Did Somebody Say "Downtown?"
Forgive us if we scratch our heads here at The Community Alliance, somewhat astounded that the public at large is finally "getting it" -- the critical importance of our suburban "downtowns" to Long Island's renaissance.
Okay. So we've been throwing "downtown" in your face since day one. Walkability. Connectivity. Mixed use and diversity. Affordable housing. Increased density. Open and green space preservation. Smart transportation.
Better late than never, folks. Welcome aboard!;-)
- - -
Read the Newsday special feature, The Future of Long Island: Downtowns.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
El Cinco De Mangano
Government By Diversion In Nassau County
Infrastructure crumbling. "Main Street" desolate. Our young workforce and college grads fleeing. Budget deficits looming. Brownfields getting browner. Open space and parkland growing smaller.
So what is it that Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and his GOP cohorts in the Nassau County Legislature concern themselves with?
The great issues of the day: Long Island as the 51st State, and dropping the required calorie count at Nassau's fast food restaurants.
Is it us, or are they simply trying to keep our already deficient focus away from the real issues that plague America's oldest suburb?
The 51st State? Been there. Discussed that. Deep-sixed the idea long ago as not viable. [The key element in the argument -- money, and keeping more of it on LI -- falls by the wayside when one examines, historically, what happens to the tax dollars that never actually leave the region, ala school districts and special districts. Bang for our buck? Yeah, right. Lower taxes because these districts are home grown? Nah. We waste it close to home nearly as proficiently as they do in Albany.]
And weren't these folks the proponents of less goverment, not more? Add to our woes as 51st State a new, dysfunctional legislature, and a governor (Peter King, perhaps?) of our very own. [Alert the border patrol!]
But enough of sovereignty for Nassau and Suffolk. It's the calorie count, stupid!
No need for the calories in our Big Macs to be displayed at the local MacDonald's. In fact, since we have absolutely nothing better to do, let's repeal the existing County law, as it may conflict with coming Federal legislation. Repeal the law? Really?
Even Peter Schmitt, who, by all accounts, should start counting those calories, must know that the Federal law would pre-empt, or supercede, local law, obviating the need for repeal. And, in the interim, would keeping a keen eye on calories, if not waistlines, be such a bad idea?
But nooooooooooooo. From the sublime to the ridiculous to the completely outrageous -- the Shinnecock Indian tribe running a casino at the Coliseum -- Nassau's three-ring circus (Mondello-Managno-Murray) rivals Ringling Brothers for the greatest sideshow on earth, where, through the politics of delusion, deceiving is believing.
Step right up, ladies, gentlemen, and, were there any left on Long Island, children of all ages...
Infrastructure crumbling. "Main Street" desolate. Our young workforce and college grads fleeing. Budget deficits looming. Brownfields getting browner. Open space and parkland growing smaller.
So what is it that Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and his GOP cohorts in the Nassau County Legislature concern themselves with?
The great issues of the day: Long Island as the 51st State, and dropping the required calorie count at Nassau's fast food restaurants.
Is it us, or are they simply trying to keep our already deficient focus away from the real issues that plague America's oldest suburb?
The 51st State? Been there. Discussed that. Deep-sixed the idea long ago as not viable. [The key element in the argument -- money, and keeping more of it on LI -- falls by the wayside when one examines, historically, what happens to the tax dollars that never actually leave the region, ala school districts and special districts. Bang for our buck? Yeah, right. Lower taxes because these districts are home grown? Nah. We waste it close to home nearly as proficiently as they do in Albany.]
And weren't these folks the proponents of less goverment, not more? Add to our woes as 51st State a new, dysfunctional legislature, and a governor (Peter King, perhaps?) of our very own. [Alert the border patrol!]
But enough of sovereignty for Nassau and Suffolk. It's the calorie count, stupid!
No need for the calories in our Big Macs to be displayed at the local MacDonald's. In fact, since we have absolutely nothing better to do, let's repeal the existing County law, as it may conflict with coming Federal legislation. Repeal the law? Really?
Even Peter Schmitt, who, by all accounts, should start counting those calories, must know that the Federal law would pre-empt, or supercede, local law, obviating the need for repeal. And, in the interim, would keeping a keen eye on calories, if not waistlines, be such a bad idea?
But nooooooooooooo. From the sublime to the ridiculous to the completely outrageous -- the Shinnecock Indian tribe running a casino at the Coliseum -- Nassau's three-ring circus (Mondello-Managno-Murray) rivals Ringling Brothers for the greatest sideshow on earth, where, through the politics of delusion, deceiving is believing.
Step right up, ladies, gentlemen, and, were there any left on Long Island, children of all ages...
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Permission To Say NO To School Budgets?
Permission DENIED!
Just weeks ago, Governor Chris Christie of the Garden State gave his blessing to voters to say NO to school budgets, and down they went in droves.
Not that voters were following Christie's lead into the darkness, but they certainly were upset enough with out-of-control property taxes to send school boards and district administrators in New Jersey back to the drawing board.
With Long Islanders set to vote on school budgets on May 18th, the perennial call has gone out to vote NO on this year's crop of school budgets, mostly under the guise that a NO vote will reduce the property tax (it won't) or send a message to both school and government officials that enough is enough (it hasn't).
To make matters worse, adding fuel to the fire, insurgent groups such as Long Islanders for Educational Reform (LIFER) have reached out to Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, asking him to give voters "permission" to vote NO on school budgets.
Leaving aside that none of us should confuse "reform" with the devisive, if not insidious agenda that lurks just beneath the facade of LIFERistas and their erzats Tea Party cohorts (who would take on not only budgets and school boards, but curriculum and textbooks), and that no one with a quarter of a noggin would give a hoot as to "permission" from either the County Executive or the Pope on such matters, the real issue here is what's behind a NO vote.
-NO to high property taxes. Of course.
-NO to runaway salaries, pensions, and administrators paid to excess. Yup.
-NO to a lack of transparency and accountability.You betcha!
Will voting down school budgets -- which, by the way, does absolutely nothing to lower the tax rate, and little if anything to reduce the tax levy -- resolve any or all of these issues that prey upon our solvency?
Not a one!
Vote down the budget, and the salaries, pensions, and sky-high administrative costs are still intact.
Vote down the budget, and school boards, teachers' unions, and district superintendents are no more accountable than they were the day, or year, or decade before.
Vote down the budget, and your property taxes still go up, up, and up some more.
So, what does happen when school budgets fail? Suffer our own children, that's what.
What gets cut? Instructional programs. Academics. After school activities. Athletics. Late buses.
Who gets hurt? The students, the parents, indeed, entire communities, still burdened with the evils voters sought to slay, with a system of education, not to mention the district's reputation, now in shambles.
Why, we ask, more than rhetorically, are we so quick to vote NO on school budgets, but barely raise an eyebrow, or offer up more than a smirk, when it comes to going after the real culprits of unsustainable property taxes -- elected officials and, dare we admit it, ourselves?
Instead of voting down budgets in May, sending messages of disgust and disdain to our kids, we should, by all reason, be voting out the politicians in November -- notably, in the NYS Legislature, who refuse to say --
-NO to cutting State Aid to eduction
-NO to unfunded mandates
-NO to the inequitable funding of school districts
-NO to taking tax dollars but returning only pennies
-NO to financing education through a regressive and unfair property tax
-NO to a pension system that is literally bankrupting New York
-NO to 124 separate school districts on Long Island, each with an administration that costs us millions
The list of NOs could go on, ad infinitum, but you get the idea.
We selfishly withhold our approval of sound educational initiatives, the pride of suburbia's past and the very foundation of Long Island's future, while granting elected officials carte blanche to maintain a status quo that, by its very nature, is a formula for our own economic and social demise.
Shame on them. Shame on us!
On Tuesday, May 18th, vote YES for your school budget. Save your NO vote for when it counts -- Tuesday, November 2nd!
- - -
From the Long Island Herald:
EDITORIAL
Vote with reason, not resentment
On New Jersey’s Election Day, April 20, Gov. Chris Christie wanted voters to reject school budget proposals in any districts where the unionized teachers weren’t willing to freeze their salaries for a year.
Christie said he saw no reason that teachers should be exempt from sharing in the sacrifices that others in the state are having to make these days. It didn’t seem right to him that while many residents in private-sector jobs weren’t getting any raises — and many others were getting laid off — taxpayer-funded public-school teachers’ pay would just keep going up.
A lot of residents apparently didn’t think it was right either, and 58 percent of the state’s school budgets were rejected, the most in 35 years.
So teachers’ salaries in those districts won’t increase, right? Well, not right. There’s another reality: Teachers work under contracts, and budgets aren’t contracts. Budgets are where spending plans get harmonized with revenue expectations.
School boards in districts with failed budgets can’t unilaterally abrogate contracts. Since Christie has said that New Jersey districts can’t look to the state for more aid, they will have to cut spending by dropping more instructional programs, curtailing children’s extracurricular activities, laying off teachers and other staff, charging — or charging more — for community access to district fields and facilities, and making other reductions in the services schools provide students.
In other words, failed budgets will not affect teachers’ pay, but will affect — negatively — student learning, educational quality and community well-being.
School districts here on the South Shore could suffer the same fate if enough voters hold budgets hostage to their resentments. In most local districts, teachers’ salaries start in the $45,000 to $50,000 range and top out at $110,000 to $115,000 for those with two to three decades of experience and multiple advanced degrees.
School administrators’ salaries run well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and include generous benefits packages.
Given that the nation is only starting to emerge from a deep recession — with unemployment still close to 10 percent and many of those who are employed receiving no pay increases or having to deal with reductions in salaries and hours — it’s little wonder that many folks believe teachers shouldn’t get raises next year.
While we agree that no public employees — including teachers and school administrators — should be exempt from the reality that district residents must cope with, we don’t believe that voting down budgets evens the playing field. We do believe that failed budgets will make other bad things happen, and that’s reason enough to consider approving reasonable, modest increases in school spending.
On May 18, when New Yorkers will vote on those budgets, they can also vote in school board elections. Voters need to recognize that board members are involved in contract negotiations — if not directly, then in approving or rejecting teachers’ and administrators’ contracts on taxpayers’ behalf.
Find out where the candidates stand on administrators’ and teachers’ compensation. Look into their backgrounds and find out which candidates you want on management’s side when contracts are negotiated, and which would be most likely to resist a change in the status quo where contracts are concerned.
The time to effect change in the largest category of school spending — teacher and administrator compensation — is when contracts are being negotiated, not when you have to decide whether the proposed budget meets students’ educational needs. But now is when you can let your board member candidates know your priorities.
Just weeks ago, Governor Chris Christie of the Garden State gave his blessing to voters to say NO to school budgets, and down they went in droves.
Not that voters were following Christie's lead into the darkness, but they certainly were upset enough with out-of-control property taxes to send school boards and district administrators in New Jersey back to the drawing board.
With Long Islanders set to vote on school budgets on May 18th, the perennial call has gone out to vote NO on this year's crop of school budgets, mostly under the guise that a NO vote will reduce the property tax (it won't) or send a message to both school and government officials that enough is enough (it hasn't).
To make matters worse, adding fuel to the fire, insurgent groups such as Long Islanders for Educational Reform (LIFER) have reached out to Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, asking him to give voters "permission" to vote NO on school budgets.
Leaving aside that none of us should confuse "reform" with the devisive, if not insidious agenda that lurks just beneath the facade of LIFERistas and their erzats Tea Party cohorts (who would take on not only budgets and school boards, but curriculum and textbooks), and that no one with a quarter of a noggin would give a hoot as to "permission" from either the County Executive or the Pope on such matters, the real issue here is what's behind a NO vote.
-NO to high property taxes. Of course.
-NO to runaway salaries, pensions, and administrators paid to excess. Yup.
-NO to a lack of transparency and accountability.You betcha!
Will voting down school budgets -- which, by the way, does absolutely nothing to lower the tax rate, and little if anything to reduce the tax levy -- resolve any or all of these issues that prey upon our solvency?
Not a one!
Vote down the budget, and the salaries, pensions, and sky-high administrative costs are still intact.
Vote down the budget, and school boards, teachers' unions, and district superintendents are no more accountable than they were the day, or year, or decade before.
Vote down the budget, and your property taxes still go up, up, and up some more.
So, what does happen when school budgets fail? Suffer our own children, that's what.
What gets cut? Instructional programs. Academics. After school activities. Athletics. Late buses.
Who gets hurt? The students, the parents, indeed, entire communities, still burdened with the evils voters sought to slay, with a system of education, not to mention the district's reputation, now in shambles.
Why, we ask, more than rhetorically, are we so quick to vote NO on school budgets, but barely raise an eyebrow, or offer up more than a smirk, when it comes to going after the real culprits of unsustainable property taxes -- elected officials and, dare we admit it, ourselves?
Instead of voting down budgets in May, sending messages of disgust and disdain to our kids, we should, by all reason, be voting out the politicians in November -- notably, in the NYS Legislature, who refuse to say --
-NO to cutting State Aid to eduction
-NO to unfunded mandates
-NO to the inequitable funding of school districts
-NO to taking tax dollars but returning only pennies
-NO to financing education through a regressive and unfair property tax
-NO to a pension system that is literally bankrupting New York
-NO to 124 separate school districts on Long Island, each with an administration that costs us millions
The list of NOs could go on, ad infinitum, but you get the idea.
We selfishly withhold our approval of sound educational initiatives, the pride of suburbia's past and the very foundation of Long Island's future, while granting elected officials carte blanche to maintain a status quo that, by its very nature, is a formula for our own economic and social demise.
Shame on them. Shame on us!
On Tuesday, May 18th, vote YES for your school budget. Save your NO vote for when it counts -- Tuesday, November 2nd!
- - -
From the Long Island Herald:
EDITORIAL
Vote with reason, not resentment
On New Jersey’s Election Day, April 20, Gov. Chris Christie wanted voters to reject school budget proposals in any districts where the unionized teachers weren’t willing to freeze their salaries for a year.
Christie said he saw no reason that teachers should be exempt from sharing in the sacrifices that others in the state are having to make these days. It didn’t seem right to him that while many residents in private-sector jobs weren’t getting any raises — and many others were getting laid off — taxpayer-funded public-school teachers’ pay would just keep going up.
A lot of residents apparently didn’t think it was right either, and 58 percent of the state’s school budgets were rejected, the most in 35 years.
So teachers’ salaries in those districts won’t increase, right? Well, not right. There’s another reality: Teachers work under contracts, and budgets aren’t contracts. Budgets are where spending plans get harmonized with revenue expectations.
School boards in districts with failed budgets can’t unilaterally abrogate contracts. Since Christie has said that New Jersey districts can’t look to the state for more aid, they will have to cut spending by dropping more instructional programs, curtailing children’s extracurricular activities, laying off teachers and other staff, charging — or charging more — for community access to district fields and facilities, and making other reductions in the services schools provide students.
In other words, failed budgets will not affect teachers’ pay, but will affect — negatively — student learning, educational quality and community well-being.
School districts here on the South Shore could suffer the same fate if enough voters hold budgets hostage to their resentments. In most local districts, teachers’ salaries start in the $45,000 to $50,000 range and top out at $110,000 to $115,000 for those with two to three decades of experience and multiple advanced degrees.
School administrators’ salaries run well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and include generous benefits packages.
Given that the nation is only starting to emerge from a deep recession — with unemployment still close to 10 percent and many of those who are employed receiving no pay increases or having to deal with reductions in salaries and hours — it’s little wonder that many folks believe teachers shouldn’t get raises next year.
While we agree that no public employees — including teachers and school administrators — should be exempt from the reality that district residents must cope with, we don’t believe that voting down budgets evens the playing field. We do believe that failed budgets will make other bad things happen, and that’s reason enough to consider approving reasonable, modest increases in school spending.
