Friday, January 6, 2017
Vol. 93, No.18
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
Trash or Treasure? PAGE 25 n Pack 55 helps out PAGE 21
Village Board to consider hotel site plan at meeting
VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS TEA
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
The Cathedral of the Incarnation’s First Annual Christmas Tea Party at the Cathedral Diocesan House was a sold out success. Patrons enjoyed afternoon tea in the historic Stewart Era Victorian home which previously housed the Episcopal Bishops of Long Island. See page 33.
Fire lieutenant looks back on 37 years BY RIKKI N. MASSAND After a 37-year career Garden City Fire loses one of its most recognizable and dedicated leaders, as Lieutenant Louis Mira spent his last day on the job on Tuesday, January 3. The department was marred with a controversy in 2016 as two budgeted firefighter layoffs were averted when two senior firefighters retired to save their colleague’s jobs last spring. But now a void has been created in both the ranks, with Garden City dropping from 18 to 15 career firefighters on staff in
the span of the past year, and with the loss of the knowledge a savvy veteran brought to the village with each call he was on duty for. “A fire officer is basically a problem-solver and they can do it in a calm way – when everyone around you is distraught and in a panic, the key is to keep a calm head and make a difference. My driving force was to help other people and have a career that I would enjoy going to every day, and I did. So many days I would jump out of my bed to go to work,” Mira says. That passion to be a fire-
fighter and service your fellow citizen stems from a foregone era, as in his first years in Garden City’s firehouse the ranks were filled with men who had gone to war in Vietnam. Mira was lucky enough to have been born too late to be subject to the draft, yet his coming of age would take place under the guidance of veteran firemen and patriots. “I was one of the youngest firemen hired, and the firemen before me started when they were a little older because they were at war – See page 8
At its meeting on Thursday, January 12th, the Garden City Board of Trustees will review the site plan for a proposed Marriott Residence Inn on the Ring Road parcel in the east section of Garden City. The path to approving the hotel’s design has been a long one. A series of public hearings last fall by the Village Planning Commission resulted in a zoning change for the CR (commercial-residential) district, which was approved on November 17. . Garden City formed its Zoning Change Review Committee to consider hotel use in its CR-zone. The next step, hand-in-hand with the Trustees’ review of the site plan on January 12, is a special permit which is being sought by the developers. Along the way many public comments at meetings and an online petition have ensured safety checks and balances for the project, rather than sending plans back to the drawing board or causing dissenting views among members of the Board of Trustees. Opposition to the new 163-room, nearly 60-foot-high hotel constructed on Ring Road has turned into collaboration. From the very start of the process the voice representing the hotel plan – a joint venture of OTO Development and Simon Properties – has been attorney William Bonesso of Uniondale-based firm Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, Mineo & Terrana, LLP. In an interview with The Garden City News on January 4, Bonesso explained that the project has a two-fold path during January. If the Board of Trustees’ meeting January 12 brings the needed approvals, then the Architectural Design Review Board (ADRB) meeting on January 24 will probably cover the Residence Inn’s layout, materials, signage design, facade and overall appearance as one of the key ADRB applications this month. “We first met with the Planning Commission in December for preliminary site plan review. We were before that village body with our engineers and experts, presenting the site plan and development plan. They reviewed it and deemed it ready for submission before the Board of Trustees for final site plan review. Also with the passage of the zoning code modification that occurred on November 17, where the Board adopted an amendment to CR district provisions which permits a hotel as a conditional use subject to a special use permit issued by the Trustees, the hearing on January 12 will be for that special use permit. They’re hand-in-hand with site plans and the special use permit application. We are making the point to the Board that it is an appropriately laid out and designed plan which is going to be accommodated by the site, surrounding roadways, municipal services in the area and that this is a use that should be deemed appropriate for the conditional use permit,” Bonesso said. A few years ago Bonesso also represented another Ring Road See page 19
GCHS alumni basketball games have long history PAGE 47 WWII POW to speak at Community Church Forum PAGE 34