Wantagh
HERALD Citizen
Locals gather for cleanup
Marine blaze draws local FDs
Local readers talk books
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VOL. 68 NO. 36
SEPTEMBER 3 - 9, 2020
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County panel postpones H.S. fall sports to ’21 By TONY BELLISSIMO and J.D. FREDA tbellissimo@liherald.com, jfreda@liherald.com
Christina Daly/Herald-Citizen
The summer that almost was Between sharks and the coronavirus, Jones Beach had a tough summer, including this day last month when, because of social distancing, the beach was “full.”
Nassau County high school student athletes will have to wait until the new year to compete in sports. At an emergency meeting on Aug. 26, county school superintendents voted to postpone high school sports until Jan. 4, becoming the first of the state’s 11 sections to delay its fall season. “I believe other sections will follow and pull the plug, but I can’t speak for anyone else,” said Pat Pizzarelli, executive director of athletics in the county, otherwise known as New York state’s
Section VIII. “We felt strong enough to make this decision now,” he added. “We took the cautious route, but we believe it’s in everyone’s best interests.” “It’s just not time to allow kids to play sports,” Pizzarelli continued. “And my first and foremost concern is the safety of our student athletes.” Kevin Witt, the Seaford School District’s director of athletics, physical education and health, said last Friday that he wasn’t surprised by the decision. “The state and federal guidelines require social distancing,” Witt said. “. . . At the end of day, we would be worried allowing teens CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
‘Safe Harbor’ still leaves some homeowners vulnerable By TIMOTHY DENTON tdenton@liherald.com
New York state continues to post an average of more than 4,000 new cases of Covid-19 each week, more than 220,000 Long Islanders are unemployed, and Nassau County finances are projected to swing from a surplus of more than $120 million this year to a deficit in excess of $320 million over the next year. Underlying these crises, residents of Seaford and Wantagh are sitting on the same time bomb of deferred mortgage and rent payments as many other New Yorkers. When it became apparent in
early March that the coronavirus would not be confined to countries across the oceans, both the federal government and the state moved to pass legislation protecting citizens from mass foreclosures and evictions. New York’s initial measure, signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on March 7, shielded residents during what was then projected to be a shortterm crisis. By June, it was clear that the situation would extend well beyond the moratorium’s original June 30 expiration. So the State Legislature passing the socalled Safe Harbor Act, giving Cuomo unlimited authority to extend or end the moratorium at
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viction protections will continue until I declare them no longer in effect.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO his discretion. He signed the bill on June 27, and it took effect immediately. “The eviction protections will continue until I declare them no longer in effect,” Cuomo said at the time. Even the blanket Safe Harbor moratorium, however, does not protect against some evictions or
foreclosures that were filed before the emergency was declared. Some protections in those cases expired at the end of August; others expire on Sept. 4 (see box, Page 20). With the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment at $1,850 in Seaford and $2,250 in Wantagh, housing prices in the two hamlets are roughly equal,
according to the Zillow Group, a service that provides real estate data and analysis. The median price of a home is $520,000, with total median monthly mortgage payments, including taxes and fees, amounting to about $2,900, according to Smart Assets. Before the crisis, evictions and foreclosures were rare in the CONTINUED ON PAGE 20