On May 18, when New Yorkers will vote on those budgets, they can also vote in school board elections. Voters need to recognize that board members are involved in contract negotiations — if not directly, then in approving or rejecting teachers’ and administrators’ contracts on taxpayers’ behalf.
Find out where the candidates stand on administrators’ and teachers’ compensation. Look into their backgrounds and find out which candidates you want on management’s side when contracts are negotiated, and which would be most likely to resist a change in the status quo where contracts are concerned.
The time to effect change in the largest category of school spending — teacher and administrator compensation — is when contracts are being negotiated, not when you have to decide whether the proposed budget meets students’ educational needs. But now is when you can let your board member candidates know your priorities.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Toward The Demise Of The Plastic Bag
A Vote For CCE Is A Vote For A Cleaner Long Island
From our good friends at Citizens Campaign for the Environment:
CITIZENS CAMPAIGN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
ACTION ALERT
VOTE FOR CCE!
Help us win $5,000 and reduce plastic bag pollution.
RNN TV is hosting an “I on the Environment” contest, and CCE has made it to the final round. Now it’s up to you! Visit RNN’s website and vote for CCE as your favorite environmental campaign.
Plastic pollution is an ever-growing problem. We’re suffering under five decades worth of plastic production – material that never breaks down. The use of plastic bags endangers and kills fish and wildlife and is completely unnecessary. A 2005 study found that almost 200 species of marine life are adversely affected by plastic bag pollution.
Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals, and turtles are killed annually by plastic bags.
CCE recently launched our BYOB ("Bring Your Own Bag") campaign. The campaign is featured on RNN’s “I on the Environment." The campaign urges members of the public to use reusable shopping bags instead of harmful disposable plastic bags. This will prevent thousands of plastic bags from polluting our environment - bags that would exist forever.
View our video
Voting will be open until midnight on May 5.
Please take one minute to simply click and vote for CCE’s video now.
Thank you for taking action. Together we make a difference!
Sincerely,
YOUR FRIENDS AT CCE
From our good friends at Citizens Campaign for the Environment:
CITIZENS CAMPAIGN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
ACTION ALERT
VOTE FOR CCE!
Help us win $5,000 and reduce plastic bag pollution.
RNN TV is hosting an “I on the Environment” contest, and CCE has made it to the final round. Now it’s up to you! Visit RNN’s website and vote for CCE as your favorite environmental campaign.
Plastic pollution is an ever-growing problem. We’re suffering under five decades worth of plastic production – material that never breaks down. The use of plastic bags endangers and kills fish and wildlife and is completely unnecessary. A 2005 study found that almost 200 species of marine life are adversely affected by plastic bag pollution.
Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals, and turtles are killed annually by plastic bags.
CCE recently launched our BYOB ("Bring Your Own Bag") campaign. The campaign is featured on RNN’s “I on the Environment." The campaign urges members of the public to use reusable shopping bags instead of harmful disposable plastic bags. This will prevent thousands of plastic bags from polluting our environment - bags that would exist forever.
View our video
Voting will be open until midnight on May 5.
Please take one minute to simply click and vote for CCE’s video now.
Thank you for taking action. Together we make a difference!
Sincerely,
YOUR FRIENDS AT CCE
Tick, Tick, Tick. . .
From Costly Garbage To Raw Sewage, LI's Environmental Time Bomb Is About To Explode
While gushing oil engulfs the Gulf of Mexico, endangering both sea and shore, Long Island's very own toxic time bomb awaits self-detonation at Cedar Creek.
We've long complained about those insidious taxing fiefdoms known as the Sanitary Districts, with their million dollar supervisors, and have blogged ad nauseum about the toxic soil, air, and water, as Long Island slowly poisons itself to death (and debt).
Cedar Creek, synonymous with waste -- of a different kind -- is once again in the news, and for much the same reasons as it was years ago. Neglect, mismanagement, lack of oversight, malfeasance, and an aging infrastructure with no money at hand to set things right.
The Long Island Press continues to cover this story of raw sewage in our backyards -- literally -- following the trail of muck and methane at Cedar Creek as it has since 2005. [Nothing ever changes here, does it?]
The County has a Sewage Treatment Master Plan, or so says the County's website. Hmmm. Master Planning has not really been the County's forte, now has it? Then again, to be fair, County Exec Ed Mangano as put $10 Million toward Cedar Creek rehab. Maybe he should consider selling the plant to the Shinnecock tribe. A Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment plant and Casino, perhaps?
The State of New York has cited Cedar Creek for 26 violations. 26? That's all? Come on folks. You're not trying hard enough!
Yup. It's a cesspool out there. [As if we had to tell you.]
One wonders when Long Islanders will heed the warnings -- not to mention the waste, now knee high and getting higher -- and say, ENOUGH!
- - -
From the Long Island Press:
Nassau’s Cedar Creek Sewage Plant is a Time Bomb
A Long Island Press investigation exposes the plant's disastrous conditions
By Christopher Twarowski
Terence Hopper is struggling to turn a rusty valve atop a three-story-high silo of toxic sludge at Nassau County’s Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Wantagh.
Hopper’s face twists and grimaces as he attempts to spin the steering wheel-shaped ring to shut off what is a constant stream of methane gas pouring out around us—the same deadly fumes recently blamed for their role in the deaths of at least 25 coal miners in West Virginia, despite that mine’s owner repeatedly being cited for problems with its ventilation system.
At first, the wheel spins effortlessly, as if it’s not even connected—then seizes up and jams. Hopper tries three more times, grunting with each tug. It won’t budge.
This reporter gives it a whirl (or tries to), pushing and pulling in both directions. Rust and chipped paint flake apart in my hands, while the vapor continues to flood out, burning the inside of my nose and scratching my throat.
“Won’t budge,” I say, coughing. “It’s frozen solid.”
I decide to hold my breath.
“None of them have been serviced, maintained, or even looked at in years,” says Hopper, head of plant maintenance at Cedar Creek, stone-faced. The 50-year-old’s demeanor fluctuates wildly when speaking about the plant’s many issues. He’s passionate, emotional, excitable. Frustrated. “And when I say in years, I’m saying a minimum of five years that they’ve even been looked at.”
Records reviewed by the Press indicate the valve—and other parts of this gigantic chamber, called a digester—have been listed throughout internal county memos as “not operational” since at least 2005.
“Could they get away with not having an explosion?” asks Hopper, seagulls screeching in the background. “Sure they could. Could it be to the point where somebody’s passing by down below and they’re smoking a cigarette, or a truck passing by on the road over here, and the sparks from the sparkplugs—could that ignite it? Sure it could. On a nice, calm day, if the gas is just rolling out there, sure.”
Yet inoperable methane gas valves, as catastrophic a disaster as they could cause, are not the only potential tragedy waiting to happen at the nearly 40-year-old facility, a Press investigation has discovered. A series of tours and visits to the plant, interviews with watchdogs, county legislators, residents, union officials, current and former plant employees, and analysis of reams and reams of documents—including e-mails, memos, staff meeting minutes and purchase orders—paint a picture of a facility in disastrous condition that is nearing its breaking point.
In addition, they portray a management team that has for years either denied or ignored requests for critical parts and equipment, additional manpower and necessary overtime required to complete such tasks and repeated warnings of impending disaster potentially arising if those requests and repairs were not fulfilled. They chronicle the plight of a maintenance staff stripped to its bone and prevented from performing regular preventive maintenance—the equivalent of changing the oil in your car—to keep the plant’s intrinsic, multi-million dollar network of taxpayer-funded machinery up and running, as well as the necessary “emergency” repairs and services resulting from that negligence. Consequently, Cedar Creek has been transformed from a once state-of-the-art facility into a plant now barely operating on life support, plagued with multiple key pieces of equipment out of service, chronic systemic breakdowns and the morale of staff at an all-time low.
What’s more, the management’s negligence has increased the risk of tragedy—such as an explosion that could level parts of the surrounding communities—for Wantagh and Seaford residents, the 1,000-plus schoolchildren of Seaford Harbor and Mandalay elementary schools (the two closest buildings to the plant) and the entire South Shore of Long Island. It has also cost Nassau taxpayers tremendously, records show. Either intentionally or by default, this mismanagement made an easy argument for millions of dollars in taxpayers’ funds to be steered to outside contractors, who benefited handsomely from the deteriorating conditions and perform much of the consequential repair work—at exponentially higher costs for taxpayers, say lawmakers and watchdogs.
First exposed five years ago by the Press in a cover story [“Toxic Offender,” Sept. 22, 2005] that sparked a hearing before the Nassau County Legislature and promises of remediation under the administration of former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi—remediations which never occurred—the alarming conditions of Cedar Creek are once again no longer a secret.
Following on the heels of a notice from state health and safety regulators outlining 26 violations at the plant—22 deemed “Serious”—the Nassau County Legislature held a “fact-finding” hearing into the troubled facility in February, which resulted in a loaded report with several key findings sent to new County Executive Ed Mangano. Among them: a lack of preventive maintenance, shortage of employees and endemic failures on the part of plant management—reminiscent of the hazards and violations exposed back in 2005.
Yet in many cases, the Press has found, the conditions at the plant are much more severe than five years ago—evident of a blatant disregard for the health and safety of employees, the public at large, as well as the environment, charge critics. And despite recent attempts by Mangano to address these problems—including an April 15 announcement of his “First Step,” an additional $2 million for new equipment for the plant this year and fast-tracking the hiring of an additional 10 employees—some observers say it’s simply not enough.
One thing’s certain: The situation at Cedar Creek has actually been getting worse in recent weeks.
Just four days prior to Mangano’s news conference, the Press has learned, Cedar Creek weathered an emergency that longtime veterans of the plant describe as unprecedented, resulting in a wastewater spill within its walls and large quantities of methane gas released into its unsuspecting surrounding communities. Another near-catastrophe took place in mid-March, when a 20-foot-high arched methane gas pipe collapsed—but didn’t spark or explode—and lay twisted in a dangerous situation for weeks, according to workers.
“Every stage of this plant, every section, has failures in one stage or another,” Hopper tells the Press. “In my 31 years of experience that I have in the maintenance section, I have never seen this plant as bad as it is.
“Things are catastrophically failing here,” he continues. “It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. It’s snowballing.”
DOWN THE DRAIN
Opened in 1973, Nassau’s Cedar Creek sewage plant, tucked away behind the scenic waterfront picnic areas and playgrounds of county-run Cedar Creek Park bordering Wantagh and Seaford, performs a critically necessary function for Long Islanders. The 70-acre facility is permitted by the New York State (NYS) Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to receive and treat up to 72 million gallons per day (mgd) of sewage and wastewater sent from the drains and toilets of countless homes, businesses and hospitals spanning the Suffolk County border on the east to Freeport on the west and parts of the North Shore.
Flush the toilet pretty much anywhere within these parameters and its contents will end up in some shape or form at this plant. And we’re not talking just human bodily waste. Take a bath or a shower, the drain water ends up here. Dump some grease or cooking oil down the kitchen sink, or hold a bathroom funeral for some pet goldfish, the fluids and deceased end up here, too. Oils, paints, shampoos, toothpaste, mucus, blood, condoms, tampons, syringes, toilet paper, clothing—even human fetuses, say workers.
While gushing oil engulfs the Gulf of Mexico, endangering both sea and shore, Long Island's very own toxic time bomb awaits self-detonation at Cedar Creek.
We've long complained about those insidious taxing fiefdoms known as the Sanitary Districts, with their million dollar supervisors, and have blogged ad nauseum about the toxic soil, air, and water, as Long Island slowly poisons itself to death (and debt).
Cedar Creek, synonymous with waste -- of a different kind -- is once again in the news, and for much the same reasons as it was years ago. Neglect, mismanagement, lack of oversight, malfeasance, and an aging infrastructure with no money at hand to set things right.
The Long Island Press continues to cover this story of raw sewage in our backyards -- literally -- following the trail of muck and methane at Cedar Creek as it has since 2005. [Nothing ever changes here, does it?]
The County has a Sewage Treatment Master Plan, or so says the County's website. Hmmm. Master Planning has not really been the County's forte, now has it? Then again, to be fair, County Exec Ed Mangano as put $10 Million toward Cedar Creek rehab. Maybe he should consider selling the plant to the Shinnecock tribe. A Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment plant and Casino, perhaps?
The State of New York has cited Cedar Creek for 26 violations. 26? That's all? Come on folks. You're not trying hard enough!
Yup. It's a cesspool out there. [As if we had to tell you.]
One wonders when Long Islanders will heed the warnings -- not to mention the waste, now knee high and getting higher -- and say, ENOUGH!
- - -
From the Long Island Press:
Nassau’s Cedar Creek Sewage Plant is a Time Bomb
A Long Island Press investigation exposes the plant's disastrous conditions
By Christopher Twarowski
Terence Hopper is struggling to turn a rusty valve atop a three-story-high silo of toxic sludge at Nassau County’s Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Wantagh.
Hopper’s face twists and grimaces as he attempts to spin the steering wheel-shaped ring to shut off what is a constant stream of methane gas pouring out around us—the same deadly fumes recently blamed for their role in the deaths of at least 25 coal miners in West Virginia, despite that mine’s owner repeatedly being cited for problems with its ventilation system.
At first, the wheel spins effortlessly, as if it’s not even connected—then seizes up and jams. Hopper tries three more times, grunting with each tug. It won’t budge.
This reporter gives it a whirl (or tries to), pushing and pulling in both directions. Rust and chipped paint flake apart in my hands, while the vapor continues to flood out, burning the inside of my nose and scratching my throat.
“Won’t budge,” I say, coughing. “It’s frozen solid.”
I decide to hold my breath.
“None of them have been serviced, maintained, or even looked at in years,” says Hopper, head of plant maintenance at Cedar Creek, stone-faced. The 50-year-old’s demeanor fluctuates wildly when speaking about the plant’s many issues. He’s passionate, emotional, excitable. Frustrated. “And when I say in years, I’m saying a minimum of five years that they’ve even been looked at.”
Records reviewed by the Press indicate the valve—and other parts of this gigantic chamber, called a digester—have been listed throughout internal county memos as “not operational” since at least 2005.
“Could they get away with not having an explosion?” asks Hopper, seagulls screeching in the background. “Sure they could. Could it be to the point where somebody’s passing by down below and they’re smoking a cigarette, or a truck passing by on the road over here, and the sparks from the sparkplugs—could that ignite it? Sure it could. On a nice, calm day, if the gas is just rolling out there, sure.”
Yet inoperable methane gas valves, as catastrophic a disaster as they could cause, are not the only potential tragedy waiting to happen at the nearly 40-year-old facility, a Press investigation has discovered. A series of tours and visits to the plant, interviews with watchdogs, county legislators, residents, union officials, current and former plant employees, and analysis of reams and reams of documents—including e-mails, memos, staff meeting minutes and purchase orders—paint a picture of a facility in disastrous condition that is nearing its breaking point.
In addition, they portray a management team that has for years either denied or ignored requests for critical parts and equipment, additional manpower and necessary overtime required to complete such tasks and repeated warnings of impending disaster potentially arising if those requests and repairs were not fulfilled. They chronicle the plight of a maintenance staff stripped to its bone and prevented from performing regular preventive maintenance—the equivalent of changing the oil in your car—to keep the plant’s intrinsic, multi-million dollar network of taxpayer-funded machinery up and running, as well as the necessary “emergency” repairs and services resulting from that negligence. Consequently, Cedar Creek has been transformed from a once state-of-the-art facility into a plant now barely operating on life support, plagued with multiple key pieces of equipment out of service, chronic systemic breakdowns and the morale of staff at an all-time low.
