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Vol. I No. XIV | www.StandardLI.com | News@StandardLI.com | Ph.# 516-341-0445
SERVING THE FIVE TOWNS
JUNE 24 - 30, 2011
FIRE AT CHO-SEN ISLAND CLOSES EATERY FOR AT LEAST TWO WEEKS
COUNTY BUSES GOING PRIVATE BY SUSAN VARGHESE
Standard Associate Editor
Nassau County is expected to save $35 million annually by dumping the MTA. Starting January 2010, the County will begin its partnership with private transit company Veolia Transportation to run the county’s buses. A representative from County Executive Edward Mangano’s office said in an email, “The creation of a public-private partnership to operate L.I. Bus is necessary as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) voted on April 27, 2011 to cease all bus service in Nassau County after the end of 2011. In its proposal to provide the County’s fixed route transit and Para transit services, Veolia Transportation, Inc. proposed a first year budget of $106 million, a massive reduction from the current Long Island Bus budget of $141 million. That’s a savings of $35 million annually.” Veolia, which is based in Illinois, manages transit systems nationwide. According to a recent statement, under the new arrangement, Nassau County would continue to own the buses and equipment, depots, offices, and other infrastructure, and Veolia would operate the system on a day-to-day basis. In addition, the County will ultimately control fare structure and service levels. But, although this loss may save the county money, it could be costing MTA employees’ jobs. Mangano said in a statement, “While I feel for the average MTA bus driver who may lose their job when the system is privatized, I am
FREE EVERY FRIDAY
BY SUSAN VARGHESE
Standard Associate Editor
George W. Hewlett High School Class of 2011 Cheerful gradutaes at the Hewlett High School graduation on Thursday evening. Pictured from left to right: Marsha Cohen, Dana Ganz, Nisha Desai, and Hally Cohen. See full graduation coverage pages A3 and A4. Photo by Susan Varghese
A fire at Cho-Sen Island Restaurant in Lawrence on Tuesday has caused the popular restaurant to close its doors for at least two weeks. First Assistant Chief of Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department, Joseph C. Sperber, noted that they received a call around 6:14am, after a Nassau County police officer on patrol noticed a fire on the roof of the building. “It was not suspicious. But, apparently the restaurant was doing renovations to the roof, and somehow roofers doing the work the day before may have
started the fire,” Sperber noted. “It went undetected and was burning for several hours before it was noticeable. It had something to do with the construction on the roof.” Cho-Sen Island owner, Neil Wallin commended the efforts of the Fire Department, “Although the fire, smoke and water did a lot of damage, they limited the damage as much as possible and took every possible caution not to totally destroy the restaurant.” Wallin added that they’re not sure exactly what happened, but noted that the roof work
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Scaturro Kicks Off Congressional Quest By JONATHAN WALTER Standard Staff Reporter
Frank Scaturro officially kicked-off his 2012 congressional election campaign with a fundraiser at Churchill’s in Rockville Centre on Wednesday night. Scaturro ran against County Legislator Francis Becker in a primary for the Republican nomination in last year’s race for the Fourth Congressional District, but lost. Becker went on to lose to incumbent Democrat Carolyn McCarthy in the general election. At the event, Scaturro introduced himself to a crowd of 95 donors and discussed his campaign goals. “People are frustrated and disillusioned with Congress,” Scaturro said of government spending after the event, one the biggest points he’s made in his campaign thus far. “This is ar-
Frank Scaturro speaking at his fund-raiser on Wednesday. guably the most highly taxed jurisdiction in the country. I talked about the importance of not just fiscal responsibility as an abstract matter, but also how it affects people in their every day lives. We have to change the process by which we appropriate money and tie it to a fixed percentage of our Gross Domestic Product.” Scaturro also discussed beginning his campaign early and the potential hazards that congres-
sional redistricting may cause for his campaign. “Obviously there is a redistricting process that will take place and ultimately I will have to defer to process. The dominant wisdom is that the Fourth District would remain. It has historically been a Nassau County district and you won’t find a radical change of its shape. The census results show a relative gain in Nassau county and these two counties (Nassau and Suffolk)
will now support four members of congress. That was the conventional wisdom even before the Anthony Weiner scandal. We might be surprised, but that’s what we’d expect.” “It’s hard to start a viable campaign for Congress without starting well before redistricting,” Scaturro said. “Unfortunately we don’t expect to see redistricting results till the last minute. You can’t start a campaign that late and expect to win. The responsible thing to do is spend a longer time getting a campaign together and primarily raise money. The federal regulations that govern campaign finance make things difficult to put these things together. It’s like filling a bathtub with a teaspoon.” Other issues that Scaturro discussed at the fundraiser included the simplification of the tax code, strengthening national se-
curity, making changes to health care that put more decisions back into the hands of patients and doctors, and creating an “all of the above” energy strategy. When reached for comment, Becker hinted that he may be gearing up for a run for Congress himself that may set up another clash between the two in another rare Nassau County GOP primary. “He can have all of the fundraisers he wants,” Becker said. “He wasn’t successful last time, so it will be interesting to see how he does this time. At this point I’m just doing my legislative work and reaching out to people in the congressional district and position myself and wait and see if that opportunity comes my way again. I continue to raise money anyway. It’s going to be tough to raise money with people not knowing what the district will be.”
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Last Minute Write-In for Lawrence Village Election Race BY SUSAN VARGHESE
Standard Associate Editor
Uncontested elections at five local villages, that started with no competition ended with two write-ins for the Village of Lawrence. In Lawrence, Trustee Michael Fragin had 85 votes, Deputy Mayor Joel Mael had 82 votes, and write-ins David Neglander took 16 votes, while David Seidemann had 22 votes. Fragin said he was “pleased” with the result and added, “I think we’ll continue to do well. Clearly, competition brings more interest to village and it’s a healthy thing. If people want to run they should be open
and public with it. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with someone waging a writein competition last minute…I think that we’re all motivated by wanting to serve the community.” However, write-in candidate, Seidemann noted that he had no idea he was written-in and wasn’t interested in running in the first place. “I never had any intentions of running and never had a desire to run. I received a call late yesterday afternoon that there was very low turn out and that my name was being written in by a number of people,” he said.
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Gray Gardens The Woodmere Club’s former satellite tennis courts and player gazebo at the Lawrence-Woodsburgh border have seen better days. Now derelict and overgrown, the club has put the now vacant land up for sale. The shouts of “point, set, match” have been replaced by the sounds Photo by Jonathan Walter of crickets and chirping birds.
C l a s s i f i e d s B 8 • E d i t o r i a l s A 8 • E v e n t s B 6 • M o v i e s B 6 • S p o r t s A 6 • We a t h e r B 7