozen emails from people who took my words to mean that Democrats don’t want the New York Islanders to stay in Nassau County.

There’s a difference between supporting the Islanders and supporting bad fiscal policy. I like the Islanders. I want them to stay on Long Island. But it doesn’t make sense to rebuild their arena on the taxpayer’s dime.

While it’s true that a new-and-improved Coliseum would be a nicer place to see sporting events and concerts, we need to ask ourselves: Is a nicer Coliseum worth a 4 percent increase in our county’s sky-high property taxes? I don’t think the people of Nassau County will vote to increase their own taxes. We’re smarter than that.

The people who stand to benefit most from a new Coliseum are private businessmen and women, with Islanders owner Charles Wang chief among them. With all due respect to Mr. Wang, it’s clear that he recognizes how much he has to gain from a new arena. Five years ago he was willing to partner with Reckson Associates to renovate the aging Coliseum and develop the surrounding land — without taxpayer money.

The Wang-Reckson plan fizzled owing to inside baseball in the Town of Hempstead. I won’t go into the details because that’s water under the bridge, but I want to remind county taxpayers that we came close to getting a new Coliseum financed entirely by private enterprise. That’s the solution we need to pursue today, because the county can’t afford to take on $400 million in new debt to pay for this project.

If voters approve this massive bond on Aug. 1, the county will have to pay about $26 million in debt service every year for the next 30 years. In return, the county will receive about $14 million in profits from the new Coliseum. That would leave taxpayers on the hook for $12 million to cover the rest of the debt service — every year for the next 30 years.

Unless my calculator is broken, Mangano must be stringing us along when he says his Coliseum plan wouldn’t cost taxpayers a thing. It’s hard enough to raise a family on Long Island. Our finances are already stretched to the limit by the cost of owning a home, sending our children to school and paying the taxes that accompany all of these things. We can’t afford to increase our property-tax bills by paying for a project that Mr. Wang could easily finance himself.

Nassau County is proud to be the home of the Islanders. We’d love to have a new arena, but we simply don’t have the money — not in the county’s coffers, not in our overstretched budget and certainly not in taxpayers’ pockets.

Jay Jacobs is chairman of the Nassau County Democratic Committee and the New York State Democratic Committee.
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Sensing quite a bit of ambivalence on the issue of the Hub/Coliseum redevelopment plan among County residents (notwithstanding the lopsided numbers in our own unscientific survey), and having expressed, in this blog, our own uncertainties, we are disposed nevertheless to err -- if, in fact, it is to err -- on the side of the visionaries (limited though their sights may be in this scaled-back, taxpayer-financed, decades-delayed redevelopment project).

While Mr. Jacobs makes a number of valid points -- from debt we can't afford to a town's refusal to move a privately funded, comprehensive plan, in the form of the Lighthouse Project, forward -- the gist, we fear,  is more "us vs. them" political grandstanding and opportunism than it is true concern over taxpayers' wallets and Nassau County's future.

Whether the Hub/Coliseum plan, if passed by the voters on August 1, and thereafter approved by the County Legislature and the Nassau Interim Finance Board (NIFA), ushers in an era of "Smart Growth", as Mr. Alexander so justifiably supports, or stands as iconic monument to far-fetched folly, remains to be seen.

One thing, though, is certain. Doing nothing bears the greatest cost of all to the citizens of America's first suburb. We take a chance that we are, indeed, at least beginning to move forward in the right direction, or, we stand pat, with little left for us to do but cue the tumbleweeds!

VOTE AUGUST 1
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Contact The Community Alliance at TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com/ Follow us on Twitter @CommunityAlli.

Destination, Nassau County

A New Beginning, Or The Beginning Of The End

August 1 will either usher in a new era of engagement for America's first suburb, or the final bugle call for the continued exodus from Long Island.

That's when the Referendum for County Exec Ed Mangano's Nassau Hub/Coliseum Plan goes before John and Jane Public for a thumbs up or thumbs down.

The hubbub on the hub is plentiful, from the local papers to the blogs (there's a Facebook page, of course), and we post below a mere sampling (feel free to Google more) for your reading pleasure.

Newsday

Patch

LI Herald

Let There Be Lighthouse (or whatever the heck may follow in its wake)

The New York Islanders (with Kevin James, no less)

Facebook

You can read the official report, partake in the polls, and wade knee deep in the written word, most of which, thankfully, remains online, saving countless forests. Push comes to shove -- or wink comes to nod -- not much will matter but the actual vote on Monday, August 1. [Yes, aside from the fact that the vote will be held other than on Election Day, it will be put before voters on a Monday, rather than a Tuesday. Only on Long Island!]

So, where exactly do we, at The Community Alliance, stand on the present plan, which, in essence, gives Nassau a new Coliseum (the old one to be returned to Rome) and a minor league ballpark?

Well, the heartstrings are certainly pulled toward a YES vote.

As Islanders fans, coming off some pretty lousy seasons of what only the likes of a B. D. Galoff may call "play", we certainly take note of the fact that the Coliseum, by far the oldest arena in the NHL, has become little more than a brownfield set within a larger brownfield, whose backdrop is just a sinkhole shy of a, um, er brownfield. An asphalt wasteland attracting little more than tumbleweeds, smack dab in the center of Nassau County.

We need a new Coliseum. [And can we call it something other than the Coliseum?] We could use a few new Islanders, too, but that's a story best left for our Isles/NHL blogging friends.

A minor league ballpark would also be a welcome addition, obviating the need to venture out to Islip to take in a Ducks game, or battle the traffic on the Belt to see the Cyclones in Brooklyn.

And let's face it. Development -- or in this instance, redevelopment, albeit partial in nature and muddled in detail (or the lack thereof) -- tends to spur growth, re-energize the economy, and, yes, attract both visitors and residents.

On the downside (where the brain begins to kick in and say, "Whoa! Wait a minute."), there's the questionable economic gains (long term), and the obvious short term loss (increased taxes to pay for borrowed money).

Sure, there will be job creation -- mostly surrounding the construction project -- but in the long run, how many permanent jobs will be created and sustained?