What’s more, the management’s negligence has increased the risk of tragedy—such as an explosion that could level parts of the surrounding communities—for Wantagh and Seaford residents, the 1,000-plus schoolchildren of Seaford Harbor and Mandalay elementary schools (the two closest buildings to the plant) and the entire South Shore of Long Island. It has also cost Nassau taxpayers tremendously, records show. Either intentionally or by default, this mismanagement made an easy argument for millions of dollars in taxpayers’ funds to be steered to outside contractors, who benefited handsomely from the deteriorating conditions and perform much of the consequential repair work—at exponentially higher costs for taxpayers, say lawmakers and watchdogs.
First exposed five years ago by the Press in a cover story [“Toxic Offender,” Sept. 22, 2005] that sparked a hearing before the Nassau County Legislature and promises of remediation under the administration of former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi—remediations which never occurred—the alarming conditions of Cedar Creek are once again no longer a secret.
Following on the heels of a notice from state health and safety regulators outlining 26 violations at the plant—22 deemed “Serious”—the Nassau County Legislature held a “fact-finding” hearing into the troubled facility in February, which resulted in a loaded report with several key findings sent to new County Executive Ed Mangano. Among them: a lack of preventive maintenance, shortage of employees and endemic failures on the part of plant management—reminiscent of the hazards and violations exposed back in 2005.
Yet in many cases, the Press has found, the conditions at the plant are much more severe than five years ago—evident of a blatant disregard for the health and safety of employees, the public at large, as well as the environment, charge critics. And despite recent attempts by Mangano to address these problems—including an April 15 announcement of his “First Step,” an additional $2 million for new equipment for the plant this year and fast-tracking the hiring of an additional 10 employees—some observers say it’s simply not enough.
One thing’s certain: The situation at Cedar Creek has actually been getting worse in recent weeks.
Just four days prior to Mangano’s news conference, the Press has learned, Cedar Creek weathered an emergency that longtime veterans of the plant describe as unprecedented, resulting in a wastewater spill within its walls and large quantities of methane gas released into its unsuspecting surrounding communities. Another near-catastrophe took place in mid-March, when a 20-foot-high arched methane gas pipe collapsed—but didn’t spark or explode—and lay twisted in a dangerous situation for weeks, according to workers.
“Every stage of this plant, every section, has failures in one stage or another,” Hopper tells the Press. “In my 31 years of experience that I have in the maintenance section, I have never seen this plant as bad as it is.
“Things are catastrophically failing here,” he continues. “It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. It’s snowballing.”
DOWN THE DRAIN
Opened in 1973, Nassau’s Cedar Creek sewage plant, tucked away behind the scenic waterfront picnic areas and playgrounds of county-run Cedar Creek Park bordering Wantagh and Seaford, performs a critically necessary function for Long Islanders. The 70-acre facility is permitted by the New York State (NYS) Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to receive and treat up to 72 million gallons per day (mgd) of sewage and wastewater sent from the drains and toilets of countless homes, businesses and hospitals spanning the Suffolk County border on the east to Freeport on the west and parts of the North Shore.
Flush the toilet pretty much anywhere within these parameters and its contents will end up in some shape or form at this plant. And we’re not talking just human bodily waste. Take a bath or a shower, the drain water ends up here. Dump some grease or cooking oil down the kitchen sink, or hold a bathroom funeral for some pet goldfish, the fluids and deceased end up here, too. Oils, paints, shampoos, toothpaste, mucus, blood, condoms, tampons, syringes, toilet paper, clothing—even human fetuses, say workers.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Drill, Baby, Drill?
Or Is It, Spill, Baby, Spill?
You bet your BP!
Click below for latest updates on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/
You bet your BP!
Click below for latest updates on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/
Friday, April 30, 2010
If You're Not Following Us On Twitter. . .
. . .You're Missing Out On Long Island's Premier Community Blog (If we must say so ourselves ;-)
An Urgent Appeal For Green
From The Folks Who Help Keep Long Island Green
Our good friends at the Long Island Neighborhood Network, the very people who introduced organic landscaping to the Island, are seeing less green these days -- and not only on lawns and in open spaces.
Yes, times are tough all over, but if we want to keep our drinking water safe and the air we breathe clean, we need the Neighborhood Network to frame the issues, plant the seeds (literally and figuratively), and take up the many causes of green living.
Hey, they do it for us, day in and day out. Now's the chance to do something for them. In helping Heighborhood Network, in a very real sense, we truly help ourselves!
- - -
From Neighborhood Network:
Dear Friend of the Neighborhood Network,
Here on Long Island we face issues that are distinct from much of the rest of New York State and the nation. The Neighborhood Network is the only multi-issue environmental organization with a membership and mission that is focused on Long Island as a region. Generous support from our members and sponsors allows us to set an ambitious agenda for protecting Long Island's environment. See the sidebar to the right to get a sense of some of our recent accomplishments. I would like to ask you to consider making a contribution today to support the Neighborhood Network in our mission to protect Long Island’s vital natural resources.
When the Neighborhood Network started in 1984, we gained new members and supporters, and informed Long Island communities to important environmental issues by going door to door. It gave us the opportunity to make real one to one connections, have dialogues with members of the community, and build a strong network of informed, active supporters. Twenty-six years later, we are still committed to networking with individual Long Islanders to build the clout we need to make positive change.
New technology has given us greater opportunities to communicate with our members and supporters. Email, blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can allow us to get our message out and get feedback more quickly, to more people and at a fraction of the cost. But we still need your support to continue the research, public education and advocacy we are engaged in every day to protect Long Island's environment. We are asking members and supporters who receive our eUpdates to make a special contribution today, to help us continue this vital mission.
Our goal is to increase our network of environmentally aware, engaged citizens and consumers, and to grow that network into a movement that demands change. To transform Long Island into a national leader in adopting sound environmental policy and demanding sustainable products and services.
Your generosity will make an immediate difference in the protection of Long Island’s environment and natural resources. We would like to ask that you take a moment now to make a secure online contribution at neighborhood-network.org/organization/join.htm. Giving online helps us greatly reduce our fundraising expenses and allows us to devote more of your contribution to the program efforts of the Neighborhood Network.
If you would prefer not to contribute online, you can mail a check to:
Neighborhood Network
7180 Republic Airport
Farmingdale, NY 11735
or call us at 631-963-5454 to give by credit card over the phone.
Please let us know if there is any additional information you would like about the Neighborhood Network’s agenda. We hope to hear from you soon.
Networking together, we can protect the environment.
Thank you,
Demosthenes Maratos
Program Director
Our good friends at the Long Island Neighborhood Network, the very people who introduced organic landscaping to the Island, are seeing less green these days -- and not only on lawns and in open spaces.
Yes, times are tough all over, but if we want to keep our drinking water safe and the air we breathe clean, we need the Neighborhood Network to frame the issues, plant the seeds (literally and figuratively), and take up the many causes of green living.
Hey, they do it for us, day in and day out. Now's the chance to do something for them. In helping Heighborhood Network, in a very real sense, we truly help ourselves!
- - -
From Neighborhood Network:
Dear Friend of the Neighborhood Network,
Here on Long Island we face issues that are distinct from much of the rest of New York State and the nation. The Neighborhood Network is the only multi-issue environmental organization with a membership and mission that is focused on Long Island as a region. Generous support from our members and sponsors allows us to set an ambitious agenda for protecting Long Island's environment. See the sidebar to the right to get a sense of some of our recent accomplishments. I would like to ask you to consider making a contribution today to support the Neighborhood Network in our mission to protect Long Island’s vital natural resources.
When the Neighborhood Network started in 1984, we gained new members and supporters, and informed Long Island communities to important environmental issues by going door to door. It gave us the opportunity to make real one to one connections, have dialogues with members of the community, and build a strong network of informed, active supporters. Twenty-six years later, we are still committed to networking with individual Long Islanders to build the clout we need to make positive change.
New technology has given us greater opportunities to communicate with our members and supporters. Email, blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can allow us to get our message out and get feedback more quickly, to more people and at a fraction of the cost. But we still need your support to continue the research, public education and advocacy we are engaged in every day to protect Long Island's environment. We are asking members and supporters who receive our eUpdates to make a special contribution today, to help us continue this vital mission.
Our goal is to increase our network of environmentally aware, engaged citizens and consumers, and to grow that network into a movement that demands change. To transform Long Island into a national leader in adopting sound environmental policy and demanding sustainable products and services.
Your generosity will make an immediate difference in the protection of Long Island’s environment and natural resources. We would like to ask that you take a moment now to make a secure online contribution at neighborhood-network.org/organization/join.htm. Giving online helps us greatly reduce our fundraising expenses and allows us to devote more of your contribution to the program efforts of the Neighborhood Network.
If you would prefer not to contribute online, you can mail a check to:
Neighborhood Network
7180 Republic Airport
Farmingdale, NY 11735
or call us at 631-963-5454 to give by credit card over the phone.
Please let us know if there is any additional information you would like about the Neighborhood Network’s agenda. We hope to hear from you soon.
Networking together, we can protect the environment.
Thank you,
Demosthenes Maratos
Program Director
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Show Us Your Papers
Fees At County Parks Proposed For Non-Residents
First Arizona. Now Nassau County?
Okay. Okay. This one may just make sense, at least on paper.
Charge non-Nassau County residents to enter and use Nassau County's parks and recreational facilities.
The County administration is considering this non-resident pay-as-you-go pilot program, and our good friend Brue Piel of PARCnassau lays it all out for us.
Thumbs up or thumbs down? We report. You decide! ;-)
- - -
From PARCnassau:
To facilitate park usage by county residents (taxpayers), we recently made the following proposal:
"We would like to propose a pilot program for paid admittance to county parks by non-residents. Technically, the Nassau county park system is a “closed” system with admittance for residents only. The exceptions were and are museums, historic sites and preserves.
In fact, for all intents and purposes it has evolved into an “open” park system with unmanned gates and little or no screening which allows anyone to enter and enjoy the facility. Most park amenities have both resident and non-resident rates already. So the effect would be minimal on non-resident use. To facilitate and control usage of our neighborhood parks, which would be all but Eisenhower, we are suggesting all parks’ gates to be monitored with only residents' vehicles permitted in without restriction. Non-resident vehicles would be charged a fee, consider $5.00, to enter and issued a receipt.
This would have two benefits. The first is that the park directors could control and monitor access and when necessary restrict non-resident access when overcrowding or other problems exist. It would insure that tax-paying residents would have priority to use their parks. The second benefit would be the revenue generated would pay for the seasonal help used at the gates with the profit deposited in the county treasury.
Eisenhower Park presents a unique problem, in that the main road through the facility is a major commuter road in the mornings and evenings. In addition, the ethnic festivals all summer long have always permitted free access to anyone. A dual fee system at the golf courses and other amenities is in place and could be increased as an alternative. The Aquatic Center , because of the federal and state monies used in its construction must be open to everyone. It therefore has its own entrance from Merrick Avenue and its own parking lot, separate from the rest of the park. The center too has a dual fee system."
The county has indicated they will implement the pilot program. As usual the devil is in the details. The simplest solution to all the "what ifs....." is that county residents sign up for a 3 year leisure pass for $25 (works out to about $8.33 per year). Presenting that at the gate would speed up entry and most park amenities, i.e., pools, golf courses, etc require the pass anyway.
Car pooling, using a resident vehicle might be considered for family picnics, ball teams, etc. Day camps that bus their children into county parks should pay a entry (use) fee based on the size of the bus. Forty dollars for a large school type bus and $20 for a small van.
Bottom line is if non-residents wish to enjoy our parks they must help support them, financially. In all cases, residents should have priority in entering and using all Nassau County Park facilities. Monitoring the gates permits the county to deny entrance to those with a history of anti-social or illegal behavior. What do you think?
E-mail your thoughts and comments to PARCnassau at PARCnassau@aol.com, and to The Community Alliance at thecommunityalliance@yahoo.com.
Bruce Piel
Chairman
Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau
246 Twin Lane East
Wantagh, NY 11793
(516) 783-8378
http://parcnassau.blogspot.com/
First Arizona. Now Nassau County?
Okay. Okay. This one may just make sense, at least on paper.
Charge non-Nassau County residents to enter and use Nassau County's parks and recreational facilities.
The County administration is considering this non-resident pay-as-you-go pilot program, and our good friend Brue Piel of PARCnassau lays it all out for us.
Thumbs up or thumbs down? We report. You decide! ;-)
- - -
From PARCnassau:
To facilitate park usage by county residents (taxpayers), we recently made the following proposal:
"We would like to propose a pilot program for paid admittance to county parks by non-residents. Technically, the Nassau county park system is a “closed” system with admittance for residents only. The exceptions were and are museums, historic sites and preserves.
In fact, for all intents and purposes it has evolved into an “open” park system with unmanned gates and little or no screening which allows anyone to enter and enjoy the facility. Most park amenities have both resident and non-resident rates already. So the effect would be minimal on non-resident use. To facilitate and control usage of our neighborhood parks, which would be all but Eisenhower, we are suggesting all parks’ gates to be monitored with only residents' vehicles permitted in without restriction. Non-resident vehicles would be charged a fee, consider $5.00, to enter and issued a receipt.
This would have two benefits. The first is that the park directors could control and monitor access and when necessary restrict non-resident access when overcrowding or other problems exist. It would insure that tax-paying residents would have priority to use their parks. The second benefit would be the revenue generated would pay for the seasonal help used at the gates with the profit deposited in the county treasury.
Eisenhower Park presents a unique problem, in that the main road through the facility is a major commuter road in the mornings and evenings. In addition, the ethnic festivals all summer long have always permitted free access to anyone. A dual fee system at the golf courses and other amenities is in place and could be increased as an alternative. The Aquatic Center , because of the federal and state monies used in its construction must be open to everyone. It therefore has its own entrance from Merrick Avenue and its own parking lot, separate from the rest of the park. The center too has a dual fee system."
The county has indicated they will implement the pilot program. As usual the devil is in the details. The simplest solution to all the "what ifs....." is that county residents sign up for a 3 year leisure pass for $25 (works out to about $8.33 per year). Presenting that at the gate would speed up entry and most park amenities, i.e., pools, golf courses, etc require the pass anyway.
Car pooling, using a resident vehicle might be considered for family picnics, ball teams, etc. Day camps that bus their children into county parks should pay a entry (use) fee based on the size of the bus. Forty dollars for a large school type bus and $20 for a small van.
Bottom line is if non-residents wish to enjoy our parks they must help support them, financially. In all cases, residents should have priority in entering and using all Nassau County Park facilities. Monitoring the gates permits the county to deny entrance to those with a history of anti-social or illegal behavior. What do you think?
E-mail your thoughts and comments to PARCnassau at PARCnassau@aol.com, and to The Community Alliance at thecommunityalliance@yahoo.com.
Bruce Piel
Chairman
Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau
246 Twin Lane East
Wantagh, NY 11793
(516) 783-8378
http://parcnassau.blogspot.com/
Rebuilding The Burbs From Main Street To Your Street
Re-Envisioning Downtown As Both Mecca And Mission
We often blog, only half in jest, that about the only things we're sustaining here on Long Island are blight, brownfields, and sky high property taxes, none of which are really sustainable if Long Island is to survive, let alone thrive.
Fortunately, orgainizations such as Sustainable Long Island scoff at the idea that suburbia's best days are behind her, and, through the advancement of smart growth precepts and principles, continue to move us from sprawl and mall back to our roots -- the walkable, shopable, and, yes, livable downtown.
Our downtowns are the backbones of community, the very spokes from which all else in our suburban cornucopia emenates.
Think we need to take back our downtowns from the ravages of sprawl, neglect, imprudent zoning, and the lure of the big box store? You betcha!
- - -
From Sustainable Long Island:
Building Stronger, Vibrant Downtowns
By Sarah Lansdale
One thing is for sure – Long Island is home to thousands of shopping options from big boxes to big malls to downtowns to strip malls. We are known to shop until we drop. During tough economic times, we all often let the best bargains determine where we shop.
