Serving New Hyde Park, Floral Park, Garden City Park, North Hills, Manhasset Hills and North New Hyde Park
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Friday, September 20, 2019
Vol. 68, No. 38
N E W H Y D E PA R K
MINEOLA STREET GUN RAFFLE FAIR GUIDE BILL PROPOSED
NO TAX INCREASE IN CURRAN’S TENTATIVE COUNTY BUDGET
PAGES 35-54
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Tentative contract agreement
C O M E F LY W I T H M E
Herricks faculty to vote on pact BY TOM M CC A RT HY The Herricks school district and the Herricks Teachers’ Association have reached a tentative settlement for a new teacher contract, school board President Juleigh Chin said last Thursday. “I am pleased to report that the district and the Herricks Teachers’ Association achieved a tentative settlement late last night of the terms for a successor labor agreement to the one that expired last June 2018,” Chin said. The contract is tentative because the agreement has to be voted on by the teachers union and ratified, Chin said. She said she could not comment further. While the faculty’s previous contract expired in June 2018, Herricks Superintendent Fino Celano said in June that state law required Herricks faculty members to continue working under the terms of the previous contract. “Details will be released upon ratification of the tentative settlement by both the district Continued on Page 75
PHOTO BY CARRIE ANN SALVI
Local children and residents attended the New Hyde Park Communty Day in place of the annual street fair. See story page 2.
Probe F.P. helicopter use: Curran ‘Misuse of police resources’ alleged over police flyover of Belmont project BY TOM M CC A RT HY County Executive Laura Curran has called for an investigation into whether the use of a Nassau County police helicopter Sept. 5 to give Floral Park police and a local school superintendent an aerial view of the Bel-
mont Arena project was a “misuse of police resources.” “The County Executive and the Police Commissioner had no prior knowledge of this helicopter flight with a civilian passenger,” Christine Geed, a Curran spokeswoman, said in a statement. “County Executive Curran has called for a full investigation of this apparent breach of established police protocol by the Village of Floral Park and any misuse of police resources.”
Floral Park Police Commissioner Stephen McAllister said in an interview that the ride was “reconnaissance of the area” to investigate potential evacuation routes from the Floral Park-Bellerose School. He said that a Floral Park police lieutenant and Floral ParkBellerose School Superintendent Kathleen Soittle rode with Nassau County aviation officers. McAllister said that Floral Park police had made a call to request the helicopter and were invited
to ride on it the same day. The school is located near the parking lot for the recently approved project, which will include a 19,000-seat arena for the New York Islanders, 350,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, a hotel containing 250 rooms and parking on 43 acres of vacant state-owned property at Belmont Park. “We were asking a lot of questions that were not getting answered,” McAllister said. “It’s Continued on Page 74
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