Then there's the projected revenues. Enough to cover costs and to give the County something extra in its coffers at day's end? So they say. Then again, in a County that boasts a surplus one minute, then lays off hundreds the next, we wouldn't exactly start counting on money in the bank -- or, for that matter, in our pockets.

Speaking of money -- our money -- the projected tax increase for the average Nassau County homeowner (are you average, or a cut above?) is said to be $58 per year. A drop in the tax bucket, one might say. Then again, this is just a projection. And we all know that taxes only go up, not down or away. And will there really be a return on our investment?

Consider, too, that when the Lighthouse Project was on the table (remember the Lighthouse, and Lighthouse Lite, before we were left in the dark?), private developers were set to pick up the tab (to the tune of $3.75 billion), fully funding a comprehensive (arena, ballpark, hotel, residential, retail, you name it) revitalization plan. Come now the Mangano Plan and, voila, already overburdened taxpayers are asked to cough up some $400+ million to finance the project. Your tax cap "savings" (which, as followers of this blog already know are nonexistent, a "cap" not being a "drop") gone in one fell swoop. Well, actually, a swoop that picks tax dollars out of our wallets for some 30 years. [Geez. We're still paying off those Environmental Bond issues, aren't we?]

Do you feel the tug of a NO vote, or its equivalent, the "stay at home and don't bother to" vote? Um. The empty pockets and equally vacuous promises say so. The hope, the dream, no, the reality of a truly viable, sustainable Long Island, say otherwise.

Progress has a cost. As history shows, the act of doing nothing (something we've become all too accustomed to here on Long Island) has a much greater cost.

If the surveys are correct (and is the LI Index ever wrong?), they're leaving -- or planning to leave -- Long Island in droves. The young. The old. Whatever may be left of the middle class. The tired, yearning to be free of outrageous taxes, unaffordable housing, unbearable congestion (another issue not adequately addressed under the Hub plan) and an ever encroaching malaise that accompanies the sinking feeling that our island's -- and, perhaps, suburbia's -- best days are behind her.

Hold that thought. Then, embrace the vision. [I said, "embrace the vision." Not get forever stalled in a visioning process that circles the wagons but leads us nowhere!]

Nassau County, with all of its wounds -- economic, social, political -- many of which were, of course, self-inflicted, is due (long overdue) for what can only be categorized as an extreme makeover. It's infrastructure is aged out and crumbling. The spirits of the populace, sagging. There is little to look forward to on a horizon that has been built out upon a foundation of miserable planning and lousy zoning.

The grand plan -- and, perhaps, best plan -- would have been to scrap it all and start again. Bulldoze, from the Turnpike in Elmont to the Grand Avenue in Baldwin. Begin anew.

Of course, here on Long Island, grand schemes and big thinking -- like the Lighthouse Project itself -- tend to fall by the wayside, prey to the hobgoblin of little minds and provincial mindsets.

Piecemeal "improvements," though little more than facades themselves, seem to be all that we can tolerate.

The Mangano Plan for the Hub/Coliseum, while far from the renaissance called for, gives Nassau, and, yes, all of Long Island, the chance -- at least in theory -- to rebound, to restart, to reinvigorate the suburban landscape.

True, the plan, as presently constituted, is no panacea. Small potatoes in a land that once called vast potato farms home. And yet, the "build it and they will come" concept has more than a little merit to it.

Yes, we could leave the Coliseum as is, perhaps setting up a farmer's market in the parking lot on alternate Tuesdays. [Smart Growth dumbed down to the lowest level. If you can't rebuild Main Street, hawk cauliflower!]

Fact is, despite the drawbacks -- and there are many we have yet to touch upon here -- doing nothing is simply not an option. Take another route? Well, just how long can we wait here, on the side of the pot-marked road, for Godot?

Do something, and Long Island has a shot at redemption, and so much more. Sit tight in the great void of NYMBYism, and we forever foreclose the opportunity to emerge from the doldrums into which Nassau has descended.

The decision on August first is not easy, by any means or measure. It is, however, a necessary one that every County resident must make.

To move forward, although with trepidation, toward a future where Nassau County is once again a destination. Or, to stand in place, mired in stagnant waters (the precursor of regression, decay, and, ultimately, the suburban demise), with Nassau being the place to flee rather than to flock.

That decision, of course, is yours. We, at The Community Alliance, encourage all Nassau residents to VOTE ON AUGUST 1. And, indeed, we implore you to VOTE YES!
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Offer your COMMENTS, on this and other issues impacting upon America's oldest suburb, below.

Write us with your thoughts, opinions and Guest Blogposts at TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com.

The Community Alliance

Common Concerns. Common Sense Solutions.

Build Something -- Anything -- And They Will Come! Maybe.

From Blighthouse To Lighthouse To....

In a land where the vertically challenged rule the roost (or at least the Zoning Boards), where density is more or less a four-letter word, and Smart Growth, as it is typically defined, is something of an oxymoron, development -- and, where brownfields abound, redevelopment -- has become somewhat of a challenge.

With NIMBYists on every corner, mega-developers vying to trade open space for the next big thing, and zoning boards sitting as planning boards, doing neither with any alacrity or clarity, the road to rejuvenation, from downtown to the Hub, has been blocked with more obstacles than Carter had little pills.

Standing at the crossroads here in Nassau County, straddling the intersection of No Place and No Where (particularly where the street signs are missing, obliterated or hidden behind overgrown vegetation), residents are now faced with a referendum on the very future of Long Island. And while the question to be posed concerns whether we issue bonds -- some $400 million worth -- to build a new Coliseum, the real referendum ponders a more long term fate. Do we stand still, mired in yesteryear, leaving our island to be overrun by tumbleweeds, or do we move forward, laying the foundation for a viable, livable, smartly designed Long Island.

Frankly, standing still is not an option. To do nothing is to entomb Long Island in its own decaying infrastructure, assuring that the surveyed, who have been leaving our island in droves for decades (by the poll numbers, there should be no one left here but the squirrels), will yet again affirm that this is no place to live, to work, to raise families.

To build recklessly, on the other hand, by piecemeal, while increasing the tax burden to homeowners and business owners alike, is certainly not forward-thinking.

So, what to do?