But there are other times when our shopping choices depend on many more variables. Shopping is, in fact, an activity that is an integral part of our cultural, family and personal customs. We shop to buy decorations for the holidays, presents for mom and dad’s birthdays, those first shoes for the baby, a new outfit for the start of school, or the perfect bridal dress for the big day. We weave into these shopping experiences time to chat with friends and loved ones, grab a bite to eat and rest our weary feet on a bench. There is no better place to spend this time and build these memories than in our hometown stores located in downtown communities. Downtowns save time from everyday shopping, offer value in their products and services, and give people a sense of pride and honor within their community.
I know that I am by far not the only one preaching about downtowns and their benefits.
There has been increasing attention played to rating which of our Long Island downtowns are the best and which have the greatest potential to succeed. But who’s to say one downtown is superior to the other? How does one decide between a downtown in New Cassel and a downtown in Roslyn? All of Long Island’s downtowns offer something unique. What makes a great downtown is that at some point, everyone in the community wants to be there.
Each downtown across our region offers choices and opportunities to the people who fill it each and every day. It’s the people who fill the streets and the stores, and the markets. It’s the people who are enticed by the prospect of jobs within walking distance from their home or attracted to the chance of building friendships with other locals. Yes it’s the people, who bring the energy that keeps the neighborhood’s pulse beating.
So instead of debating endlessly on which downtown is better than the other, let’s build off the assets that are already there and improve the area into a place the people can admire, not criticize. Community leaders are coming together from Port Washington to Massapequa and helping build stronger, more vibrant downtowns.
There are activities that enhance downtowns, such as a farmer’s market which brings people together and creates “foot traffic” throughout the streets. A community fair increases revenue, along with added enjoyment to the locale. Augmenting historic buildings, preserving beautiful landmarks and making a safer, more pleasant place for pedestrians are all goals our downtowns strive for.
All this can happen for the people, if the people themselves take action. It happens community by community, person by person. Make your community next.
Sarah Lansdale is the executive director of Sustainable Long Island, which focuses on creating real change in our region by promoting sustainable development. Sustainable Long Island works with residents, municipal leaders, businesspeople and all interested stakeholders to help them plan and implement sustainable development initiatives in their communities. Visit http://www.sustainableli.org/, or call 516-873-0230.
We often blog, only half in jest, that about the only things we're sustaining here on Long Island are blight, brownfields, and sky high property taxes, none of which are really sustainable if Long Island is to survive, let alone thrive.
Fortunately, orgainizations such as Sustainable Long Island scoff at the idea that suburbia's best days are behind her, and, through the advancement of smart growth precepts and principles, continue to move us from sprawl and mall back to our roots -- the walkable, shopable, and, yes, livable downtown.
Our downtowns are the backbones of community, the very spokes from which all else in our suburban cornucopia emenates.
Think we need to take back our downtowns from the ravages of sprawl, neglect, imprudent zoning, and the lure of the big box store? You betcha!
- - -
From Sustainable Long Island:
Building Stronger, Vibrant Downtowns
By Sarah Lansdale
One thing is for sure – Long Island is home to thousands of shopping options from big boxes to big malls to downtowns to strip malls. We are known to shop until we drop. During tough economic times, we all often let the best bargains determine where we shop.
But there are other times when our shopping choices depend on many more variables. Shopping is, in fact, an activity that is an integral part of our cultural, family and personal customs. We shop to buy decorations for the holidays, presents for mom and dad’s birthdays, those first shoes for the baby, a new outfit for the start of school, or the perfect bridal dress for the big day. We weave into these shopping experiences time to chat with friends and loved ones, grab a bite to eat and rest our weary feet on a bench. There is no better place to spend this time and build these memories than in our hometown stores located in downtown communities. Downtowns save time from everyday shopping, offer value in their products and services, and give people a sense of pride and honor within their community.
I know that I am by far not the only one preaching about downtowns and their benefits.
There has been increasing attention played to rating which of our Long Island downtowns are the best and which have the greatest potential to succeed. But who’s to say one downtown is superior to the other? How does one decide between a downtown in New Cassel and a downtown in Roslyn? All of Long Island’s downtowns offer something unique. What makes a great downtown is that at some point, everyone in the community wants to be there.
Each downtown across our region offers choices and opportunities to the people who fill it each and every day. It’s the people who fill the streets and the stores, and the markets. It’s the people who are enticed by the prospect of jobs within walking distance from their home or attracted to the chance of building friendships with other locals. Yes it’s the people, who bring the energy that keeps the neighborhood’s pulse beating.
So instead of debating endlessly on which downtown is better than the other, let’s build off the assets that are already there and improve the area into a place the people can admire, not criticize. Community leaders are coming together from Port Washington to Massapequa and helping build stronger, more vibrant downtowns.
There are activities that enhance downtowns, such as a farmer’s market which brings people together and creates “foot traffic” throughout the streets. A community fair increases revenue, along with added enjoyment to the locale. Augmenting historic buildings, preserving beautiful landmarks and making a safer, more pleasant place for pedestrians are all goals our downtowns strive for.
All this can happen for the people, if the people themselves take action. It happens community by community, person by person. Make your community next.
Sarah Lansdale is the executive director of Sustainable Long Island, which focuses on creating real change in our region by promoting sustainable development. Sustainable Long Island works with residents, municipal leaders, businesspeople and all interested stakeholders to help them plan and implement sustainable development initiatives in their communities. Visit http://www.sustainableli.org/, or call 516-873-0230.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
It Can't Happen Here!
Only Because The NYS Legislature Is Too Dysfunctional To Fight
Need we say more?
Need we say more?
Is The Lighthouse Going Dark?
Wang Awaits Murray's Decision On Moving Forward
Our friends at Let There Be Light(house) have posted on the dimming of the lights for the exalted and exhausted Lighthouse Project, at least insofar as the project's website goes.
Check out what's left of the Lighthouse website at http://www.lighthouseli.com/home.
Could the lights be going out on the project as a whole, the end of the hubub for the hub?
To paraphrase the old adage, "a project delayed is progress denied."
Throughout the Town of Hempstead, for well over a decade, projects grand (as in the revival of Grand Avenue in Baldwin) and small (as in tearing down a brownfield to build a supermarket in Elmont) have risen to glory on the drafting table, only to fall by the wayside before either Zoning Board or Town Board.
Delay is the great enemy of community's prosperity and resurgence, and the precursor of suburbia's demise.
Along the most optomistic vein, even a scaled-down Lighthouse is more than ten years, and who knows how many losing seasons, away from fruition, the bleak landscape of the hub serving only to drag the county and our Island further toward the abyss.
In the worst case scenario, should Wang, the Town of Hempstead, or whatever power-that-be would ultimately decide the fate of the Nassau hub, pull the plug, sooner, or, as precedence has shown us, later, well, cue the tumbleweed.
The time to move forward on the Lighthouse Project was a thousand yesterdays ago. Now it remains for us to pick up the pieces (once again the taxpayer is left with crumbs) and, somehow, to move forward.
- - -
Did someone say CASINO? http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/04/27/mangano-in-talks-to-bring-casino-to-nassau-coliseum/ Er, ah. We don't think so...
- - -
From LetThereBeLight(house):
Lighthouse Takes Down Web Site, Replaces With Placeholder
Posted by Nick
For the last few weeks, we have heard very little about the Lighthouse process that was not rumor and innuendo. Anxious bloggers and supporters (myself included) still hoped against hope that we would hear something from the Lighthouse to break their silence, especially in the face of rumors from well-connected sources that the Lighthouse Principals could be dissolving their partnership, thus effectively ending the project.
In fact, the most vocal person in the past several months has been NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who has never missed an opportunity to speak to the media and accuse the Town of Hempstead of "stalling" the project and "dragging it out" for years. As the Town took control of the process and sent even more misleading and anti-project letters to area citizens (more on that later), we still have not heard anything from the Lighthouse.
Yesterday, in a way, the Lighthouse Project spoke, though it is likely not the way any of us would have hoped they would (hat tip to Islanderbill for first alerting me to this, by the way). Now, visitors to the Lighthouse Project web site are not greeted with the grand, $3.7 billion vision for suburban renewal; rather, they see this: http://www.lighthouseli.com/home
Many, including myself, were taken aback by this, because it is the clearest broadside against the Town of Hempstead in months. Since the Lighthouse Project refuses to speak on the record, even though some sources are still insisting behind the scenes that it's not dead, we are forced to come up with our own suggestions and questions. As I've seen before, there is an optimistic view to this, a pessimistic view, and questions that need to be answered:
Optimistic View
Until there is official word from someone directly involved in the process, we can't assume the Lighthouse Project is dead. In addition, the Town of Hempstead and the Lighthouse are still operating under the Designated Developer Agreement between Nassau County and the Lighthouse that was approved during the administration of the current County Executive, Tom Suozzi (current County Executive Ed Mangano voted in favor of the measure as a County Legislator). Some people believe that this is simply a gesture by Charles Wang and the Lighthouse that they are willing to work with the Town of Hempstead in an attempt to make a deal.
If the original plan is no longer available online, then it has become clear that Mr. Wang and his group recognize that they will not be able to build the project as originally proposed. They are now signaling a willingness to work, as long as it achieves the goal of a good project that will be profitable, benefit the community, and allow the New York Islanders to remain in their rightful home.
This point of view reflects what I have previously called the "dirty little secret" in the Lighthouse process: it is easiest for both sides to come to a deal, since the alternatives are difficult for both sides:
Lighthouse Project: The options for moving the Islanders within the area, or of another project with similar commercial benefit, are slim at this point. The Brooklyn arena continues to be built, with the last hold-out having finally sold his property last week, but it would still require a retrofit, and some, especially those against the Atlantic Yards proposal to begin with, have called Brooklyn a "fantasy" of desperate hockey fans and political hacks like the Brooklyn Borough President. In addition, as mentioned before, Queens would require a similar process, which the Lighthouse acknowledges has already gone on for 7 years here. The city would be on board, but the local community would not be in any way close to what we see with the Lighthouse. I don't know whether the Lighthouse Project would want to either start over or become a tenant somewhere else, regardless of how badly many hockey fans hope it happens (count me in that group, in the event the Lighthouse can't happen).
Town of Hempstead: The Town has botched the Lighthouse process since Day 1, refusing to meet with the developers and relying on tricks like that phony stimulus drive which merely assume the stupidity of Town of Hempstead voters. Even though Kate Murray and the Town Board were overwhelmingly returned to office, you wonder if the Town could handle the debacle of losing a project the vast majority of citizens want (remember, in the latest News 12/Hofstra poll, supporters outnumber opponents 2:1, and if you scaled the project down that number nears 3:1). The Town loves to harp on financing, but any other developer would encounter the same financing issues as the Lighthouse Project.
In the same vein, the Town seems prepared to gut the Lighthouse Project beyond all recognition, if you trust the rhetoric. However, as another blogger has pointed out, what message would that send? If the Town starts using a machete on the project, the headlines write themselves:
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD IS AGAINST A RENOVATED NASSAU COLISEUM
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD IS AGAINST AFFORDABLE HOUSING
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD IS AGAINST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD ADVOCATES MORE OF THE SAME
It's much harder to spin that, and we are not as gullible as the Town would like to believe.
Pessimistic View
Many others believe this is a charade that is delaying the inevitable. To these people, the Town is going to gut the Lighthouse Project beyond all recognition in an attempt to win the post-game spin. You could just hear the Supervisor parroting the half-truth that "The Town offered Charles Wang a reasonable proposal, and he decided to walk away."
The Lighthouse, in the same vein, could be making vague signals about cooperation, but they still stopped paying environmental consultants F.P. Clark over half a year ago. Some, including astute reader Derek, believe this is because the Lighthouse wants to place the onus on the Town of Hempstead to tell them what can and can't be built, but still others believe that it's yet another case of actions speaking louder than words.
I do not know which side is right, but you could definitely see how many can interpret the statement on the Lighthouse web site as an opening salvo in the spin wars that will almost certainly ensue in the event the project ceases to be.
Questions
As we move forward now, we need to ask certain questions of both sides to increase our understanding:
•Are the 2 sides meeting and negotiating?
•Are the 2 sides both demonstrating a desire to get a project done?
•What kind of reduction will either side accept?
•How hardened are those positions
•When will someone say something in public?
We may not know the sound of 1 hand clapping, but with the Lighthouse gone silent and the Town spinning and exaggerating with seeming impunity, we do know the sound of 1 side debating. It's enough.
Bottom Line
I've said (in more of a hopeful tone than anything else) that we will likely have closure on the Lighthouse Project issue in a matter of months. We are all hoping for a solid resolution to this that will improve our community and provide a stable home for the New York Islanders, but, more than that, we want to know the truth. We need to know if the sides are negotiating in good faith, or whether this is just the start of what promises to be a bitter and ugly blame game.
No more slogans. No more finger-pointing. We want answers.
Our friends at Let There Be Light(house) have posted on the dimming of the lights for the exalted and exhausted Lighthouse Project, at least insofar as the project's website goes.
Check out what's left of the Lighthouse website at http://www.lighthouseli.com/home.
Could the lights be going out on the project as a whole, the end of the hubub for the hub?
To paraphrase the old adage, "a project delayed is progress denied."
Throughout the Town of Hempstead, for well over a decade, projects grand (as in the revival of Grand Avenue in Baldwin) and small (as in tearing down a brownfield to build a supermarket in Elmont) have risen to glory on the drafting table, only to fall by the wayside before either Zoning Board or Town Board.
Delay is the great enemy of community's prosperity and resurgence, and the precursor of suburbia's demise.
Along the most optomistic vein, even a scaled-down Lighthouse is more than ten years, and who knows how many losing seasons, away from fruition, the bleak landscape of the hub serving only to drag the county and our Island further toward the abyss.
In the worst case scenario, should Wang, the Town of Hempstead, or whatever power-that-be would ultimately decide the fate of the Nassau hub, pull the plug, sooner, or, as precedence has shown us, later, well, cue the tumbleweed.
The time to move forward on the Lighthouse Project was a thousand yesterdays ago. Now it remains for us to pick up the pieces (once again the taxpayer is left with crumbs) and, somehow, to move forward.
- - -
Did someone say CASINO? http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/04/27/mangano-in-talks-to-bring-casino-to-nassau-coliseum/ Er, ah. We don't think so...
- - -
From LetThereBeLight(house):
Lighthouse Takes Down Web Site, Replaces With Placeholder
Posted by Nick
For the last few weeks, we have heard very little about the Lighthouse process that was not rumor and innuendo. Anxious bloggers and supporters (myself included) still hoped against hope that we would hear something from the Lighthouse to break their silence, especially in the face of rumors from well-connected sources that the Lighthouse Principals could be dissolving their partnership, thus effectively ending the project.
In fact, the most vocal person in the past several months has been NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who has never missed an opportunity to speak to the media and accuse the Town of Hempstead of "stalling" the project and "dragging it out" for years. As the Town took control of the process and sent even more misleading and anti-project letters to area citizens (more on that later), we still have not heard anything from the Lighthouse.
Yesterday, in a way, the Lighthouse Project spoke, though it is likely not the way any of us would have hoped they would (hat tip to Islanderbill for first alerting me to this, by the way). Now, visitors to the Lighthouse Project web site are not greeted with the grand, $3.7 billion vision for suburban renewal; rather, they see this: http://www.lighthouseli.com/home
Many, including myself, were taken aback by this, because it is the clearest broadside against the Town of Hempstead in months. Since the Lighthouse Project refuses to speak on the record, even though some sources are still insisting behind the scenes that it's not dead, we are forced to come up with our own suggestions and questions. As I've seen before, there is an optimistic view to this, a pessimistic view, and questions that need to be answered:
Optimistic View
Until there is official word from someone directly involved in the process, we can't assume the Lighthouse Project is dead. In addition, the Town of Hempstead and the Lighthouse are still operating under the Designated Developer Agreement between Nassau County and the Lighthouse that was approved during the administration of the current County Executive, Tom Suozzi (current County Executive Ed Mangano voted in favor of the measure as a County Legislator). Some people believe that this is simply a gesture by Charles Wang and the Lighthouse that they are willing to work with the Town of Hempstead in an attempt to make a deal.
