Friday, March 3, 2018
Vol. 94, No.23
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
Women in STEM PAGE 20 n A day away PAGE 12
District budget includes safety, capital plans
UP, UP, AND AWAY
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
Garden City High School's Boys Basketball team won its playoff game in the Nassau County Championship and advanced to the semifinals against Elmont. See pages 58-59.
Streetscape follow-up gets Village on track BY RIKKI N. MASSAND At the Board of Trustees meeting this past Tuesday, February 27, Village Administrator Ralph Suozzi spoke about the follow-up initiatives from the Streetscape (downtown districts) work session, a joint meeting of the Board and village’s Planning Commission, held February 15. Members of the business community, Garden City Chamber of Commerce, and property owners in the three village business strips -- Franklin Avenue, 7th Street, and New Hyde Park Road -- have raised points for the village to consider, and that resulted in swift moves. Trustee John Delany announced that in a matter of 10 days, action was taken and most pressing drainage and sidewalk issues have already been taken care of. Suozzi explained
the tasks at hand and commended the village’s Engineering Department, the Department of Public Works (DPW), and Recreation and Parks personnel for attention to detail. “Part of the Streetscape dynamic included pavers on the street and slip-and-fall hazards associated with them. The DPW pavers specifically utilized staff with the residential sidewalks and roads to go document, to the exact areas on streets, what it would cost to repair these pavers. This is documented and entered into our GIS (geographic information system) and uploaded to show where the points of concern exist. Also in the system are all the tree grates (around the bottom/roots) and all the fire hydrants and street furniture, kiosks, bus shelters, benches, and lights. All items being put on or in See page 28
Garden City Public Schools enters the heart of its budget presentation schedule and deliberations in March with presentations on the instructional budget set for the Wednesday, March 7 and Tuesday, March 20 budget work sessions. The budget-to-budget increase as proposed would be about $3.14 million or a 2.79% hike, from $112.661 million this fiscal year (2017-’18) to $115.805 million in 2018-’19. The district proposes its 20182019 budget with a 3.54% tax levy increase, the maximum allowable under state law for this year. The number does not indicate that Garden City Public Schools is going to be one-and-a-half per-
cent higher than the 2.0% tax cap as has existed in New York State because of the district’s tax base growth factor, the number provided to the school district by the state and through Nassau County. “The cap is not 2%; it is the tax levy increase up to a maximum of 2% and then there is a formula New York State added for exemptions with capital projects, as the district votes on that separately because capital is allocated as a separate item in the budget. The growth factor is what the district was worth last year and taking into account new buildings or capital projects, brick-and-mortar structures, not within the school district properties but by the community, now the district See page 30
Third Rail Trail: Village approves LIRR memorandum BY RIKKI N. MASSAND On Monday the Village of Garden City posted a Memorandum of Understanding with the Long Island Rail Road and MTA for the Third Track Expansion project, which cuts through Garden City with the plans for 9.8 miles of new rail service between Floral Park and Hicksville. At the Village Board of Trustees’ meeting the next night, February 27, the M.O.U. was approved after a few quick questions and comments on the details capped over two years’
of speculation on what will happen inside village borders and close to residences and schools when the project, its mass-scale construction and eventually increased rail traffic comes to town. Deputy Mayor John DeMaro, who has served as one of the leaders of the Board’s Third Track Committee, spoke about the M.O.U. briefly at the February 27 Village Board meeting: “This MOU is the culmination of many months of negotiations. See page 44
EPOA to host meeting on groundwater remediation PAGE 27 WPOA to discuss credit card thefts, identity fraud PAGE 3