Does a spanking new arena for the Islanders to have ice time -- or, for that matter, a minor league ballpark at Mitchel Field -- really change the landscape, opening the door not only to job growth but to a sustainable suburbia?

Sure, the Isles will have a new place to play, but, given the dirth of affordable housing, particularly for Generation Next, the diminishing job opportunities, the skyrocketing property taxes, and the ever-eroding tax base, where will their fans live?

What of the region's lack of transportation alternatives? Are we talking walkable here? You can get there from here, but only by car, through congested, pothole marked streets, with nary a Long Island Bus on the horizon. Light Rail, anyone?

Do a new arena, a minor leage ballfield, and, should the State, Feds and Indian Chiefs allow, a casino at Belmont park, truly change the dynamics of Long Island?

And what about Elmont's Argo, Baldwin's Grand Avenue and the many Main Streets, byways and downtrodden downtowns that dot Long Island? Will this be a "turn-the-corner" moment for communities across the island, or merely a pause in the disaster that has been the hallmark of planning, zoning and development in the region since the LI Regional Planning Board inked its very first Master Plan?

Panacea? Surely not. A fresh start for America's oldest suburb? Indeed!

We need to start down that road to revitalization sometime and somewhere. The "sometime" is now, not in 2035. The "somewhere" is the Nassau Hub, as cornerstone for rebuilding the spokes that are Long Island's neighborhoods.

Yes, we've managed to turn a $3.8 billion, privately financed, comprehensive plan to reinvent suburbia at the hub (the Lighthouse Project), into a $400 million, taxpayer financed, scantily detailed proposal to build a couple of stadium -- stadia?

Still, we need to get out of the starting gate.

Granted, there remain many more questions than there are answers. About revenues. About plans for the 77 acres surrounding the Coliseum. About who will develop what, when, and exactly where.

How do we preserve the suburban character of our Long Island while necessarily taking this region out of the 1950s and into the 21st century?

Hopefully, come August 1 (the date set for the referendum vote), we will be all the more knowledgeable and informed on the prospects of the hub as Ground Zero for the island's, if not the Islanders', resurrection. Then too, maybe we will have a clearer picture of what the plans are -- assuming there are any plans -- beyond the arena and the ballpark.

It's not simply about a new arena. On the line is whether Long Island's "Asphalt Wasteland" (we dare not conjure up visions of a paved over paradise) is transformed into a centerpiece of suburban renewal, sparking that long-awaited, much needed renaissance for points north, south, east and west.

"Build it and they will come?" That all depends upon the "it" to be built, and the "they" we hope to attract. That said, the imperative is clear. Have a plan. Not a notion. Not a sound byte. Not a shortsighted fix. A viable, doable, sustainable plan. Then, actually build something -- anything (well, almost anything) -- and let's begin to move Long Island forward together!
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Thoughts on the proposals for the Nassau Hub, a casino at Belmont, creating a truly sustainable Long Island? Post your Comments Below. Write us at TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CommunityAlli.

Be a part of Long Island's tomorrows!

If It Is Broke. . .

Why Ain't We Fixin' It?

You know that old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Meaning: It's working. Leave well enough alone.

Well, here on Long Island, things have been "broke" -- physically and fiscally -- for quite some time, and grumble as we may, seems we've been content to leave it alone rather than to even attempt a fix.

Infrastructure crumbling. "Downtowns" in the doldrums. Housing, even in a down market, unaffordable. Transportation system outmoded. Employment opportunities evaporating. Generation Next fleeing. Commercial centers, such as Nassau's hub, slowly becoming the Chernobyls of our island.

And those property taxes. New meaning to the chant of, We're Number 1! 

Yes, for too long, Nassau County had to play second fiddle to places like Westchester or Jersey. But now, we are firmly holding our own ('cause nobody else will touch it) in the highest property taxes in the nation category. Hooray for us!

Our prospects for unloading the burden? Not too promising, we're afraid. School taxes, which account for upwards of 60% of our property tax bills, are projected to continue to climb, while State Aid, in real dollars for our school districts (all 56 of them in Nassau, 127 island-wide) will likely fall.

School District administrators continue to rake in the big bucks. Teachers' Unions continue to demand more. Costs, from transportation to insurance, pensions to utilities, continue to skyrocket.

And here we remain, frozen in place, caught between the proverbial rock of wanting the best possible educational opportunities for our children, and the hard place of emptying our wallets to pay for what has too often become mediocrity and excess.

FixAlbany is little more than a special interest spin cycle. FixNewYork hangs its hat on that precarious 2% school tax cap, as if that was a cure-all. [Which part of "TAX INCREASE" don't we understand? Let's see. 2% per year. Ten years. Okay, you do the math...]

Consolidate school districts? Sure, but not ours.

Cap Superintendent salaries? All right. You go first.

Insist that Albany deliver on the guarantee of our State Constitution to provide a system of free public schools? Right. Freedom, even in our schools, is never free.

Do something to eliminate the inequities of State Aid, which favors upstate districts and shortchanges Long Island? Well, maybe next year.

Replace the regressive school property tax with a progressive income tax (or simply adjust the existing State income tax to earmark the dollars for our public schools)? Did someone say tax???

Tie the property tax to real income, rather than the artificial value of one's home? I'm still hearing the word tax...

Keep things the way they are, doing absolutely nothing, save talk a good game? Sounds like a plan to us!

Whether we're pining over school taxes, kvetching about special taxing districts, cursing the potholes or bemoaning the empty, dilapidated storefronts along "Main Street," other than paying hollow tribute to a bygone era (and paying that over the top tax bill), what are we really doing to correct our course, invest in our future, and right the mighty ship that once was the promise of suburbia?

Sure, they'll give us a farmer's market, or twelve, but with business districts little more than open sewers, housing, even in today's economy, out of reach, jobs nonexistent - and did we mention those outrageous property taxes - who's going to be left on Long Island to eat those delicious, organic, home-grown fruits and veggies?

Where development -- beyond the facetious ode to facade improvement by virtue of a wrought iron bench here, a planter there, and Victorian-style street lamps seemingly everywhere -- is no better than a four-letter word (with planning cum zoning rounding out the Scrabble board, letters all hoarded into one corner), just what are the prospects for a re-energized, reimagined, re-emergent Long Island?