If the original plan is no longer available online, then it has become clear that Mr. Wang and his group recognize that they will not be able to build the project as originally proposed. They are now signaling a willingness to work, as long as it achieves the goal of a good project that will be profitable, benefit the community, and allow the New York Islanders to remain in their rightful home.
This point of view reflects what I have previously called the "dirty little secret" in the Lighthouse process: it is easiest for both sides to come to a deal, since the alternatives are difficult for both sides:
Lighthouse Project: The options for moving the Islanders within the area, or of another project with similar commercial benefit, are slim at this point. The Brooklyn arena continues to be built, with the last hold-out having finally sold his property last week, but it would still require a retrofit, and some, especially those against the Atlantic Yards proposal to begin with, have called Brooklyn a "fantasy" of desperate hockey fans and political hacks like the Brooklyn Borough President. In addition, as mentioned before, Queens would require a similar process, which the Lighthouse acknowledges has already gone on for 7 years here. The city would be on board, but the local community would not be in any way close to what we see with the Lighthouse. I don't know whether the Lighthouse Project would want to either start over or become a tenant somewhere else, regardless of how badly many hockey fans hope it happens (count me in that group, in the event the Lighthouse can't happen).
Town of Hempstead: The Town has botched the Lighthouse process since Day 1, refusing to meet with the developers and relying on tricks like that phony stimulus drive which merely assume the stupidity of Town of Hempstead voters. Even though Kate Murray and the Town Board were overwhelmingly returned to office, you wonder if the Town could handle the debacle of losing a project the vast majority of citizens want (remember, in the latest News 12/Hofstra poll, supporters outnumber opponents 2:1, and if you scaled the project down that number nears 3:1). The Town loves to harp on financing, but any other developer would encounter the same financing issues as the Lighthouse Project.
In the same vein, the Town seems prepared to gut the Lighthouse Project beyond all recognition, if you trust the rhetoric. However, as another blogger has pointed out, what message would that send? If the Town starts using a machete on the project, the headlines write themselves:
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD IS AGAINST A RENOVATED NASSAU COLISEUM
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD IS AGAINST AFFORDABLE HOUSING
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD IS AGAINST ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD ADVOCATES MORE OF THE SAME
It's much harder to spin that, and we are not as gullible as the Town would like to believe.
Pessimistic View
Many others believe this is a charade that is delaying the inevitable. To these people, the Town is going to gut the Lighthouse Project beyond all recognition in an attempt to win the post-game spin. You could just hear the Supervisor parroting the half-truth that "The Town offered Charles Wang a reasonable proposal, and he decided to walk away."
The Lighthouse, in the same vein, could be making vague signals about cooperation, but they still stopped paying environmental consultants F.P. Clark over half a year ago. Some, including astute reader Derek, believe this is because the Lighthouse wants to place the onus on the Town of Hempstead to tell them what can and can't be built, but still others believe that it's yet another case of actions speaking louder than words.
I do not know which side is right, but you could definitely see how many can interpret the statement on the Lighthouse web site as an opening salvo in the spin wars that will almost certainly ensue in the event the project ceases to be.
Questions
As we move forward now, we need to ask certain questions of both sides to increase our understanding:
•Are the 2 sides meeting and negotiating?
•Are the 2 sides both demonstrating a desire to get a project done?
•What kind of reduction will either side accept?
•How hardened are those positions
•When will someone say something in public?
We may not know the sound of 1 hand clapping, but with the Lighthouse gone silent and the Town spinning and exaggerating with seeming impunity, we do know the sound of 1 side debating. It's enough.
Bottom Line
I've said (in more of a hopeful tone than anything else) that we will likely have closure on the Lighthouse Project issue in a matter of months. We are all hoping for a solid resolution to this that will improve our community and provide a stable home for the New York Islanders, but, more than that, we want to know the truth. We need to know if the sides are negotiating in good faith, or whether this is just the start of what promises to be a bitter and ugly blame game.
No more slogans. No more finger-pointing. We want answers.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Raising (Hell In) Arizona
For Governor Jan Brewer, With Apologies To Emma Lazarus
It would seem that some of us have forgotten what it means to be Americans, children of immigrants all!
El nuevo coloso
No como el gigante de bronce de la fama griega,
Con la conquista de los miembros a horcajadas de tierra a tierra;
Aquà en nuestro mar-lavado, puertas de la puesta del sol se levantará
Una mujer poderosa con una antorcha, cuya llama
¿Es el rayo en prisión, y su nombre
Madre de los Exiliados. Desde su faro de ocasión
Brilla la bienvenida a todo el mundo, su comando de ojos dulces
El puerto de puente aéreo que enmarcan las ciudades gemelas.
"Mantener las antiguas tierras, su pompa legendaria!" llora
Con los labios en silencio. "Dame tus cansados, tus pobres,
Su muchedumbres que ansÃan respirar en libertad,
Los miserables rechazados de vuestras rebosantes orillas.
EnvÃa a estos, las personas sin hogar, tempestad Tost-a mÃ,
Yo levanto mi lámpara al lado de la puerta dorada! "
It would seem that some of us have forgotten what it means to be Americans, children of immigrants all!
El nuevo coloso
No como el gigante de bronce de la fama griega,
Con la conquista de los miembros a horcajadas de tierra a tierra;
Aquà en nuestro mar-lavado, puertas de la puesta del sol se levantará
Una mujer poderosa con una antorcha, cuya llama
¿Es el rayo en prisión, y su nombre
Madre de los Exiliados. Desde su faro de ocasión
Brilla la bienvenida a todo el mundo, su comando de ojos dulces
El puerto de puente aéreo que enmarcan las ciudades gemelas.
"Mantener las antiguas tierras, su pompa legendaria!" llora
Con los labios en silencio. "Dame tus cansados, tus pobres,
Su muchedumbres que ansÃan respirar en libertad,
Los miserables rechazados de vuestras rebosantes orillas.
EnvÃa a estos, las personas sin hogar, tempestad Tost-a mÃ,
Yo levanto mi lámpara al lado de la puerta dorada! "
Who Would Vote Against A School Pesticide Ban?
You Might Be Surprised!
A ban on the use of pesticides on school playing fields has passed the NYS Senate by a vote of 39-22, and now makes its way to the Assembly, where passage of the bill is likely.
If such a measure seems like a no-brainer -- and it certainly does to us at The Community Alliance -- why would 22 State Senators, including the Senate's Minority Leader, Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre, vote NO.
Is it the old, "the bill doesn't go far enough?" Falacious reasoning, at best, a partial ban on the use of pesticides on school grounds being much better than no ban at all.
Could it be that the voting buttons of certain Senators, notably Republicans, are permanently stuck on NO?
Or is it, perhaps, the strength of the lobbies of special interest groups -- some, like the New York Alliance for Environmental Concerns, little more than professional lawn and grounds care services, that rely on the toxic chemicals for their livelihoods -- who strong-armed our State Senators, filling campaign coffers (or threatening not to) to "buy" those NO votes?
Not to say that New York's venerable State Senators could be bought, or are somehow in the hoppers of the likes of Dow, Monsanto (and isn't there a Bayer chemical plant just outside of Buffalo?), or the businesses and organizations that rely on these nasty pesticides, but it would behoove one to follow the money, if not the actual trail of pesticides that leach down through the soil to the groundwater in the aquifers below.
Okay. So chemical companies and those who use their products in the regular course of business opposed the ban. Fair enough. We get it. But the NYS School Boards Association, representing more than 700 school boards across the State? What's their beef?
Yeah. The old "local school officials know best" when it comes to controling garden-variety pests and keeping our children safe.
How about the argument that taking the organic route to deal with pests, nourish our lawns, and keep grass green costs too much? Specious, at best. Actually, in the long run, going green costs less -- in terms of dollars and cents, as well as the public health.
Our good friends at Citizens Campaign for the Environment applauded the bill's passage, with Executive Director Adrienne Esposito saying, "Children face many potential hazards at schools such as peer pressure, drugs, and bullying – unnecessary pesticide exposure should not be among them..."
CCE's arguments for pesticide-free school zones -- on matters of health, the environment, and the availability of safe, effective, and cost-efficient alternatives -- certainly persuaded us (not that we needed any persuasion). Apparently, it was not enough to move 22 State Senators toward passage.
The actual floor vote on the pesticide ban was as follows:
Ayes (39): ADAMS, ADDABBO, ALESI, AUBERTINE, BRESLIN, DIAZ, DILAN, DUANE, ESPADA, FLANAGAN, FOLEY, FUSCHILLO, HASSELL-THOMPSON, HUNTLEY, JOHNSON C, KLEIN, KRUEGER, KRUGER, LAVALLE, MCDONALD, MONTGOMERY, ONORATO, OPPENHEIMER, PADAVAN, PARKER, PERALTA, PERKINS, ROBACH, SAMPSON, SAVINO, SCHNEIDERMAN, SERRANO, SMITH, SQUADRON, STACHOWSKI, STAVISKY, STEWART-COUSINS, THOMPSON, VALESKY
Nays (22): BONACIC, DEFRANCISCO, FARLEY, GOLDEN, GRIFFO, HANNON, JOHNSON O, LANZA, LARKIN, LEIBELL, LIBOUS, LITTLE, MARCELLINO, MAZIARZ, NOZZOLIO, RANZENHOFER, SALAND, SEWARD, SKELOS, VOLKER, WINNER, YOUNG
Excused (1): MORAHAN
In addition to Senator Skelos, the following State Senators representing Long Island also voted NO to the pesticide ban: Kemp Hannon, Owen Johnson, and Carl Marcellino.
Wouldn't you like to know why? Aren't you entitled to know?
We e-mailed Senator Skelos' office last week, inquiring why the Minority Leader voted NO to a ban on pesticides on school grounds. As of this posting, there has been no response.
Of interest, Long Island based Citizens Campaign for the Environment didn't get a response either.
"He wouldn’t really say why he would not support it," Executive Director Adrienne Esposito told The Community Alliance. "I met with him three times!"
If your State Senator voted NO to the pesticide ban on school grounds, ask him why -- and don't take NO for an answer!
A ban on the use of pesticides on school playing fields has passed the NYS Senate by a vote of 39-22, and now makes its way to the Assembly, where passage of the bill is likely.
If such a measure seems like a no-brainer -- and it certainly does to us at The Community Alliance -- why would 22 State Senators, including the Senate's Minority Leader, Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre, vote NO.
Is it the old, "the bill doesn't go far enough?" Falacious reasoning, at best, a partial ban on the use of pesticides on school grounds being much better than no ban at all.
Could it be that the voting buttons of certain Senators, notably Republicans, are permanently stuck on NO?
Or is it, perhaps, the strength of the lobbies of special interest groups -- some, like the New York Alliance for Environmental Concerns, little more than professional lawn and grounds care services, that rely on the toxic chemicals for their livelihoods -- who strong-armed our State Senators, filling campaign coffers (or threatening not to) to "buy" those NO votes?
Not to say that New York's venerable State Senators could be bought, or are somehow in the hoppers of the likes of Dow, Monsanto (and isn't there a Bayer chemical plant just outside of Buffalo?), or the businesses and organizations that rely on these nasty pesticides, but it would behoove one to follow the money, if not the actual trail of pesticides that leach down through the soil to the groundwater in the aquifers below.
Okay. So chemical companies and those who use their products in the regular course of business opposed the ban. Fair enough. We get it. But the NYS School Boards Association, representing more than 700 school boards across the State? What's their beef?
Yeah. The old "local school officials know best" when it comes to controling garden-variety pests and keeping our children safe.
How about the argument that taking the organic route to deal with pests, nourish our lawns, and keep grass green costs too much? Specious, at best. Actually, in the long run, going green costs less -- in terms of dollars and cents, as well as the public health.
Our good friends at Citizens Campaign for the Environment applauded the bill's passage, with Executive Director Adrienne Esposito saying, "Children face many potential hazards at schools such as peer pressure, drugs, and bullying – unnecessary pesticide exposure should not be among them..."
CCE's arguments for pesticide-free school zones -- on matters of health, the environment, and the availability of safe, effective, and cost-efficient alternatives -- certainly persuaded us (not that we needed any persuasion). Apparently, it was not enough to move 22 State Senators toward passage.
The actual floor vote on the pesticide ban was as follows:
Ayes (39): ADAMS, ADDABBO, ALESI, AUBERTINE, BRESLIN, DIAZ, DILAN, DUANE, ESPADA, FLANAGAN, FOLEY, FUSCHILLO, HASSELL-THOMPSON, HUNTLEY, JOHNSON C, KLEIN, KRUEGER, KRUGER, LAVALLE, MCDONALD, MONTGOMERY, ONORATO, OPPENHEIMER, PADAVAN, PARKER, PERALTA, PERKINS, ROBACH, SAMPSON, SAVINO, SCHNEIDERMAN, SERRANO, SMITH, SQUADRON, STACHOWSKI, STAVISKY, STEWART-COUSINS, THOMPSON, VALESKY
Nays (22): BONACIC, DEFRANCISCO, FARLEY, GOLDEN, GRIFFO, HANNON, JOHNSON O, LANZA, LARKIN, LEIBELL, LIBOUS, LITTLE, MARCELLINO, MAZIARZ, NOZZOLIO, RANZENHOFER, SALAND, SEWARD, SKELOS, VOLKER, WINNER, YOUNG
Excused (1): MORAHAN
In addition to Senator Skelos, the following State Senators representing Long Island also voted NO to the pesticide ban: Kemp Hannon, Owen Johnson, and Carl Marcellino.
Wouldn't you like to know why? Aren't you entitled to know?
We e-mailed Senator Skelos' office last week, inquiring why the Minority Leader voted NO to a ban on pesticides on school grounds. As of this posting, there has been no response.
Of interest, Long Island based Citizens Campaign for the Environment didn't get a response either.
"He wouldn’t really say why he would not support it," Executive Director Adrienne Esposito told The Community Alliance. "I met with him three times!"
If your State Senator voted NO to the pesticide ban on school grounds, ask him why -- and don't take NO for an answer!
Re-Creating More Than Communities
New Careeers In A Changing Economy
As we re-create suburbia -- how we see it, shape it, live it -- we also need to re-think the directions our own lives, and, in some cases, careers, are headed.
By choice, by happenstance, by design, we must reinvent not only the suburban landscape, but ourselves as well.
- - -
From our good friends at the Long Island Breakfast Club:
LONG ISLAND BREAKFAST CLUB
SATURDAY MAY 1ST, 9:00 AM
LOCATION: PICCOLA BUSSOLA 159 JERICHO TURNPIKE, MINEOLA
Speaker: Bio: Marc Miller, Ph.D.
“ What do I really want to be when I grow up? The time to "ReCareer" is now!”
Marc Miller, Ph.D., the Director of MLM Coaching & Consulting, LLC, has 30 years of professional experience helping people examine how their behavior patterns and communication styles affect their personal and professional performance, relationships, and life satisfaction, and effectively helping them and their organizations make positive changes. As a life coach and career coach, Marc specializes in helping his clients recognize how they can best match their unique talents and strengths with their dreams for a more fulfilling and meaningful career and personal life. As an executive coach, he helps business professionals achieve greater personal satisfaction as well as job success, as he recognizes that for today's executive and professional workforce, success is measured not only in terms of money earned: it is also important to feel that your work is valued, brings a sense of meaning and purpose, and must be balanced with your life outside of work. As a management consultant, Marc helps organizational leaders increase productivity, employee retention, and profitability by better understanding how to motivate and engage their employees.
