Serving New Hyde Park, North New Hyde Park, Herricks, Garden City Park, Manhasset Hills, North Hills, Floral Park
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Friday, July 22, 2016
Vol. 65, No. 30
N E W H Y D E PA R K
Outside the Classroomthe
find Helping students lar activity right extracurricu
Right to Repeat? The pros and cons of repeating a grade
Making Home Work How to create a great study environment at home
back to school
Knights of Columbus sell
hofstra to host 1st presidential debate
PAGEs 33-40
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• july 22, 2016 tions special section / litmor publica a blank slate media
Uncertainty leaves locals feeling uneasy 3rd track could damage quality of life along Main Line, officials say By N o a h Manskar
Photo by Noah Manskar
The edge of Floral Park’s recently renovated pool complex is only about 25 feet from the Long Island Rail Road tracks. Officials and residents worry construction could damage the pool and disturb a center of village activity.
On a warm summer afternoon, dozens of families filled the Village of Floral Park’s swimming pool. Some adults lay on the pool deck, watching their children swim and splash in fountains. Other children of varying ages took turns on a water slide, with trains intermittently passing behind them on the Long Island Rail Road tracks about 25 feet away. Slight vibrations from the trains could be felt at the top of the slide’s platform. Since opening last year, Floral Park’s $6.3 million renovated pool complex has become the “heart of the village” in the summer months, Mayor Thomas Tweedy said. About 60 per-
cent of residents have summer memberships, he said, and local groups hold meetings and events at the pool and the adjacent recreation building nearly every day. About 1,200 children and adults play sports on the nearby fields and courts year-round, he said. Second in a series
That’s part of why the prospect of the LIRR’s $1.5 billion, 9.8-mile third track project alarms Tweedy and others in Floral Park — vibrations, dust and other effects of construction could Continued on Page 58
Dolan back in FD after court ruling B y N o a h M a n s k a r dismissed.
State Supreme Court Judge James McCormack ordered the The New Hyde Park Fire De- New Hyde Park Fire District’s Board partment reinstated a firefighter, of Commissioners to reinstate Michael Dolan Sr., on Tuesday Dolan in a July 12 ruling, finding more than three years after he was the board’s April 2013 decision to
terminate him for taking 65 smoke detectors from the New Hyde Park firehouse was so “disproportionate as to shock the judicial conscience.” A one-year suspension, which Dolan has already effectively served, would have been more appropriate, McCormack ruled, noting that Dolan had few previous disciplinary infractions. “(T)aking into consideration Dolan’s four-plus decades of ser-
vice and his record as a veteran, this court finds the punishment of termination to be a disproportionate penalty,” McCormack wrote. McCormack’s ruling ostensibly ends one nearly three-year legal battle between Dolan and the fire department he served for more than 40 years as another continues in federal court. The decision came after the state Appellate Division court re-
versed his December 2013 decision to reinstate Dolan because the Board of Commissioners followed improper procedures to remove him. The appellate court ruled in March that the board had grounds to remove Dolan, a former fire commissioner, from the fire department because taking the smoke detectors violated department rules. But Continued on Page 71
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