Friday, May 15, 2020
Vol. 96, No.41
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
Virtual Promenade PAGE 6 n Art Drop for Hope PAGE 6
Huge utility poles installed near LIRR; residents furious
FEEDING THE FRONT LINE
BY RIKKI MASSAND
of the project’s price -- as the change order first proposed at the Board’s April 15 meeting and tabled by the trustees would have shot the costs up from $39,400 to $75,176 to contractor Talty Construction, Inc. -- then there could be astronomical project costs for
Village of Garden City residents in the Estates Property Owners’ Association section are outraged at the series of massive utility poles installed for PSEG Long Island power transmission along the LIRR Third Track project, which they believe has forever altered their neighborhood and potentially their property values. Both The Garden City News and the Village of Garden City have received several inquiries and residents’ feedback on the new utility poles, with questions about how the village could allow the negotiations with LIRR to include these towers. Of the nine steel PSEG poles put up on Main Avenue between Nassau Boulevard and Whitehall Boulevard, five have heights of 93 feet visible (total 120 feet but with 27 feet of the poles underground) and four are 65 feet high (total 80-foot steel poles but with 15 feet underground). From northeast of Weyford Terrace/Main Avenue to northeast of Euston Road/Main Avenue, the five poles are also 93 feet high above ground with 27 more feet installed underground. Resident Susan Dowling Larocca commented on the Village of Garden City’s Facebook page: “When the village found out about these poles, the residents should have been NOTIFIED by the trustees. Serious oversight in my opinion. Other towns and villages told their residents and they were able to fight it and in some cases had the line buried. In my opinion the trustees did not do their job in notifying us of these changes.” Another resident, Richard Corrao, commented to News that the poles “are ugly, a potential health issue, and impacting all of our property values…. These poles are unacceptable as this is a residential area -- the poles totally destroy the aesthetics here, and the LIRR project has already been damaging the landscape with all the tree trimming and felling,” he said. Residents in the Estates had brought issues related to landscaping and negative effects of the Third Track project to the attention of Estates’ POA leadership, the Village Board of Trustees and the 3TC administrators last November, when the Community Benefits Fund Suggestion Form was completed by Paul Rothenbiller submitted dozens of signatures intended to influence the Fund allocations for “Environmental: Landscaping, handscaping and stormwater control
See page 29
See page 33
GC Meals has raised approximately $150,000 and provided over 13,000 meals from 41 food establishments to workers at NYU Winthrop Hospital during the past seven weeks. See page 7.
Board pushes back against extra costs in St. Paul’s stabilization BY RIKKI MASSAND For the second meeting in a row, the Village Board of Trustees pushed back and decided against approval of $35,776 in additional costs for window protection work at the St. Paul’s school main building, as an explanation delivered by the village’s construc-
tion manager left some observers confused and in disbelief over the failures in the process of inspecting St. Paul’s for broken windows. At the Board’s May 7th meetingTrustee Mark Hyer feared that if this initial window protection plan could result in such a shocking compounding
Organization donates PPE to GC fire, police depts. Library Board forms reopening committee PAGE 4
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