Marc has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Adelphi University , and a Professional Coaching Certificate from the Professional Coaching Program at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College . Marc is a Certified ReCareer© Coach. In addition, he is the Membership Director of the Long Island Coaching Alliance, and is a member of the International Coach Federation.
The painful process of looking for work is eased by joining the Spirited Group of the Long Island Breakfast club. They Meet They Eat and They Seek! FEEL YOUR OATS NOT YOUR FLAKES! You’ve had dozens of interviews for jobs you would take as a gift. You’ve seen a career counselor to validate your strategy. You’ve followed the best advice culled from recent job-hunting venues! Net Result: The process, especially lead generation is too slow. One person however motivated can turn up only one lead at a time when it comes to job hunting, business leads or contacts. You are feeling like you will lose your mind! Stress No More..
The Long Island Breakfast Club was founded in 2006, an organization providing advocacy, support, career and employment counseling, referrals and good old-fashioned laughter to prepare experienced mature individuals for productive employment. Counted among the membership are women and men who have recently been downsized and looking for support to continue positive reinforcement to gain employment back in the corporate world. Membership is encouraged for any individuals who need the extra support to continue momentum in searching for jobs in the mid-life years.
About The Long Island Breakfast Club
This organization provides advocacy, support, career and employment counseling and referrals to prepare mature individuals for productive employment. To register email vjanek@optonline.net
For more information visit www.longislandbreakfastclub.org
As we re-create suburbia -- how we see it, shape it, live it -- we also need to re-think the directions our own lives, and, in some cases, careers, are headed.
By choice, by happenstance, by design, we must reinvent not only the suburban landscape, but ourselves as well.
- - -
From our good friends at the Long Island Breakfast Club:
LONG ISLAND BREAKFAST CLUB
SATURDAY MAY 1ST, 9:00 AM
LOCATION: PICCOLA BUSSOLA 159 JERICHO TURNPIKE, MINEOLA
Speaker: Bio: Marc Miller, Ph.D.
“ What do I really want to be when I grow up? The time to "ReCareer" is now!”
Marc Miller, Ph.D., the Director of MLM Coaching & Consulting, LLC, has 30 years of professional experience helping people examine how their behavior patterns and communication styles affect their personal and professional performance, relationships, and life satisfaction, and effectively helping them and their organizations make positive changes. As a life coach and career coach, Marc specializes in helping his clients recognize how they can best match their unique talents and strengths with their dreams for a more fulfilling and meaningful career and personal life. As an executive coach, he helps business professionals achieve greater personal satisfaction as well as job success, as he recognizes that for today's executive and professional workforce, success is measured not only in terms of money earned: it is also important to feel that your work is valued, brings a sense of meaning and purpose, and must be balanced with your life outside of work. As a management consultant, Marc helps organizational leaders increase productivity, employee retention, and profitability by better understanding how to motivate and engage their employees.
Marc has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Adelphi University , and a Professional Coaching Certificate from the Professional Coaching Program at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College . Marc is a Certified ReCareer© Coach. In addition, he is the Membership Director of the Long Island Coaching Alliance, and is a member of the International Coach Federation.
The painful process of looking for work is eased by joining the Spirited Group of the Long Island Breakfast club. They Meet They Eat and They Seek! FEEL YOUR OATS NOT YOUR FLAKES! You’ve had dozens of interviews for jobs you would take as a gift. You’ve seen a career counselor to validate your strategy. You’ve followed the best advice culled from recent job-hunting venues! Net Result: The process, especially lead generation is too slow. One person however motivated can turn up only one lead at a time when it comes to job hunting, business leads or contacts. You are feeling like you will lose your mind! Stress No More..
The Long Island Breakfast Club was founded in 2006, an organization providing advocacy, support, career and employment counseling, referrals and good old-fashioned laughter to prepare experienced mature individuals for productive employment. Counted among the membership are women and men who have recently been downsized and looking for support to continue positive reinforcement to gain employment back in the corporate world. Membership is encouraged for any individuals who need the extra support to continue momentum in searching for jobs in the mid-life years.
About The Long Island Breakfast Club
This organization provides advocacy, support, career and employment counseling and referrals to prepare mature individuals for productive employment. To register email vjanek@optonline.net
For more information visit www.longislandbreakfastclub.org
Monday, April 26, 2010
Be A Follower And A Leader
Join The Community Alliance on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CommunityAlli
Share our passion for community, the environment, efficient and effective government, and dark chocolate ice cream smothered in pecans.
Click on the Google Ads (any and all) as appear on the blog to raise money for the many causes of community, without having to so much as reach into your pocket.
Comment on the blog's many posts to express your opinions and air your concerns. [Hit the Comments link as follows each post.]
Follow the blogposts as the happen. [Just click on the Follow button on the left side of the blog, right below the Twitter interface.]
Be a part of the great renaissance that is the rethinking and rebuilding of suburbia.
Become a friend of community and The Community Alliance.
Write us with your thoughts, suggestions, ideas for a better burb, and, of course, Guest Blogposts for publication (please include full name and contact information). TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com.
Tomorrow's Long Island begins in your community today!
Share our passion for community, the environment, efficient and effective government, and dark chocolate ice cream smothered in pecans.
Click on the Google Ads (any and all) as appear on the blog to raise money for the many causes of community, without having to so much as reach into your pocket.
Comment on the blog's many posts to express your opinions and air your concerns. [Hit the Comments link as follows each post.]
Follow the blogposts as the happen. [Just click on the Follow button on the left side of the blog, right below the Twitter interface.]
Be a part of the great renaissance that is the rethinking and rebuilding of suburbia.
Become a friend of community and The Community Alliance.
Write us with your thoughts, suggestions, ideas for a better burb, and, of course, Guest Blogposts for publication (please include full name and contact information). TheCommunityAlliance@yahoo.com.
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Taking Back Nassau's Parks
One Small Step For Public Use. . .
The public versus private debate continues, and it's not only with respect to schools.
Our friend Bruce Piel of PARCnassau reports on County parks coming back into the public domain.
The question remains, however, whether, with the parks now under county control once again, will the county maintain and preserve them, or will the parks -- particularly Nassau's so-called "passive" community parks, playgrounds, and open spaces -- continue to go to weed?
Public or private, we cannot neglect the care, maintenence and preservation of Nassau County's green spaces. They are too few, too precious, and too much a part of our suburban quality of life.
- - -
From PARCnassau:
Nassau Taxpayers Repossess Their Parks
By Bruce Piel
Last week the current county administration and the county legislature codified the public’s innate right to full access and use of its county parks. They, in effect, evicted private day camps from county parks.
For over 9 years, the Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau and its constituent organizations have argued and lobbied against the privatization of the Nassau County Parks system. The proponents of this poorly disguised dissolution of our parks, preserves and historical sites included the former county administration, abetted by a compliant majority in the county legislature and general public unawareness.
This resulted in the issuance of permits for private day camps to use 8 county parks and the transfer of 13 county facilities to the Town of North Hempstead , excluding other county residents from having a say in those parks. Each year more and more park facilities were being offered to private operators; including golf courses, the Aquatic Center, park pools, preserves, ice rinks, etc, etc. The final straw was the county entertaining the privatization of the entire Cedar Creek Park in Wantagh/Seaford by a developer that planned an “amusement park” at that site.
The public response which had been building for years against privatization, focused on this monumental travesty with demonstrations, intense lobbying and publicity. Nassau citizens led by these two communities began to protect their parks physically and vocally. Resultant publicity doomed the Cedar Creek project, the sale of acreage in the Roosevelt Preserve and the takeover of the pool at Christopher Morley Park. It also was a factor in the 2009 county elections which put a new team in Mineola .
The battle was won but the war is not over. There are still advocates of public/private partnerships in the park system and county government. There are still private companies looking to make a profit at the public’s expense misusing park facilities. Vigilance by advocates such as PARCnassau and the public must be maintained to insure our parks, preserves, museums and heritage sites are maintained by the county for the use and enjoyment of all Nassau residents. We must urge our county officials to make every attempt to recover the parks given to North Hempstead and begin the process of restoring the Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums. The Day Camp issue was a great first step. Congratulations!
Bruce Piel
Chairman
Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau (PARCnassau)
246 Twin Lane East
Wantagh, NY 11793
516-783-8378
The public versus private debate continues, and it's not only with respect to schools.
Our friend Bruce Piel of PARCnassau reports on County parks coming back into the public domain.
The question remains, however, whether, with the parks now under county control once again, will the county maintain and preserve them, or will the parks -- particularly Nassau's so-called "passive" community parks, playgrounds, and open spaces -- continue to go to weed?
Public or private, we cannot neglect the care, maintenence and preservation of Nassau County's green spaces. They are too few, too precious, and too much a part of our suburban quality of life.
- - -
From PARCnassau:
Nassau Taxpayers Repossess Their Parks
By Bruce Piel
Last week the current county administration and the county legislature codified the public’s innate right to full access and use of its county parks. They, in effect, evicted private day camps from county parks.
For over 9 years, the Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau and its constituent organizations have argued and lobbied against the privatization of the Nassau County Parks system. The proponents of this poorly disguised dissolution of our parks, preserves and historical sites included the former county administration, abetted by a compliant majority in the county legislature and general public unawareness.
This resulted in the issuance of permits for private day camps to use 8 county parks and the transfer of 13 county facilities to the Town of North Hempstead , excluding other county residents from having a say in those parks. Each year more and more park facilities were being offered to private operators; including golf courses, the Aquatic Center, park pools, preserves, ice rinks, etc, etc. The final straw was the county entertaining the privatization of the entire Cedar Creek Park in Wantagh/Seaford by a developer that planned an “amusement park” at that site.
The public response which had been building for years against privatization, focused on this monumental travesty with demonstrations, intense lobbying and publicity. Nassau citizens led by these two communities began to protect their parks physically and vocally. Resultant publicity doomed the Cedar Creek project, the sale of acreage in the Roosevelt Preserve and the takeover of the pool at Christopher Morley Park. It also was a factor in the 2009 county elections which put a new team in Mineola .
The battle was won but the war is not over. There are still advocates of public/private partnerships in the park system and county government. There are still private companies looking to make a profit at the public’s expense misusing park facilities. Vigilance by advocates such as PARCnassau and the public must be maintained to insure our parks, preserves, museums and heritage sites are maintained by the county for the use and enjoyment of all Nassau residents. We must urge our county officials to make every attempt to recover the parks given to North Hempstead and begin the process of restoring the Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums. The Day Camp issue was a great first step. Congratulations!
Bruce Piel
Chairman
Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau (PARCnassau)
246 Twin Lane East
Wantagh, NY 11793
516-783-8378
Massacre Across The Hudson
Taxpayers Give School Budgets The Axe In Garden State
Could the overwhelming defeat of school budgets in New Jersey be a forboding forecast for Long Island's vote, set for May 18?
Voters just across the river defeated a record number of school budgets -- 59% failed -- many in districts where education was long considered sacrosanct.
Already faced with the highest property tax burden in the nation (followed closely by Westchester and Nassau counties in New York), New Jersey homeowners are saying "no more" to the raiding of their bank accounts.
No longer only a matter of school district largess and excess, to many voters, it's a question of economic survival.
Folks are out of work, or barely clinging to jobs, unable to make ends meet. They're losing their homes, unable to put food on the table, facing stacks of bills that remain unpaid. The tree is bare.
Here on Long Island, administrators and school boards alike are duly concerned. And well they should be.
The tax revolt in Jersey -- more like a tax revulsion -- should come as no surprise, however. It's simple economics. We can no longer afford to keep digging deeper and deeper into our almost empty pockets to finance eduction.
Bottom line: It's the property tax, stupid!
The regressive means of funding education -- whether in New Jersey or here on Long Island -- is being rejected by voters, even in districts previously considered safe. A strong message of enough, already, is being sent, not only to school boards (most of which try their utmost to trim, cut, and save within the constraints of contractual obligations, unfunded mandates, rising costs in pensions, insurance, and transportation, and demands of "more, more, more" from the likes of teachers' unions), but to State Legislators as well -- the ultimate arbiters (should they choose to act at all) in the property tax debacle.
And it's not necessarily the increase in school budgets that worries voters, but rather, the rise in the tax rate, particularly nasty this year given the drastic cuts in aid to education likely to come from Albany. While, for instance, a district's 2010-11 budget may increase but 3.69% over the previous year, the resulting increase in the tax levy (what residents actually pay) could be as high as 9.40%. Tax levy increases in the range of 10% may be the norm on Long Island this year, rather than an aberration.
To put it bluntly, such tax burden upon Long Island's struggling homeowners cannot be sustained!
The State pays less, the taxpayer pays more. The equation is that simple, and that painful.
Opposition to local school budgets is already mounting, and the call to vote "no" is going out across Long Island.
A flyer being distributed in Elmont and Franklin Square spells it out in dollars and cents, and could well portend the way of next month's vote:
SUPPORT THE SCHOOL BUDGET TAX REVOLT
● NEW YORK STATE IS FACING AN $8.2 BILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT.
● UNEMPLOYMENT IS AT 9.7% AND PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR HOMES.
● THE INFLATION RATE FOR THE PREVIOUS YEAR IS -0.5%.
SO WHAT DO THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS DO?
● GIVE SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS WHO MAKE OVER $250,000/YEAR A 5% RAISE.
● GIVE PRINCIPALS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER SCHOOL EMPLOYEES RAISES.
● INCREASE SPENDING 3.7% (over $5 MILLION DOLLARS), WHICH INCREASES YOUR TAXES 4.2%.
● USE CASH RESERVES TO HIDE THE REAL INCREASE, WITHOUT WHICH, THE TAX INCREASE WOULD BE OVER 7% .
THIS MEANS ANOTHER SIMILIAR TAX INCREASE IS LIKELY NEXT YEAR.
● ISSUE THE USUAL THREATS TO OUR CHILDREN THAT THEY WILL CUT AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS IF WE DON'T GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, NO MORE TAX INCREASES!!!
● SCHOOL SPENDING EXCEEDS THE RATE OF INFLATION YEAR AFTER YEAR AND IS OUT OF CONTROL.
● THE EMPLOYEES OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS RECEIVE GENEROUS PAY AND BENEFIT PACKAGES PAID BY THE TAXPAYER AND PUBLIC DEBT.
● IT IS TIME FOR OUR SCHOOL EMPLOYEES TO MAKE SOME SACRIFICES, THE TAXPAYER HAS GIVEN MORE THAN THEIR FAIR SHARE.
VOTE TUESDAY MAY 18, 2010
CALL YOUR LOCAL SCHOOL FOR YOUR POLLING LOCATION
A call for "shared sacrifices across the board?" Surely, this is not the rant of unhinged extremists, but the reasoned voice of parents, grandparents, professionals and blue collar workers who have had it with being taxed to debt.
Hard to argue with the facts, notwithstanding our innate desire to see every budget pass, a "YES" vote at the fingertip of each voter. Truth is, we, as individual taxpayers, as homeowners, as a community, as New Yorkers, can no longer afford to pay and pay some more.
It's not the children Long Islanders are pissed at -- though they will be the ones to suffer the most -- it's those damned property taxes. [Translate that into a "NO" vote for your sitting State Legislator in November, and you may just have something!]
While our anger may well be misdirected, and the outcome of our rath unintended, can we really blame Long Islanders for following New Jersey's lead in sending school budgets back to the drawing board?
We care about our kids, and want the best for them, particularly when it comes to their education. But, as one Nassau County community activist told The Community Alliance, "We're nurturing ourselves into bankruptcy!"
