Friday, March 9, 2018
Vol. 94, No.24
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
New business cycle PAGE 24 n Robotics Expo
PAGE 66
Fire budget calls for investments in buildings, radio technology
A HISTORIC WIN
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
Garden City High School's Boys Basketball team beat Floral Park in an exciting double overtime game, to win the Nassau County Championship for the first time in sixty years. See pages 60-62 for full coverage.
No sidewalk and speeding on Cherry Valley BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
Recently two residents of the Central section of the village presented concerns over speeding along Cherry Valley Avenue, specifically near Tenth Street, and a lack of traffic controls and pedestrian-friendly engineering at the key turn. Details emerged at the CPOA’s meeting on Tuesday, February 13 at the Golf Club Lane Senior Center, blocks from the roadways in question. Wayne Kolins said the Central section of the village has overlapping issues about crossing Cherry Valley Avenue. He’s lived at the corner of Tenth Street and Cherry Valley Avenue for the past 11 years, and from his research with the Garden City Police Department he learned about 17 accidents taking place there in the last five years. He’s witnessed many himself including one last New Year’s Eve, which he showed a picture
of at the CPOA meeting last week. Kolins said the many trees along Cherry Valley Avenue may make it hard for motorists to see. He adds that springtime with trees in bloom as well as bad weather conditions make the road more perilous. “Cars that come down Tenth Street going west on Cherry Valley are either crossing town ‘whipping down the road’ or making lefts and rights ahead. The left is a very dangerous one going south on Cherry Valley, and maybe 10 percent of drivers going on Cherry Valley live in Garden City, otherwise it’s an in-transit road. People use it to go between other areas in Nassau County,” he said. Michael Tiedemann, president of the CPOA, introduced Kolins and another Central resident, Heather Nielsen, and the topic they would like resolved. He stated the See page 46
Plans for the Fire Department Capital budget would allocate halfa-million dollars into upgrading GCFD’s handheld radio units, which Chief Brian Gallo described for the trustees Tuesday night at the first of three village budget workshops this month. The overall proposed village budget is $60.58 million in budget expenses plus $750,000 for appropriation to reserve, and this would be an increase of $1.4 million, or 2.38% over last year’s adopted village budget of $60.072 million ($59.172 million expense appropriations plus $900,000 in reserve). As presented to the trustees and a handful of residents Tuesday, the tax levy increase for the village would be 2.00%. The budget as proposed is tax cap-compliant as the Allowable Tax Levy Growth Factor of 2.00% is not exceeded. The “Portable Radio Upgrade” line item is a major cost with this year’s Fire Dept. budget discussion, and the purchase requires consideration for other village operations, such as improved radio and communications infrastructure and inter-departmental connections between Police and Fire. Chief Gallo says Garden City has used a number of portable radio models over the years, and that is one of the premier tools besides firefighting gear/outerwear that is used with every call that comes in, whether false alarm or working fire. He believes the upgrade to an integral GCFD tool should have been initiated a long time ago. The units the department plans to continue for purchase, if the Board approves the budget and this $498,000 item,
are Motorola tripath radios, as Motorola is the listed New York State contract vendor. “There is a vast amount of different radios we have, and as with the police department needs there are different bands we need to move on to with technology. We will upgrade to a firefighting-type radio which allows us to go to the different bands -- not only will it allow that, but it also allows for upgrades with fire communications. Firecom may switch from the current bands used and this will allow us to meet the new band system; we can program all our radios at once. And outside the village a lot of fire departments use the UHF frequency, a better band/frequency to move throughout buildings than the VHF frequency that we have,” Gallo said. The commercial buildings in Garden City would be prime examples of locations that need precise radio transmission between fire and other emergency services. The chief says the upgrade would allow every firefighter to talk to all others “whether to relay information or God forbid, an emergency occurring,” he said.
Safety, communications needs
Trustee Robert Bolebruch connected the recent school and community tragedy in Parkland, Florida, and other situations requiring emergency response teams that have occurred nationwide, and asked Chief Gallo if new radio equipment would enhance FirePolice communication. Bolebruch says in many news reports, one of the biggest issues that is repeated too often is that the various departSee page 33
GCAA Challenger basketball taking court by storm PAGE 50 No winter blues at Cathedral Nursery School PAGES 42-43