Friday, December 6, 2024
Vol. 101, No. 48
Put My Passio n and Experienc e To Work For Y ou
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Board authorizes funds to challenge casino lease BY MEG MORGAN NORRIS
Garden City High School’s football juggernaut showed no signs of slowing down Saturday as the Trojans survived a relentless Sayville squad to claim their fourth straight Long Island Championship. See page 42.
Traffic Commission, Residents Discuss 1st Street Concerns BY RIKKI MASSAND At the Garden City Traffic Commission meeting on Thursday night November 21, concerns over safety in the vicinity of 1st Street – specifically regarding drivers’ heavy use of the road as a cut-through – became a hot topic.
Trustee Ed Finneran, chair of the Traffic Commission, shared a proposal by resident Bob Baker, who has advised the village of a petition circulating, intended “to demonstrate that a sufficient number of residents on the block are in favor of taking (official) traffic calming steps.” A day prior,
on Wednesday November 20th, Trustee Finneran and Trustee Vinny Muldoon, another member of the Traffic Commission, paid a site visit to the 1st Street corridor where they walked with residents to observe traffic patterns. Lauren Sbeglia, who lives See page 37
During the November 21st meeting of the Garden City Board of Trustees, the board voted in favor of allocating $150,000 for possible litigation against the 42 year lease by Nassau County to for the Sands at the Hub casino. The lease was approved by the Nassau County Legislature in August. The lease allows Sands to operate a casino for 42 years, and requires that Sands keep the facility open for at least two years. A prior 99-year lease was struck down by a NY State Supreme Court judge who found that the open meetings law had been violated, and that an environmental review must be held. Sands filed a 28,000 page draft environmental impact statement in October. During the village board meeting, Trustee Bruce Torino questioned whether the expenditure of $150,000 to fight the lease would be wise. He enumerated several legal reasons why he thought the village should not spend the money. At that point, Mayor Mary Carter Flanagan interrupted Torino and said that discussion of specific legal strategies in public is “highly inappropriate.” Under New York State Open Meetings Law, municipal boards can speak in private for certain specific reasons, one of which is to discuss proposed or pending litigation. Trustee Torino noted that he is against the casino, but that the village will be spending a significant amount of money to fight the environmental impacts of the project. According to documents obtained by the Garden City News, the village has already paid its environmental legal counsel, Sive, Paget, and Riesel over $85,000 between January and October 2024 for work related to the casino. Trustee Torino also objected to authorizing funds to challenge the lease because he said that the board was not fully informed about it, and that the trustee’s packets had not included an opinion by Village Counsel Gary Fishberg. However, Mr. Fishberg responded that the board had held a two hour executive session, during which the questions that Trustee Torino was asking were addressed. “It was a two hour executive session where this was discussed. See page 12
Messiah at GC Community Church PAGE 17 Rain doesn’t dampen runners’ spirits PAGES 40-41