Mad as hell are the taxpayers of Long Island. Who can blame them?
Could the overwhelming defeat of school budgets in New Jersey be a forboding forecast for Long Island's vote, set for May 18?
Voters just across the river defeated a record number of school budgets -- 59% failed -- many in districts where education was long considered sacrosanct.
Already faced with the highest property tax burden in the nation (followed closely by Westchester and Nassau counties in New York), New Jersey homeowners are saying "no more" to the raiding of their bank accounts.
No longer only a matter of school district largess and excess, to many voters, it's a question of economic survival.
Folks are out of work, or barely clinging to jobs, unable to make ends meet. They're losing their homes, unable to put food on the table, facing stacks of bills that remain unpaid. The tree is bare.
Here on Long Island, administrators and school boards alike are duly concerned. And well they should be.
The tax revolt in Jersey -- more like a tax revulsion -- should come as no surprise, however. It's simple economics. We can no longer afford to keep digging deeper and deeper into our almost empty pockets to finance eduction.
Bottom line: It's the property tax, stupid!
The regressive means of funding education -- whether in New Jersey or here on Long Island -- is being rejected by voters, even in districts previously considered safe. A strong message of enough, already, is being sent, not only to school boards (most of which try their utmost to trim, cut, and save within the constraints of contractual obligations, unfunded mandates, rising costs in pensions, insurance, and transportation, and demands of "more, more, more" from the likes of teachers' unions), but to State Legislators as well -- the ultimate arbiters (should they choose to act at all) in the property tax debacle.
And it's not necessarily the increase in school budgets that worries voters, but rather, the rise in the tax rate, particularly nasty this year given the drastic cuts in aid to education likely to come from Albany. While, for instance, a district's 2010-11 budget may increase but 3.69% over the previous year, the resulting increase in the tax levy (what residents actually pay) could be as high as 9.40%. Tax levy increases in the range of 10% may be the norm on Long Island this year, rather than an aberration.
To put it bluntly, such tax burden upon Long Island's struggling homeowners cannot be sustained!
The State pays less, the taxpayer pays more. The equation is that simple, and that painful.
Opposition to local school budgets is already mounting, and the call to vote "no" is going out across Long Island.
A flyer being distributed in Elmont and Franklin Square spells it out in dollars and cents, and could well portend the way of next month's vote:
SUPPORT THE SCHOOL BUDGET TAX REVOLT
● NEW YORK STATE IS FACING AN $8.2 BILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT.
● UNEMPLOYMENT IS AT 9.7% AND PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR HOMES.
● THE INFLATION RATE FOR THE PREVIOUS YEAR IS -0.5%.
SO WHAT DO THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS DO?
● GIVE SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS WHO MAKE OVER $250,000/YEAR A 5% RAISE.
● GIVE PRINCIPALS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER SCHOOL EMPLOYEES RAISES.
● INCREASE SPENDING 3.7% (over $5 MILLION DOLLARS), WHICH INCREASES YOUR TAXES 4.2%.
● USE CASH RESERVES TO HIDE THE REAL INCREASE, WITHOUT WHICH, THE TAX INCREASE WOULD BE OVER 7% .
THIS MEANS ANOTHER SIMILIAR TAX INCREASE IS LIKELY NEXT YEAR.
● ISSUE THE USUAL THREATS TO OUR CHILDREN THAT THEY WILL CUT AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS IF WE DON'T GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, NO MORE TAX INCREASES!!!
● SCHOOL SPENDING EXCEEDS THE RATE OF INFLATION YEAR AFTER YEAR AND IS OUT OF CONTROL.
● THE EMPLOYEES OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS RECEIVE GENEROUS PAY AND BENEFIT PACKAGES PAID BY THE TAXPAYER AND PUBLIC DEBT.
● IT IS TIME FOR OUR SCHOOL EMPLOYEES TO MAKE SOME SACRIFICES, THE TAXPAYER HAS GIVEN MORE THAN THEIR FAIR SHARE.
VOTE TUESDAY MAY 18, 2010
CALL YOUR LOCAL SCHOOL FOR YOUR POLLING LOCATION
A call for "shared sacrifices across the board?" Surely, this is not the rant of unhinged extremists, but the reasoned voice of parents, grandparents, professionals and blue collar workers who have had it with being taxed to debt.
Hard to argue with the facts, notwithstanding our innate desire to see every budget pass, a "YES" vote at the fingertip of each voter. Truth is, we, as individual taxpayers, as homeowners, as a community, as New Yorkers, can no longer afford to pay and pay some more.
It's not the children Long Islanders are pissed at -- though they will be the ones to suffer the most -- it's those damned property taxes. [Translate that into a "NO" vote for your sitting State Legislator in November, and you may just have something!]
While our anger may well be misdirected, and the outcome of our rath unintended, can we really blame Long Islanders for following New Jersey's lead in sending school budgets back to the drawing board?
We care about our kids, and want the best for them, particularly when it comes to their education. But, as one Nassau County community activist told The Community Alliance, "We're nurturing ourselves into bankruptcy!"
Mad as hell are the taxpayers of Long Island. Who can blame them?
Friday, April 23, 2010
Out Of The Blog Of A Local Councilman. . .
. . .Comes Talk Of "Effective Consolidation" And "Smart (even vertical) Development"
Could the winds of change be sweeping through the often hermetically-sealed hallways of Hempstead Town Hall?
Town of Hempstead Councilman, Ed Ambrosino, long a good friend of and an active participant in the community he serves, pens an eloquent blog on his website, where a recent entry caught our attention.
He blogs of maintaining quality services without the death knell of increasing taxes, at a time of a contracting tax base and shrinking revenues.
"Governments cannot maintain all services (the 'wants of the people') without finding additional revenue to fund the basket of wants," says Ambrosino. "Instead, we need to identify the needs, efficiently address the needs through municipal cooperation and effective consolidation and then find the revenue to fund the needs of the people."
Did he say "consolidation," the heretofore bane of Town Hall?
"We need to encourage smart development and go vertical where vertical is not antithetical to the essence of suburbia," declared the Councilman, long an advocate, as well as ardent fighter, for redefining the burbs as precursor to rebuilding suburbia.
Is there a shift at Town Hall away for the Levittownization of suburbia, where "think small" is the vision of a new myopia? Could the door be open to fresh, if not entirely grand, ideas, where, as Ed Ambrosino concludes, "we need to take political risk and stride with bold steps to save government from collapsing in a pile of financial chaos resulting from the pressure of political expediency."
Sure. These are only words.
Still, words preceed action, and knowing Ed Ambrosino as we do -- a man of his word -- we sense that the status quo is no longer quite as comfortable or sustainable at Town Hall as once presumed.
Change, it is said, must come from within. True of both the individual and of our cherished institutions.
It is quite possible that Ed Ambrosino, and folks just like him, commited to our community, represents just such change. We hope so, as the very future of Long Island depends on it.
Ed's a keeper, for certain.
"We need to charge the users of services without burdening the populace for the needs of the few."
Right you are, Ed. Let's hope the powers-that-be aren't intent on creating a special "salsa lessons" district.
The wave of the future, in Hempstead Town and across Long Island -- perhaps even all of New York -- may appear as a mere ripple. Like the tidal wave of a tsunami far off shore, the momentum is always forward, the awesome power and tremendous impact, just below the surface.
- - -
From edambrosino.com:
Getting What We Need From Our Government
You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you just might find
You get what you need
Who knew that Keith and Mick were writing the quintessential balancing test for government?
If only we would listen.
We can’t always get what we want. We cannot have brand new roads, beautiful parks, free health care, salsa lessons without an increase in governmental revenue. Something has to give.
When a municipality is growing, and vacant land is being converted to ratable property (such as homes, offices or stores) government's revenue increases without raising individual property taxes. When expansion ceases, the supply of revenue slows to a trickle.
At that point, government must cut back on services or find additional sources of revenue. Government’s divining rod points to one reliable, yet politically unpalatable, source of revenue: raising taxes.
Cutting services and raising taxes force us back to the words of Messrs. Jagger and Richards. We must decide what we need, and not just we want. As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently pointed out - servicing the needs of a constituency is the principal reason we have governments. “ That to secure [unalienable rights], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Governments cannot maintain all services (the “wants of the people”) without finding additional revenue to fund the basket of wants.
Instead, we need to identify the needs, efficiently address the needs through municipal cooperation and effective consolidation and then find the revenue to fund the needs of the people.
We need to encourage smart development and go vertical where vertical is not antithetical to the essence of suburbia.
We need to become energy intelligent and not depend on energy sources that are wasteful, redundant and inefficient.
We need to charge the users of services without burdening the populace for the needs of the few.
Lastly, we need to take political risk and stride with bold steps to save government from collapsing in a pile of financial chaos resulting from the pressure of political expediency.
Cherry Red should not be the color of our balance sheets.
It should be the color of Mr. Jimmy’s favorite flavor.
Could the winds of change be sweeping through the often hermetically-sealed hallways of Hempstead Town Hall?
Town of Hempstead Councilman, Ed Ambrosino, long a good friend of and an active participant in the community he serves, pens an eloquent blog on his website, where a recent entry caught our attention.
He blogs of maintaining quality services without the death knell of increasing taxes, at a time of a contracting tax base and shrinking revenues.
"Governments cannot maintain all services (the 'wants of the people') without finding additional revenue to fund the basket of wants," says Ambrosino. "Instead, we need to identify the needs, efficiently address the needs through municipal cooperation and effective consolidation and then find the revenue to fund the needs of the people."
Did he say "consolidation," the heretofore bane of Town Hall?
"We need to encourage smart development and go vertical where vertical is not antithetical to the essence of suburbia," declared the Councilman, long an advocate, as well as ardent fighter, for redefining the burbs as precursor to rebuilding suburbia.
Is there a shift at Town Hall away for the Levittownization of suburbia, where "think small" is the vision of a new myopia? Could the door be open to fresh, if not entirely grand, ideas, where, as Ed Ambrosino concludes, "we need to take political risk and stride with bold steps to save government from collapsing in a pile of financial chaos resulting from the pressure of political expediency."
Sure. These are only words.
Still, words preceed action, and knowing Ed Ambrosino as we do -- a man of his word -- we sense that the status quo is no longer quite as comfortable or sustainable at Town Hall as once presumed.
Change, it is said, must come from within. True of both the individual and of our cherished institutions.
It is quite possible that Ed Ambrosino, and folks just like him, commited to our community, represents just such change. We hope so, as the very future of Long Island depends on it.
Ed's a keeper, for certain.
"We need to charge the users of services without burdening the populace for the needs of the few."
Right you are, Ed. Let's hope the powers-that-be aren't intent on creating a special "salsa lessons" district.
The wave of the future, in Hempstead Town and across Long Island -- perhaps even all of New York -- may appear as a mere ripple. Like the tidal wave of a tsunami far off shore, the momentum is always forward, the awesome power and tremendous impact, just below the surface.
- - -
From edambrosino.com:
Getting What We Need From Our Government
You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you just might find
You get what you need
Who knew that Keith and Mick were writing the quintessential balancing test for government?
If only we would listen.
We can’t always get what we want. We cannot have brand new roads, beautiful parks, free health care, salsa lessons without an increase in governmental revenue. Something has to give.
When a municipality is growing, and vacant land is being converted to ratable property (such as homes, offices or stores) government's revenue increases without raising individual property taxes. When expansion ceases, the supply of revenue slows to a trickle.
At that point, government must cut back on services or find additional sources of revenue. Government’s divining rod points to one reliable, yet politically unpalatable, source of revenue: raising taxes.
Cutting services and raising taxes force us back to the words of Messrs. Jagger and Richards. We must decide what we need, and not just we want. As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently pointed out - servicing the needs of a constituency is the principal reason we have governments. “ That to secure [unalienable rights], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Governments cannot maintain all services (the “wants of the people”) without finding additional revenue to fund the basket of wants.
Instead, we need to identify the needs, efficiently address the needs through municipal cooperation and effective consolidation and then find the revenue to fund the needs of the people.
We need to encourage smart development and go vertical where vertical is not antithetical to the essence of suburbia.
We need to become energy intelligent and not depend on energy sources that are wasteful, redundant and inefficient.
We need to charge the users of services without burdening the populace for the needs of the few.
Lastly, we need to take political risk and stride with bold steps to save government from collapsing in a pile of financial chaos resulting from the pressure of political expediency.
Cherry Red should not be the color of our balance sheets.
It should be the color of Mr. Jimmy’s favorite flavor.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Stewardship of Planet Earth
Keeping Earth Day, Every Day, On Long Island
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
Hey, we're talking about the environment here, not Long Island's elected officials, many of whom have been recycled so many times that, sadly, they're often mistaken for compost.
Today is Earth Day, and, considering this is the only planet that would have us (it seemed like a good idea at the time), worthy are those who make every day Earth Day by living clean, going green, and relying less on the machine.
Here on Long island, where our water comes from below the very ground we stand on -- and pour pesticides, herbicides, and toxic waste into -- we have a vested interest in preserving, protecting, and, yes, promoting Mother Earth, and, as trustees of the air we breathe and water we drink, a responsibility, to ourselves and future generations, to keep it green.
Whether it's a billion acts of green, or recycling that single plastic bottle that would otherwise adorn the side of the roadway or the bottom of a landfill, we can, we must, all do our share.
And so, as adherents to the old adage of Think Globally, Act Locally, we offer a celebration of Earth Day 2010, with sights (and sites) to see, events to attend, activities to engage in (and not), and ideas for greener living (no, you don't have to become a vegan), right here on our Long Island.
For instance, this weekend (April 24 and 25), you can take in the Green Living Expo at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood. It's free (even the parking), and fun for the entire family.
Be sure to check out which politicians are going green (other than with your tax dollars and PAC money), at the New York League of Conservation Voters. See who stands for smart growth, energy conservation, climate action, transportation solutions and natural resource protection, from sound to shore, and beyond.
Attend the Arbor Day Family Festival (April 24 and 25) at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay. Then, go home and plant a tree of your own!
For those who think "there's nothing to do on Long Island," visit LifeOnLongIsland.com, where activities and events, for Earth Day and every day, abound.
The good earth has its very own web page on Long Island -- EarthDayLongIsland.com -- chock full of events to celebrate this humble sphere, as well as ideas and suggestions to keep this swirling ball, and us, healthy long into the future. [Okay. So the listed events are mostly for 2009. Does that mean the world stops turning? Be imaginative!]
ExploreLI.com is more up-to-date, listing eco-friendly returns of the day from cycling to recycling.
About.com gets in the act, as do the folks at Long Island Press.
And let's not forget our good friends who remind us that it's not just about hugging trees and eating organic fruit or hormone-free beef. The true stewards of Long Island at Citizens Campaign for the Environment (check out their revamped, earth-friendly website) and Long Island Neighborhood Network.
Folks, this is but the tip of the iceberg (which, by the way, has melted considerably since you began reading this post). There are so many ways to reduce your carbon footprint, to reuse resources (including your old sneakers), and to recycle much more than yesterday's ideas.
And let's start here and now, with an energy-saving tip from The Community Alliance (where no electrons were harmed in the making of this blog): For the balance of Earth Day 2010, shut down your computers, Blackberries, iPads, and car engines. Take a walk. Contribute to and/or volunteer for an environmentally-friendly cause. Plant a garden. All right, go hug that tree if it makes you feel better.
We've got one earth, and one chance to make it right!
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
Hey, we're talking about the environment here, not Long Island's elected officials, many of whom have been recycled so many times that, sadly, they're often mistaken for compost.
Today is Earth Day, and, considering this is the only planet that would have us (it seemed like a good idea at the time), worthy are those who make every day Earth Day by living clean, going green, and relying less on the machine.