Coliseum? Casino? Lighthouse Lite? Let's put it to a referendum, and then do nothing for the next ten years.

When talk -- or, worse still, Tweet -- supplants the very notion of action, and polls, surveys, conferences and endless visioning sessions have upended shovel to dirt, what is the hope for Long Island's future?

Believe it or not, we're optimists here at The Community Alliance. We truly believe that Long Island's best days, after far too many sleepless nights, are yet to appear on the horizon. Of course, we are realists, as well. Rather than to stand in place, immobilzed by fear, by inertia, by entrenched indifference, we need to begin to move forward. We need to take a long hard look at the big picture -- while taking into account the details -- and do more than merely consider our options. We need to take sustainable development, Smart Growth, and civic engagement well beyond the drawing board. Less talk. Much less. More doing. Much more.

It's broke, folks. Let's fix it!

Recycle. Reuse. Re, Er, Um, Whatever...

Remembering When Earth Day Really Meant Something

Back in the 1970s (why does that suddenly seem soooooooo very, very long ago?), when Earth Day, if not the Earth itself, was young, there was much ado, not only to commemorate, but actually to help heal, our planet.

Clean ups of parks, beaches, roadways, rivers and streams. Rallies to protect and improve the environment. Observances in every nook and cranny of this great land, from college campuses to local vest pocket parks.

Why, even the government joined in the celebration, clamping down on polluters, regulating emissions, and offering up public service announcements proding the nation to keep our planet clean.

Today, with more years behind it than many on this blue sphere have been alive, mention Earth Day, and, if you evoke more than a disengaged yawn, about all you'll hear is, "Oh yeah. Earth Day."

Sure, Google Earth Day (at least they remember), and you will no doubt find that our concern for Planet Earth abounds in cyberspace. Elsewhere, little more than mere mention.

Yes, towns, hamlets, civic and community organizations and, of course, those darn tree-hugging believers in the climate change hoax, recall the day, echoing its promise, evoking a faint hoorah. Still, Earth Day ain't what it used to was.

In our schools, there's little in the curriculum, other than a passing homage, perhaps, to Earth Day. Not enough time to expound on the virtues of keeping our planet safe for all creatures, great and small, what with the need to spend every classroom hour teaching to the tests.

Going Green used to mean something tangible. Doing something, proactively, to save the whales, cut down on CO2 and greenhouse gases, or help close that gapping hole in the Ozone layer. Today, Going Green is too often little more than a marketing tool. From Radio Shack to Starbucks, Earth Day is but a merchandising scheme to lure in the masses.

Why, even Congress (or at least one side of the aisle) has thrown Earth Day under the fume-spewing bus, hoping to end the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) role in oversight and regulation.

Granted, movements gain and lose momentum over time. They wane and ebb, much like the brown, oil-laden tides that blanket our shores with toxic waste. Wonder whether, a generation hence (if either mankind or any life on this good Earth will still be here), we'll be embracing the metaphors of Sustainability and Smart Growth the way we do Earth Day and Going Green? Sure, we'll have talked the talk. There's an abundance of that. But what will we have to show for it?

Clean air? Who needs it? Clean water? Highly overrated. Life as we know it? We'll worry about it tomorrow. Maybe.

Whatever happened to Keep America Beautiful? Remember those TV spots (pre-cable) featuring the Native American (we called them American Indians back then) shedding a tear over some inconsiderate boob tossing litter out of a car window? He'd be mortified if he had lived to see what we're doing to our poor planet today. And where's Woodsy Owl when we need him most?

Earth Day. Reduced, unlike Carbon emissions and water-borne carcinogens, to little more than a Hallmark moment.

We suppose that A Billion Acts of Green just don't go as far as they used to...

Happy, ho hum, Earth Day!

"Nassau County Is In A State Of Repair"

Or Is It, Disrepair?

"Repair" signifies that things -- like roads along Main Street, the infrastructure that is the foundation of our local economy, the tax base, long-eroding, the deficit -- are getting fixed.

Unfortunately, there is little, beyond the hollow rhetoric from both sides of the aisle, to indicate that Nassau County is on the road to recovery, let alone that the road is in the process of being repaved.

County Executive Ed Mangano is quick to point out the problems (and to blame most if not all of them on his predecessor), but falls short of offering real solutions. [Someone needs to clue us in on the numbers, too. If Mangano, as per his TV spot, turned a $133 million deficit into a surplus, how is it that we now have a $176 million deficit in Nassau County? We need more smoke to cover the mirrors here!]

The loyal opposition, meanwhile, is swift with its condemnation, telling us what we do not need -- a casino, for instance -- but offering little  more than homage to what we do need -- next-generation housing, among them -- without providing a roadmap (potholes sold seperately) showing how to get there.

State and Nassau County Democratic Chair, Jay Jacobs, calls Mangano's governance, "bumbling." With hindsight, it becomes all too clear that leadership during the Democrats' tenure wasn't all that much better.

So what's the problem and who's to blame? The old borrow and spend, hallmarks of both sides of the political spectrum, the stuff that county, town and school districts alike are made of, creating huge deficits and, ultimately, gargantuan paybacks, as in taxes, fees and rate hikes.

Who's to blame? Not Ed Mangano (he said so himself). Not Jay Jacobs. Not the Dems or the GOP. Heck, they've simply tried to give us, their constituents, exactly what we want. More of this. More of that. And then a bit of these and those to go along with them.

Never mind the cost. We'll worry about that later.

Well, folks, "later" is suddenly upon us. [Actually, it was upon us more than a decade ago, when Nassau County, in boom times, was at the brink of the financial precipice. We changed administrations, but every one of us wanted the good times to continue to roll.]

We can't blame the elected. After all, they are merely a reflection of our own sordid desires, and our unwillingness to pay the pipers for the tunes we demanded they play. And imperfect as they are in implementing our wishes, our representatives, bumbling and blithering, term after term, have given us what we have asked for -- sort of. A great colossus of government-induced spending for which there appears no end (nor cap) in sight.

