Serving New Hyde Park, North New Hyde Park, Herricks, Garden City Park, Manhasset Hills, North Hills, Floral Park
$1
Friday, April 1, 2016
Vol. 65, No. 14
N E W H Y D E PA R K
GUIDE TO Spring Dining
GUIDE TO MTA WON’T RELEASE DISCLOSURE LAW SPRING DINING GRADE CROSSING PLANS WAS UNCERTAIN: KAIMAN publications media / litmor a blank slate
• april 1, 2016 advertising section
PAGES 33-48
PAGE 2
Hearing ends, but tensions remain in GCP
PAGE 6
C A S I N O F O E S R A L LY A G A I N
Testimony closes in fire district case against 2nd assistant chief B y N oa h M anskar Testimony ended Tuesday night in Garden City Park Fire Department proceedings against Second Assistant Chief Matthew Flood, five months after his suspension in October for allegedly falsifying attendance records. Attorneys for the fire district and Flood presented reams of documents and firehouse surveillance footage as evidence. Four current or former fire chiefs — including Flood and Robert Mirabile, who was chief of the department until the end of last year — gave hours of testimony. After he closed proceedings Tuesday, hearing officer Peter Fishbein said he would give a recommended verdict to the fire district’s Board of Commissioners. When a firefighter in the audience asked if Fishbein would make his decision available to the department’s members, he said it would only go to the board. That wasn’t the answer the
firefighter was hoping for. “I don’t have a lot of faith in the Board of Commissioners,” he said. Beneath the proceedings lied a tension between some of the Garden City Park Fire Department’s leadership and some of its members, who said they don’t trust Mirabile and the other officers who brought charges against Flood, their friend. Since the disciplinary hearings against Flood began in January, the fire district argued he gave Roger Green and Sean Walsh — two of his closest friends — credit for more than a dozen fire calls to which they did not respond in an effort to make them eligible to run for a chief’s office. While they conceded Green and Walsh got credit for the calls, Flood and his attorney, Robert Valli, argued he did not falsify any records, but was only entering call records into an electronic system based on paper attendance Continued on Page 59
Photo by Noah Manskar
Neil Doherty of Floral Park addresses a crowd of video casino opponents at Belmont Park March 26. See story on Page 3.
New police force takes on quality-of-life crimes B y N oa h M anskar
Community-Oriented Police Enforcement, or COPE, program to tackle quality-of-life Nassau County’s most crimes and supplement the popular cops are getting some work of 16 problem-oriented police, or POP, officers. help. The department has plans The Nassau County Police Department has established a to expand both programs
and add at least eight officers between them, Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said in an interview last week. “It pays huge dividends,” Krumpter said. “The communiContinued on Page 62
For the latest news visit us at www.theislandnow.com D on’t forget to follow us on Twitter @theislandnow and Facebook at facebook.com/theislandnow