Friday, November 30, 2018
Vol. 95, No.11
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
Holiday safety PAGE 12 n Tree lightings PAGE 3
Schools to hire security supervisor
COLD TURKEY
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
Thousands of runners braved frigid temperatures on Thanksgiving morning to run in Garden City's 41st annual Turkey Trot. See pages 52-53
Village, County ordered to pay $5.2 million
The Village of Garden City and Nassau County have been ordered by a federal judge to pay $5,272,951 in attorneys' fees and court costs in the long-running MHANY housing discrimination lawsuit. On November 27th Eastern District of New York Magistrate Arlene Lindsay ordered the village and county, which lost a lawsuit in 2014 alleging housing discrimination, to pay the plaintiffs' attorneys and court fees. The judge did not specify how much the costs would be split between the village and
county. The lawsuit, which was filed by fair housing advocates, challenged the Village's rezoning of the 25 acre parcel of land on 11th Street that used to house the Nassau County Social Services building. The court found that the Village violated federal law when it rezoned the property for town homes instead of following recommendations of its own consultant to allow a mix of residential and office use. Among other things, the court found that the village board might
have been improperly influenced by comments made during public hearings that might have indicated racial animus. According to a statement by the Village, it has asked its general liability insurer to cover the payment, but that it has been turned down. In a statement, the Village said it will continue to pursue payment. Although asked by the Garden City News, the village did not indicate what portion of the payment will be made by the county.
At the Garden City Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, November 20, the board decided to hire a parttime and on-call District Security Supervisor. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kusum Sinha and School Board President Angela Heineman attended the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) conference in Manhattan in October, where they attended numerous workshops and heard the latest information pertaining to school district communications and crisis management; security in the educational settings; improving school climate and academic topics such as changes in statewide assessments and methods for schools’ transitioning to next-generation learning standards. As part of the conference Heineman attended the annual school district legal debriefing, involving both federal and state education subjects and legalese in the national news. In Dr. Sinha’s report to the community on November 20 she said the NYSSBA conference this fall featured security matters. “They really spoke about training as the first and foremost importance...the session I attended featured the superintendent of schools of Newtown, Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary (the site of the December 2012 mass shooting tragedy). There was not a dry eye in the room when she spoke and explained some of the lessons they had learned there, with the focus on training as so, so important. Last year here in Garden City we had a security audit completed with many recommendations. One chief recommendation was to have a dedicated security supervisor,” Sinha said. The superintendent says the purpose of planning on a supervisor to hire was for the person to bring their level of experience into ways the district initiates new training with staff, faculty, managers of school buildings and the schools buildings’ principals and district administration. The training and preparedness can extend down to afterschool activities and programming. “We have had incidents in our schools this year and that has reminded us to get back to our processes and procedures and take a look at what we can be doing differently, what else we may need to do. I think it is time that we need someone to assist us with that level of expertise which we do not have, and someone available to us 24/7 See page 45
GCHS football team wins 3rd straight LI championship PAGE 68 Nine swimmers compete in NY state championship PAGE 66