Whom did we expect to bear the burden of paying for 56 separate school districts in Nassau County alone? What about those 200-plus special taxing districts, each emptying our wallets into their coffers? In a good economy -- make that a great economy -- Nassau floundered. And now, with markets wallowing, fiscal cupboards bare, NIFA barking at our heels, and inflation on the horizon? Exactly what did we expect?

Generation Next is fleeing. Seniors are struggling. The middle class is shrinking. The infrastructure -- much of it still mired, by the inertia of local government, in the 1950s -- is crumbling.

The mindset of the electorate here on Long Island? Apparently, doing nothing remains a viable option.

Perhaps Ed Mangano said it best (though not quite eloquently): "We're doing what the people are looking for..."

The cartoon character, Pogo, may not have been entirely off the mark when he said, "We have met the enemy and he is us!" Indeed, we have only ourselves to blame, really, for this awful mess we're in.
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From the cyberpages of patch.com:



The Democratic Response:

Nassau Dem Chair Responds to State of the County

Nassau Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs offers the following response to the State of the County.

It was hard to watch County Executive Ed Mangano stand before every resident of Nassau County and twist the truth about the situation we're in.

Mangano campaigned on a promise to improve our county’s finances, but his tenure as county executive has been marked by incompetence and fiscal irresponsibility.

The economy is struggling. There’s no argument about that. Too many of our neighbors can’t find jobs. Too many of our kids are leaving Long Island to seek their fortunes elsewhere – and why should they stay here? Our county executive has done nothing to help our communities weather this storm.

Mangano and the Republican majority in the county legislature promised to fix our county’s broken property tax assessment system, which overcharges homeowners by a total of $100 million every year. Their idea of a fix, however, was to make schools responsible for providing refunds to homeowners who pay too much.

The recession has forced school districts across Nassau to cut programs, fire teachers and raise taxes. Now that Mangano has made them responsible for doling out property tax refunds, they will be forced to make more cuts and increase their share of your property tax bill.

I want to emphasize this point: Ed Mangano wants us to believe that his budget doesn’t raise taxes, but he isn't telling the truth.

Mangano has also levied a new tax on nonprofit organizations, although he insists the new tax is a “fee.” This new tax charges nonprofits like hospitals and universities for using the county’s sewer system. To pay it, these nonprofits will have to raise tuition rates and levy fees of their own. Whatever you call this new burden, it amounts to more money out of your pocket.

Mangano needs to be honest with the people of Nassau County. He hasn’t fixed our broken assessment system. He simply shifted the burden away from the county. He didn’t pass a no-tax budget. He is forcing other entities to charge you for the costs of his policies. Our county executive can't keep treating the county budget like a shell game.

Under Mangano’s bumbling tenure, the state has had to take over the county budget. Simply put, our current county executive isn’t up to the challenge of governing during these difficult times. We need leaders who will make smart cuts and pursue real reform of our county’s assessment system, rather than passing the cost of the problem onto our schools. We need leaders who will support smart growth.

We don’t need a casino. We don’t need the traffic it would bring. We need next-generation housing. We need places for our kids to move when they get their first jobs. We need places for young people to congregate and socialize and form the bonds that hold communities together. With well-designed neighborhoods come new residents, who pay taxes and help our county invest in its future. We need a place for a new generation of Long Islanders to settle and grow.

We’re all in this together. That’s why we have to be careful about the cuts and investments we make in hard times – and Ed Mangano isn’t thinking in anyone’s future but his own. That’s why he slashed funding to Long Island Bus. That’s why he is imposing a new tax on hospitals and colleges. That’s why he wants to build a casino instead of a neighborhood. These proposals all sound good the way he spins them, but underneath his rhetoric, they are bad policies that will leave Nassau worse off in the long run.

Jay Jacobs is the chairman of the Nassau County Democratic Committee as well as the New York State Democratic Committee.

The Tumbleweeds Loom Larger On Long Island's Horizon

"Exit" Poll Finds LI's "Under 40s" Primed To Flee

Maybe it's the lack of affordable housing, or the dearth of jobs that provide a living wage. Perhaps the over-the-top property taxes are the cue, or the diminishing return on one's investment. Could be the general decline in Long Island's quality of life that's driving Generation Next away from here, or the spector of "downtowns" that are perennially depressed, "Main Streets" that are little more than open sewers, and those lofty visions of the suburban dream that have faded into memory, leaving only a nightmarish presence as defined by the ugliness of the Turnpike and the aloofness of local government.

Whatever the reasons -- and they are, to be sure, many and varied -- the young are poised to leave Long Island, in droves, further eroding the tax base, devastating the local economy, and leaving behind those who, by dint of their stubbornness or foolishness, must stay behind to foot the bills.

We watch the tides roll in and roll out on our Long Island. Day after day. Year after year. What washes ashore, aside from the occasional body or discarded tampon, is a mass of toxic seaweed that threatens, in its wake, to overrun the beach head.

Further inland, at places like the Nassau Hub, the tumbleweed gather outside the Coliseum like so many Tribbles, unruly masses ready to roll down the Turnpike, smothering everything in their path.

Maybe it's not simply the taxes, the housing shortage, the egregious cost of living, the jobs, the sheer magnitude of the down and out in our towns and hamlets. Maybe it's that local government, rarely proactive, and, of recent vintage, barely able to react with even so much as a knee jerk, has all but abandoned efforts to renew, revitalize, re-energize, or so much as read the writing on the crumbling walls of blighted brownfields.

And when reports and studies issue declaring, with admonishment, "Long Island's young people are leaving," populace and politicos alike, as if amused by Henny Penny's cry of "the sky is falling," do little more than shrug.

Guess what? The sky is falling!

Where opportunity knocks, local officials hide under the bed, never answering the door. Where big ideas are proposed, our local politicos think small. In lieu of future design, there is the default of resignation. Actions supplanted by words delivered on colorful leaflets in residents' mailboxes. Master Plans shelved. Citizens' visioning dismissed.

Projects ill-conceived. Plans left to turn to dust on the drafting board. Proposals rejected. Promises and artists' renderings regurgitated, rehashed, and recycled, but nary a shovel taken to the street.