Here on Long island, where our water comes from below the very ground we stand on -- and pour pesticides, herbicides, and toxic waste into -- we have a vested interest in preserving, protecting, and, yes, promoting Mother Earth, and, as trustees of the air we breathe and water we drink, a responsibility, to ourselves and future generations, to keep it green.
Whether it's a billion acts of green, or recycling that single plastic bottle that would otherwise adorn the side of the roadway or the bottom of a landfill, we can, we must, all do our share.
And so, as adherents to the old adage of Think Globally, Act Locally, we offer a celebration of Earth Day 2010, with sights (and sites) to see, events to attend, activities to engage in (and not), and ideas for greener living (no, you don't have to become a vegan), right here on our Long Island.
For instance, this weekend (April 24 and 25), you can take in the Green Living Expo at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood. It's free (even the parking), and fun for the entire family.
Be sure to check out which politicians are going green (other than with your tax dollars and PAC money), at the New York League of Conservation Voters. See who stands for smart growth, energy conservation, climate action, transportation solutions and natural resource protection, from sound to shore, and beyond.
Attend the Arbor Day Family Festival (April 24 and 25) at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay. Then, go home and plant a tree of your own!
For those who think "there's nothing to do on Long Island," visit LifeOnLongIsland.com, where activities and events, for Earth Day and every day, abound.
The good earth has its very own web page on Long Island -- EarthDayLongIsland.com -- chock full of events to celebrate this humble sphere, as well as ideas and suggestions to keep this swirling ball, and us, healthy long into the future. [Okay. So the listed events are mostly for 2009. Does that mean the world stops turning? Be imaginative!]
ExploreLI.com is more up-to-date, listing eco-friendly returns of the day from cycling to recycling.
About.com gets in the act, as do the folks at Long Island Press.
And let's not forget our good friends who remind us that it's not just about hugging trees and eating organic fruit or hormone-free beef. The true stewards of Long Island at Citizens Campaign for the Environment (check out their revamped, earth-friendly website) and Long Island Neighborhood Network.
Folks, this is but the tip of the iceberg (which, by the way, has melted considerably since you began reading this post). There are so many ways to reduce your carbon footprint, to reuse resources (including your old sneakers), and to recycle much more than yesterday's ideas.
And let's start here and now, with an energy-saving tip from The Community Alliance (where no electrons were harmed in the making of this blog): For the balance of Earth Day 2010, shut down your computers, Blackberries, iPads, and car engines. Take a walk. Contribute to and/or volunteer for an environmentally-friendly cause. Plant a garden. All right, go hug that tree if it makes you feel better.
We've got one earth, and one chance to make it right!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
"Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy..."
Understanding The Difference Between Criticizing A Policy And Demonizing A Government
This past week, on the fifteenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, former president Bill Clinton wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times upholding the value of dissent in American politics, while denouncing the rash of hate speech and the advocacy of violence which, too often, has become the hallmark of so-called "activists".
Of course, Clinton himself was immediately demonized -- even said to have been the cause of the Oklahoma City bombing -- by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Well, we take it from whence it comes...
Excerpted below is the Times Op-Ed piece. It is worthy of a full read, and, thereafter, more than due consideration.
The right of dissent, and to peaceably petition to redress grievances, is paramount in the American democracy. The threat of a violent overthrow of our government, the dismantling of its institutions, and the viscious personal attacks upon our elected leaders, have no place here.
- - -
From The New York Times:
...we should never forget what drove the bombers, and how they justified their actions to themselves. They took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them. On that April 19, the second anniversary of the assault of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, deeply alienated and disconnected Americans decided murder was a blow for liberty.
Americans have more freedom and broader rights than citizens of almost any other nation in the world, including the capacity to criticize their government and their elected officials. But we do not have the right to resort to violence — or the threat of violence — when we don’t get our way. Our founders constructed a system of government so that reason could prevail over fear. Oklahoma City proved once again that without the law there is no freedom.
Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.
We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisan time. We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.
Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy. That is the bright line that protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since President George Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the Whiskey Rebellion.
Fifteen years ago, the line was crossed in Oklahoma City. In the current climate, with so many threats against the president, members of Congress and other public servants, we owe it to the victims of Oklahoma City, and those who survived and responded so bravely, not to cross it again.
This past week, on the fifteenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, former president Bill Clinton wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times upholding the value of dissent in American politics, while denouncing the rash of hate speech and the advocacy of violence which, too often, has become the hallmark of so-called "activists".
Of course, Clinton himself was immediately demonized -- even said to have been the cause of the Oklahoma City bombing -- by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Well, we take it from whence it comes...
Excerpted below is the Times Op-Ed piece. It is worthy of a full read, and, thereafter, more than due consideration.
The right of dissent, and to peaceably petition to redress grievances, is paramount in the American democracy. The threat of a violent overthrow of our government, the dismantling of its institutions, and the viscious personal attacks upon our elected leaders, have no place here.
- - -
From The New York Times:
...we should never forget what drove the bombers, and how they justified their actions to themselves. They took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them. On that April 19, the second anniversary of the assault of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, deeply alienated and disconnected Americans decided murder was a blow for liberty.
Americans have more freedom and broader rights than citizens of almost any other nation in the world, including the capacity to criticize their government and their elected officials. But we do not have the right to resort to violence — or the threat of violence — when we don’t get our way. Our founders constructed a system of government so that reason could prevail over fear. Oklahoma City proved once again that without the law there is no freedom.
Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.
We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisan time. We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.
Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy. That is the bright line that protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since President George Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the Whiskey Rebellion.
Fifteen years ago, the line was crossed in Oklahoma City. In the current climate, with so many threats against the president, members of Congress and other public servants, we owe it to the victims of Oklahoma City, and those who survived and responded so bravely, not to cross it again.
Is Your School District Superintendent Getting A Raise?
The Buck Doesn't Always Stop With District Administration
We hear the outrage over teachers' salaries, the demands for raises on top of step increases, runaway pension costs, and so on down the line.
But, when it comes to cutting costs and saving tax dollars, have we taken a look upward, at school district administration?
While teachers in several Long Island school districts have agreed to forego or curtail raises in order to save jobs and shave budgets, a survey of proposed school budgets shows that many administrators -- including Superintendents, whose average salary on Long Island tops $250,000 -- are slated to get raises in the 2010-11 school year.
True, they may be contractually entitled to raises, but just because you are due a raise doesn't mean you have to take a raise, does it?
In these times of economic upheaval, when we are asking everyone down the line to bite the bullet, shouldn't school district administrators, in their leadership roles, do likewise?
And gee whiz. If a school supe can't survive on $250,000+ a year, where does that leave the rest of us?
Traditionally, we support school budgets across the board, encouraging residents to vote YES. Where district administrators seek to fatten their wallets, however, while lightening ours, well, that gives us pause for thought.
Is your school district superintendent getting a raise? Do you know what's in your school budget?
Most school budgets as proposed for the 2010-11 school year, on which you will be called upon to cast your yea or nay votes on May 18, are posted on the school districts' websites. Be sure to check it out!
What follows are some additional thoughts, flowing from a recent meeting of the Elmont East End Civic Association.
THOUGHT #1 --Transparency
There's a problem with school districts tapping into their cash reserves to mask the actual budget to budget increases. Here's something that came up at a recent Elmont East End Civic Meeting:
The Sewanhaka School District has 10.1 million dollars in cash reserves (that number was taken from the minutes of a recent Board of Education meeting, as can be found online). At the April civic meeting, the school superintendent made his presentation to the public where he complained about 3.3 million shortfall in state aid. When the presentation ended, the superintendent was asked the question why doesn't he tap into the 10.1 million account to make up the shortfall in state aid. He responded that they, in fact, were tapping into the reserves for the upcoming budget.
Another resident asked the follow-up question as to whether the 3.7% proposed budget increase reflected the use of the cash reserves. The superintendent stated that it did not, and that the actual increase in spending from the prior year is actually somewhere between 7% and 8%. The fireworks went off after that.
While few would take issue with the school districts using the cash reserves, they are not being transparent with the use of these funds, and not stating the actual budget to budget spending increase. The public should be made aware of what the actual "budget to budget" spending increases are before they vote. Moreover, the use of these cash reserves simply raises the bar for next year's budget and every year thereafter.
THOUGHT #2 -- What's Good for the Goose...
School superintendents and their staffs are charged with negotiating contracts with the teacher's unions. Most, if not all of our superintendents took raises this year. How can they expect the teachers to make concessions or even accept a pay freeze when the superintendents themselves have not done so. If we were the negotiators for the teacher's unions, we would come out in public and say as much, destroying any leverage -- let alone credibility -- the superintendents may have had given the current economic conditions.
In addition, what were our Boards of Education thinking agreeing to give these superintendents raises? In reality, the school hierarchy much like a corporation. The taxpayers are the shareholders, the superintendent is the CEO, the school board is similar to a Board of Directors, and the teacher's are the employees of the business. At the end of the day, the superintendent (CEO) works for the taxpayers (shareholders), and should make sure the taxpayers are getting a return on their investment. The teacher's (employees) have a union to represent their interests, we need the superintendent (CEO) and Board (of Directors) to represent ours. This leads to the next thought.
THOUGHT #3 -- Did Someone say "Consolidate?"
Whatever happened to Suozzi's "consolidate all the superintendents" idea. Although it was too little too late for him, the idea has merit. There's just way too much redundancy in the system which generates terrible waste and inequity. In NY City, there's a single bureaucracy charged with negotiating contracts with teachers, purchasing supplies, and all other administration matters. In Nassau, we have 55 bureaucracies that all do the same thing, and not all that well, let alone with efficiency. If we're going to have a bureaucracy not run well, and at such great cost to the taxpayers, it might as well be 1 instead of 55.
THOUGHT #4 -- It IS The Assessment!
It would seem, from all appearances, that the school budgets are being predicated upon "rosy" assessment numbers. In Elmont they're basing their budgets on an average assessment of $417K. This number doesn't appear accurate at all as, by dint of even a cursory review of the assessment rolls, the average assessed value of a home in Elmont is not $417K. in many instances, not even close. Moreover, as assessments continue to decline, or are "frozen" at current levels, as some of our elected officials propose, the schools will have to revise their numbers upward, and the actual increase in the tax levy will be larger, perhaps much larger, than that as currently advertised.
Each "thought" can find relevancy in every Long Island school district, as we crunch the numbers and, dare we say, look behind them.
What are your "thoughts?" Anything to add to our list?
We at The Community Alliance, as well as your friends, neighbors, and fellow taxpayers here on Long Island, would like to know.
Share your thouts with us, by way of comments to this post, e-mails to thecommunityalliance@yahoo.com, and, yes, even guest blogposts, to be published right here for all -- including our school district superintendents -- to see.
- - -
School Budgets and School Boards are on the line on Tuesday, May 18. Know before you vote!
We hear the outrage over teachers' salaries, the demands for raises on top of step increases, runaway pension costs, and so on down the line.
But, when it comes to cutting costs and saving tax dollars, have we taken a look upward, at school district administration?
While teachers in several Long Island school districts have agreed to forego or curtail raises in order to save jobs and shave budgets, a survey of proposed school budgets shows that many administrators -- including Superintendents, whose average salary on Long Island tops $250,000 -- are slated to get raises in the 2010-11 school year.
True, they may be contractually entitled to raises, but just because you are due a raise doesn't mean you have to take a raise, does it?
In these times of economic upheaval, when we are asking everyone down the line to bite the bullet, shouldn't school district administrators, in their leadership roles, do likewise?
And gee whiz. If a school supe can't survive on $250,000+ a year, where does that leave the rest of us?
Traditionally, we support school budgets across the board, encouraging residents to vote YES. Where district administrators seek to fatten their wallets, however, while lightening ours, well, that gives us pause for thought.
Is your school district superintendent getting a raise? Do you know what's in your school budget?
Most school budgets as proposed for the 2010-11 school year, on which you will be called upon to cast your yea or nay votes on May 18, are posted on the school districts' websites. Be sure to check it out!
What follows are some additional thoughts, flowing from a recent meeting of the Elmont East End Civic Association.
THOUGHT #1 --Transparency
There's a problem with school districts tapping into their cash reserves to mask the actual budget to budget increases. Here's something that came up at a recent Elmont East End Civic Meeting:
The Sewanhaka School District has 10.1 million dollars in cash reserves (that number was taken from the minutes of a recent Board of Education meeting, as can be found online). At the April civic meeting, the school superintendent made his presentation to the public where he complained about 3.3 million shortfall in state aid. When the presentation ended, the superintendent was asked the question why doesn't he tap into the 10.1 million account to make up the shortfall in state aid. He responded that they, in fact, were tapping into the reserves for the upcoming budget.
Another resident asked the follow-up question as to whether the 3.7% proposed budget increase reflected the use of the cash reserves. The superintendent stated that it did not, and that the actual increase in spending from the prior year is actually somewhere between 7% and 8%. The fireworks went off after that.
While few would take issue with the school districts using the cash reserves, they are not being transparent with the use of these funds, and not stating the actual budget to budget spending increase. The public should be made aware of what the actual "budget to budget" spending increases are before they vote. Moreover, the use of these cash reserves simply raises the bar for next year's budget and every year thereafter.
THOUGHT #2 -- What's Good for the Goose...
School superintendents and their staffs are charged with negotiating contracts with the teacher's unions. Most, if not all of our superintendents took raises this year. How can they expect the teachers to make concessions or even accept a pay freeze when the superintendents themselves have not done so. If we were the negotiators for the teacher's unions, we would come out in public and say as much, destroying any leverage -- let alone credibility -- the superintendents may have had given the current economic conditions.
In addition, what were our Boards of Education thinking agreeing to give these superintendents raises? In reality, the school hierarchy much like a corporation. The taxpayers are the shareholders, the superintendent is the CEO, the school board is similar to a Board of Directors, and the teacher's are the employees of the business. At the end of the day, the superintendent (CEO) works for the taxpayers (shareholders), and should make sure the taxpayers are getting a return on their investment. The teacher's (employees) have a union to represent their interests, we need the superintendent (CEO) and Board (of Directors) to represent ours. This leads to the next thought.
THOUGHT #3 -- Did Someone say "Consolidate?"
Whatever happened to Suozzi's "consolidate all the superintendents" idea. Although it was too little too late for him, the idea has merit. There's just way too much redundancy in the system which generates terrible waste and inequity. In NY City, there's a single bureaucracy charged with negotiating contracts with teachers, purchasing supplies, and all other administration matters. In Nassau, we have 55 bureaucracies that all do the same thing, and not all that well, let alone with efficiency. If we're going to have a bureaucracy not run well, and at such great cost to the taxpayers, it might as well be 1 instead of 55.
THOUGHT #4 -- It IS The Assessment!
It would seem, from all appearances, that the school budgets are being predicated upon "rosy" assessment numbers. In Elmont they're basing their budgets on an average assessment of $417K. This number doesn't appear accurate at all as, by dint of even a cursory review of the assessment rolls, the average assessed value of a home in Elmont is not $417K. in many instances, not even close. Moreover, as assessments continue to decline, or are "frozen" at current levels, as some of our elected officials propose, the schools will have to revise their numbers upward, and the actual increase in the tax levy will be larger, perhaps much larger, than that as currently advertised.
Each "thought" can find relevancy in every Long Island school district, as we crunch the numbers and, dare we say, look behind them.
What are your "thoughts?" Anything to add to our list?
We at The Community Alliance, as well as your friends, neighbors, and fellow taxpayers here on Long Island, would like to know.
Share your thouts with us, by way of comments to this post, e-mails to thecommunityalliance@yahoo.com, and, yes, even guest blogposts, to be published right here for all -- including our school district superintendents -- to see.
- - -
School Budgets and School Boards are on the line on Tuesday, May 18. Know before you vote!
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