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Friday, April 21, 2017
Vol. 66, No. 16
Friday, April 21, 2017
37
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COLLEGE AND EDUCATION GUIDE
MINEOLA SEEKS MORE GRANTS
KAIMAN HIRED BY SUFFOLK COUNTY
PAGES 37-44
PAGE 2
PAGE 6
17 ion • april 21, 20 tions special sect ia / litmor publica a blank slate med
STONES OF KINDNESS
LIRR releases final environmental report Fixes added in 3rd track plan to Floral Park station, but two mayors say legal action still a possibility BY N O A H MANSKAR Local officials and residents are reviewing the Long Island Rail Road’s final environmental statement for its third track project, whose release brings the plan closer to fruition. The document, published April 12, contains more details of the $2 billion project’s impacts on noise, traffic, air quality and other topics in response to more than 700 comments on the draft environmental impact statement,
released in November. It also adds elevators and other fixes to make Floral Park’s train station more handicap accessible, a change civic leaders and village officials have requested for months. Project planners touted the final environmental impact statement, or FEIS, required under state environmental law, as more evidence of the community outreach efforts Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged in January 2016, when he announced the plan to add a third track to 9.8 miles of the LIRR’s Main Line.
“This completely new effort to fix the two-track bottleneck on the LIRR’s Main Line between Floral Park and Hicksville is like none that ever came before it — with exhaustive community participation, no residential relocations and significant reductions in noise and improvements in safety for local residents,” LIRR President Patrick Nowakowski said in a statement last week. Some local leaders praised that outreach and the fixes at the Floral Park station. Continued on Page 19
Another change coming to Mineola school board PHOTO COURTESY HERRICKS SCHOOL DISTRICT
Searingtown School fourth-graders painted rocks with kindness messages and delivered them to community neighbors along with letters that explained their purpose for the school’s service day. See story on page 22.
Nicole Matzer 3rd trustee in 3 years to end tenure BY N O A H MANSKAR The Village of Mineola is looking to put more cash behind an effort to make over its downtown business district. The village board voted last Wednesday to apply for
$533,000 in federally funded Community Development Block Grants to continue its plan to fix up storefronts and streets in the downtown area. Some $250,000 of that would be a boost to the village’s “facade improvement program,” an effort started about a year ago to give
storefronts near the Long Island Rail Road station a unified look, said Tom Savino of Vision Accomplished, a consultant for the village. “This funding is literally changing the face of the village,” Mayor Scott Strauss said Wednesday. Continued on Page 61
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