"A better burb is coming." Yes, and so is the Messiah.

Even where there is progress, it is, at best, nominal, coming too late and costing too much. The "one step forward, two steps back" approach to everything from reclaiming downtrodden downtowns to reducing property taxes that are out of control.

Sad, we think, where the only quantifiable measure of progress is a township's disingenuous claim of having advanced the cause of transit-oriented development, when, truth be told (though who will be left to tell it?), town government did absolutely everything within its power to derail redevelopment.

The folks at Long Island Index aren't telling us anything new, really. We've heard it all before. Last year. The year before that. A decade ago.

And maybe that's the problem. Nothing changes. Not for the better, anyway. Mired in the past. Clueless about the future. We refuse to adapt. We choose not to evolve. We have truly become the town where time stood still.
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From Newsday:

Report says rentals are key to keeping LI's young

by PAUL LAROCCO / paul.larocco@newsday.com

Adapt or watch a generation of young professionals flee.

That's the message to municipalities from this year's Long Island Index report, which is to be released Thursday. It again focuses on underutilized downtowns. With few exceptions, the 13 towns, two cities and 22 villages that participated have been slow to embrace smart growth, the report concludes.

Outdated master plans and zoning codes hurt, but the report lays most blame on restrictions for developing high-density rental housing that typically anchors downtown redevelopment and attracts young adults.

Of the Long Island residents age 18 to 34 who participated in an Index survey, 64 percent said they plan to leave in the next five years. Three-quarters of the total 807 Long Island residents polled said the loss of younger residents is a serious problem, compared with 40 percent of those in suburban New Jersey who also participated in the 8th annual report, "Getting It Done: Aligning Long Island's Development Processes with Sustainable Economic Growth."

"All my nieces and nephews are moving away. And all my old friends, they're gone," said Mira Garland, 33, a Mastic stay-at-home mom and survey respondent. "They complain they can't afford to live here."

Nancy Rauch Douzinas, president of the Rauch foundation, a Garden City charity that funds various family and environment programs as well as the Long Island Index, said, "it's obvious we have not kept pace." Last year, the index identified 8,300 acres with development potential in 150 Long Island downtowns.

Hicksville was one such area. The Town of Oyster Bay, which includes the large hamlet, didn't participate in the index's land use planning survey, but town officials have opposed increased density.

"This bigger-is-better, or denser-is-better, approach, where one size fits all, we don't believe in that," Hal Mayer, Oyster Bay's environmental consultant to the supervisor, said Wednesday. "Each community knows what's best for itself."

The index acknowledged some progress. It cited Patchogue, Amityville and Mineola villages and Babylon, Islip, Brookhaven, Riverhead and Hempstead towns as trying to reshape their downtowns.

But only Hempstead, Long Island's most-populated town, has undertaken a transit-oriented development. The district around West Hempstead's LIRR station is to include a 150-unit apartment complex within walking distance of the station, a town spokesman said.

The index concluded other towns mostly ignore potential around the Long Island Rail Road, creating "isolated station(s) in a sea of parking."

The Huntington Town Board in September rejected the transit-oriented Avalon Bay housing development in Huntington Station. Critics claimed the project would have overburdened the community while supporters called it key to revitalization.

Heard On The Tweet

Things That Can No Longer Be Sustained On Long Island

With all the talk of "sustainability" these days, particularly as concerns our environment, our lifestyles, our "downtowns" and our suburban way of life (as we know it or as we'd like it to become), and with the holidays at hand, The Community Alliance thought it appropriate to make a list -- checking it twice -- of "Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island."

We posted some of our favorite unsustainable things on Twitter (www.twitter.com/CommunityAlli) over the course of two days, and now republish Tweets (to date) below.

We encourage readers of this blog to add to the list, by Tweeting @CommunityAlli, commenting on this blogpost, or e-mailing us at TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com.

Rather than to simply put coal in the proverbial community stocking, adding more "Bah. Humbug!" to the communal scene, it is our hope and desire, for the holidays and beyond, to create positives from the negative, taking that which is unsustainable on our Long Island, and recasting these pessimistic attributes into optimistic affirmations. A sustainable community, with a thriving quality of life for all, right here on our Long Island!
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Here, now, the list as Tweeted @CommunityAlli:

• We're making a list and checking it twice. Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. We'll start you off. 124 school disticts.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Blighted downtowns. Add to the list. Tweet or e-mail TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Nepotism/cronyism in local government. Your turn. . .
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Special Taxing Districts. For Everything. Tweet us to add to our list.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Blighted Main Streets.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. The flight of Generation Next.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. A 25 cent return on every tax dollar sent to Albany.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Silence and complacency. Is anyone out there?
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Artists' renderings. Endless visioning. Broken promises. Anything? Anybody?
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Talk of reform, renewal or revolt without corresponding action.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. The apathy of the electorate and the indifference of the elected.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Spending what we do not have and borrowing what we cannot repay.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island.The pillaging of the middle class. Chime in any time, folks!
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. The paucity of affordable housing. The scarcity of open space. The audacity of dopes.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Horizontal design sets. 1950s mindsets. Anything else?
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Erosion of the aquifers. Destruction of greenscapes. Proliferation of brownfields.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Smart Growth dumbed down.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Dysfunction in Albany.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. 124 School Superintendents @$250,000+ a pop.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. The Islanders (with or without a new Coliseum).
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Still further delay in redeveloping the Nassau Hub (with or without Kate Murray).
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Major media outlets all monopolized by the Dolans.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Crumbling infrastructure. Buckling roadways. Twenty miles of ugly along theTurnpike.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. LIPAsuction.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Mass transit that is too expensive and less expansive.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. The list continues. [Feel free to add to it @CommunityAlli.]
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. MTA fare hikes and cutbacks.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. NIMBYism.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Cablevision rate hikes and LIPA/National Grid surcharges.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. New taxes disguised as fees.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. The privatization of public parks. Thoughts? Anybody? Helllllllloooooooooooooo...
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Endless studies, surveys, polls and reports. Same findings. Little result.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Commissions. Blue-Ribbon Panels. Zoning Boards. Planning Councils.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. 5 Special Sanitary Districts, 14 Village Sanitary Districts. 1 Sanitation Department.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. ALL in a single Town!
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. 55 Fire Districts. 18 Water Districts. 2 Sewer Districts. ALL in a single Town!
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. 707 local government entities. ALL on a single Island!
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Property taxes. Income taxes. Sales taxes.
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Did we mention 124 separate and distinct school districts?
• Things that can no longer be sustained on Long Island. Sadly, the dearth of Tweets on the issue of "things that can no longer be sustained."
 

