Serving Williston Park, East Williston, Mineola, Albertson and Searingtown
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Friday, April 30, 2021
Vol. 70, No. 18
MOTHER’S DAY GIFTS & DINING PAGES 29-36
Mineola adopts budget
ACID ATTACK PROBE CONTINUES
KAPLAN TOUTS SMALL BIZ AID
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MINE-GOAL-A
$24.45M plan a 2.98% increase BY K AT I E F E N T O N The Village of Mineola’s $24,451,264 budget for 2021-22 was discussed and adopted during a public hearing on April 14. The budget is a 2.98 percent increase from the $23,743,406 budget for 2020-21 and comes with a tax increase of 1.9 percent. Village Clerk Joseph Scalero said that given the financial challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the modesty of the increase is an accomplishment. He credited the “very sound budget with no cuts and a very minimal tax increase” to the board’s shrewd budgeting decisions over the years. “The main thing about this budget is that every municipality this year, from federal to local, has a budget that’s strained by COVID, and we’re really no different. We took a tremendous hit in nontax revenues because of COVID,” Scalero said. “The posiContinued on Page 46
PHOTO COURTESY OF MINEOLA HIGH SCHOOL
The Mineola Boys Soccer team celebrated a 2-1 playoff win against Jericho last week.
Strauss honored by Fire Department Mineola mayor named 2020 Firefighter of the Year during April meeting BY R OB E RT PELAEZ
department’s 2020 Firefighter of the Year. Strauss, who served as the Mineola Mayor Scott department’s chief from 2003 to Strauss, a former chief of the 2005, has spent 40 years servMineola Volunteer Fire Depart- ing the Mineola community as ment, has been named as the a member of Truck Company 2. “I would like to thank my family for their encouragement and tolerance in allowing me the opportunity to serve our community as a volunteer firefighter,” Strauss said at an April 8
meeting. “I would also like to thank my fellow firefighters. No one in the Fire Department does anything alone. It is wholly a team effort, and being recognized for one’s service by their peers is the ultimate compliment.” Before his tenure at the Fire Department, Strauss was exposed to volunteer work in the community as a child. His parents worked in the Mineola Volunteer Ambulance Corps, the
same group he would eventually join and where he met his future wife, Pat. Strauss achieved the rank of Eagle Scout as a part of Mineola’s Troop 45. He also spent more than 20 years as a member of the New York Police Department’s elite Emergency Service Unit. Strauss experienced the aftermath of Sept. 11 firsthand, being part of the team that searched through rubble for survivors. Continued on Page 45
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