And the Tweet goes on (or does it?). . . Folks, a sustainable Long Island is up to all of us!

Don't just follow us @CommunityAlli. Join with us, as we work to take back our towns, revitalize our downtowns, reinvent "Main Street," reinvigorate community, and improve the quality of life of every Long Islander. 

The Community Alliance

New Ideas for America's First Suburb

If Only We Could Get Someone To Buy "Main Street"

Resurgence Of "Downtown" Requires Private Enterprise And Community Ingenuity

Bringing downtown back!

Seems that's what Town and County officials have been advocating, if not actually doing, for years -- make that decades -- here on Long Island.

From Nassau County's now defunct Operation Downtown, to the Town of Hempstead's typically feeble Facade Improvement Program (all right, so it's all a facade), the movement to revitalize "Main Street" (best efforts of the likes of Vision Long Island and Sustainable Long Island notwithstanding) has been almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Yes, a reinvigorated block here, and a cleverly parsed rehab there, but on the whole (and this is particularly so in the unincorporated areas of our towns, the last outposts of lawlessness, where the only things missing from the landscape are the tumbleweeds), our "downtowns" (if you can call them that) and our "Main Streets" (blink, and you'll miss them -- if you're lucky) are, for the most part, bastions of neglect, decline, and decay.

The illuminating glow of Smart Growth -- more myth than mainstay on the streets of Long Island -- has yet to light the way for progressive, essential, community-friendly redevelopment on any meaningful scale.

Zoning Boards, Planning Boards, and Zoning Boards acting as Planning Boards, have done little more over the years than to, unwittingly perhaps, best intentions aside, stay the course. Master Plans becoming servant to political expediency. NIMBYism being the rallying cry around which our communities find comfort in the status quo. A Levittownian mindset, miring our towns in the aura of the 1950s.

Amidst the complacency, the apathy, the indifference of a populace, beaten down, perhaps, by decades of governmental malaise, are heard the occasional voices of that new suburbia some of us have heard talk of. Build A Better Burb. Charming on paper. Nowhere near coming to a community near you.

No one said building a better burb would be easy, or inexpensive. The cost, in terms of dollars and cents and the sustainability of life on our Long Island as we'd like to know it, is all that much greater.

The infusion of federal money (when the feds had money). Portended Town and County "partnerships" (the stuff that photo ops and press releases are made of). Conferences, forums, diatribes and visioning sessions. All offering glimmers of hope. All vanishing, like grains of sand in the ebb and flow of the tide.

Followers of this blog have had hopes raised (recall Tom Suozzi's Magical Mystery Bus Tours), only to have them dashed (if not ground into pixie dust), time and time again, by inaction, by delay, by ineptitude, by we, the people, letting dreamscapes fall by the wayside.

Grand Avenue in Baldwin is still not so grand. The old Argo in Elmont is nowhere near being a supermarket. And is that the Courtesy Hotel we still see standing over there in West Hempstead?

So, what, we ask, is the answer? [What was the question again? Oh, yeah. The rebirth of "Downtown."] If government won't get it done, visionaries can't get it done, and the communal spirit doesn't care one way or the other whether it gets done, how do we take back "Main Street?"

Umm. One building, one block, one vacant storefront at a time, through private developers willing to take the risk on the second coming of downtown.

Check out this article in  The New York Times, Ressurecting a Village by Buying Up Main Street. [We'd reprint the story, but for fear of threatened prosecution for copyright infringement!]

Maybe bringing downtown back does take a village. Or, at the very least, one person willing to buy it.

There's Money In Them Thar Parks!

Report Concludes That LI Parks Boost Local Economy

And here you thought that all we do is pay, pay, pay for parks and recreation on Long Island. Property taxes. Fees. And did we mention, fees? ;-)

Well, according to the folks at the Trust for Public Land, green (as in parks and recreational space) is the new gold.

Our parks, waterways, open spaces, often enjoyed (and paid for) by residents and out-of-towners alike, raise revenues, generate health benefits, and increase the values of residential properties.

In other words, Long Islanders are reaping the benefits of County and Town parks, green spaces, and preserves.

Are our parks and open spaces up to par? Are we getting the bang we deserve for the bucks we pay? Do the profits and loses add up?

A matter of debate.

One thing for sure, though. Beyond the dollars and cents, preserving, maintaining, and, yes, creating parks, preserves and open space is good thing for Long Islanders. Indeed, trees, grass, and park land are the very stuff that define suburbia.

Let's keep it green!
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Long Island Open Space, Parks Provide Economic Payback

Contact: Tim Ahern, 415-710-9095

Patchogue, New York: The Trust for Public Land (TPL) released their report, "The Economic Benefits and Fiscal Impacts of Parks and Open Space in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, New York. TPL, a national conservation organization found that parks and open space provide a $2.74 billion annual economic boon to local governments and taxpayers on Long Island. The report details how conservation of parks and open space generates income and increases property values, even as it reduces the costs associated with new government services, if the land were developed.

"Long Islanders have always appreciated their parks and preserves for their aesthetic, recreational and health benefits," said John McNally, Rauch Foundation. "Now, they can appreciate the economic benefits and cost savings represented by the land they love," he added.

The report says Long Islanders are willing to pay $1.48 billion annually to recreate in public parks, with non-residents spending $615 million in the local economy, producing $27.3 million in sales tax. 611,000 Long Islanders engage in physical activities in parks that generate measurable health benefits of $164 million a year. Proximity to parks and open space increases the value of residential properties (an aggregate one time increase of $5.8 billion). Increased tax revenues generate $58.2 million annually.

"There's an ancillary benefit to the conservation of open space and parks," said Jessica Sargeant of TPL. The annual cost of new residential development in Nassau and Suffolk is $33,000 per acre, while the cost of open space and parks in the two counties is just $3,750 per acre, more than eight times less costly than development. So, Long Islanders get "twice the economic benefit" from open space and parks, relative to more residential development."

The report was commissioned by the Long Island Community Foundation and the Rauch Foundation and was released at a 12:30 p.m. news conference, held at the Fire Island Visitors Center and Watch Hill Terminal in Patchogue. The Keynote Speaker was New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and dozens of Long Island leaders were on hand to await the findings. "The report highlights the broad base of support for open space conservation and the many benefits that open space provides. An earlier study by my office made similar findings. The Long Island Pine Barrens Protection Act is clear evidence that with sound planning, we do not have to choose between economic growth and protection of natural areas. In order to preserve our communities, we all must continue to foster smart growth and the conservation of open space", said Comptroller DiNapoli.

The report called attention to the thriving agriculture industry on Long Island, worth $288 million annually. This includes visits to wineries and to pick strawberries in the spring, pumpkins in the fall and shop for Christmas trees in the winter.

In addition, protecting the source of underground drinking water reduces the cost of water up to ten-fold and parks and open spaces capture precipitation or slow its run-off, reducing storm water management costs by $23.9 million annually. Trees and shrubs also remove air pollutants, reducing pollution control costs by $18.9 million a year.

Copies of the report can be downloaded at www.tpl.org/longislandanalysis

About Trust for Public Land
The Trust for Public Land is a national nonprofit land conservation organization dedicated to preserving land for people to enjoy as parks, open spaces and gardens. TPL was founded in 1972 and relies upon the support of individuals, foundations and corporations.

About Long Island Community Foundation
The Long Island Community Foundation (LICF) is a 31-year-old operating division of the New York Community Trust. The mission of the Long Island Community Foundation is to enhance the well being of the people and communities of Long Island. The Foundation does this by identifying current and future community needs, strengthening the capacity of the Island's not-for-profit sector to respond to community needs, and encouraging philanthropy and building a permanent endowment to address these needs. Visit LICF at http://licf.org/

About the Rauch Foundation
The Rauch Foundation is a Long Island-based family foundation that supports innovative and effective programs designed to: Give disadvantaged children a better start in life; Improve the natural environment in Long Island and Maryland; and Build management skills and develop leadership in the nonprofit sector. The Foundation is also the convener and publisher of the Long Island Index. The Index provides data about the Long Island region in order to promote informed public debate and sound policy making. For more information, visit http://www.rauchfoundation.org/
Please save paper. Think before you print. © 2010 The Trust for Public Land.
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Write to The Community Alliance at TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com

Tweet with The Community Alliance at www.twitter.com/CommunityAlli

Sustainability: From Marketplace to Main Street

Where Fresh Fruits and Veggies Go Hand in Hand with Fighting Blight in Suburbia

There aren't too many farms in Nassau County, New York. Indeed, aside from the old Grossman's Farm in Malverne, today but a barren patch of land and a lofty dream of tomorrow's harvest, there aren't any farms at all.

Indeed, county residents had to trek out to a farm stand in Suffolk, or take a ride upstate, to be where the good earth yield apples, strawberries, broccoli and vine ripened tomatoes. Until now, that is.

Over the last few years, farmers' markets, bearing the fresh and the healthful, untainted by chemical additives and raised with care, mostly locally, have popped up in Nassau. [The county itself hosts two farmers' markets, one in Garden City, the other in Roslyn.]

Today, the noteriety -- and significance -- of the local farmers' market is on the rise, and has been made more prevelent, not to mention relevant, by an organization better known for raising downtown than raising asparagus (asparagi?).

Sustainable Long Island, long a catalyst for sustainable development in the communities we call home, has reintroduced the farmers' market, and in particular, the youth-run farmers' market, across our island, raising hope, esteem, nutrition smarts, the idea and ideal of a sustainable economy and a green environment -- together, of course, with the carrots, beets and the occasional green squash.

These farmers' markets, in Roosevelt and North Bellport, support not only the local economy, but a return, if not to farming and tilling the land as vocation on Long Island, to a more natural, sustainable way of life.

"The launch of these two markets brings hope to these communities, along with countless others on Long Island, that fresh, healthy, affordable food alternatives are available," said Sarah Lansdale, Executive Director, Sustainable Long Island. "No more will they have to settle for high fat, sugar filled, greasy snacks and meals; they will now have what every community and every person deserves: an option."

Of course, the farmers' markets also make for exceptional photo ops for the politicos, so, apparently, there's no cutting the "high fat" and "greasy snacks" entirely. ;-)

Yes, we chide, with more than a bit of sarcastic causticity, our friends at Sustainable Long Island for what appears, on the surface, to be a move away from curing the ills on Main Street to a throwback to the agrarian past of Long Island's yesteryears.

"You say apples and broccoli. We see apathy and blight," has been our common cry on Twitter posts at www.Twitter.com/CommunityAlli.  Our downtowns are crumbling, rarely inviting and barely sustainable (economically and otherwise), and here is the very group whose energies and fortitude stood at the forefront of Main Street's revival, hawking fruits and vegetables.

Ahhh. Sustainability is not brick and mortar alone. Sometimes, it takes a banana and a handful of bean sprouts to raise a village.

There is clearly no retreat on the part of Sustainable Long Island from the work -- that which has been accomplished and, to be sure, that which lies ahead - of downtown renewal. The rebirth of Main Street, through innovative, smart growth initiatives, is vital to a new beginning for America's first and oldest suburb.

Man does not live by bread alone, the old saying goes. Nor do the men, women and children of Long Island emerge from economic starvation, ergonomic deviation, and developmental stagnation by merely placing planters at the curb alongside art-carved benches and Victorian-style streetlamps, calling it "Streetscape Improvement."

Food for the body is as necessary as food for the soul (and the ever-popular food for thought) in reshaping our island into a truly sustainable environment, from the nutritional value of the fresh fruits and legumes we purchase at the local farmers' markets, to the inherent value of walkable, livable, viable "downtowns."

Kudos to Sustainable Long Island, and please, pass the cherries.
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