your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
April 28, 2022
LONG BEACH
_______________
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
Your Health Inside
$1.00
Vol. 33 No. 18
discount
Stolen crown back at Chabad
1111028
Senior Healthy Living
10000*
$
1172314
________________
Page 12 APRIl 28 - MAY 4, 2022
City considers $95 million spending plan sion with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, and an agreement reached earlier this month Taxes are expected to go up in with the Commanding Officers Long Beach this coming year, Association that will cap payouts after the City Council proposed a for new officers and retirements budget with a tax rate slightly in the future. higher than before. That was among a number of If adopted, the bright spots inside new budget — at a Long Beach’s financ4.96 percent tax rate es for the coming — could cost homeyear, according to owners an extra City Manager $219. Public hearDonna Gayden. Her ings are set for May leadership team also 3 and May 17. finally settled a But there is some 30-year-old lawsuit silver lining, city filed by developer officials said, at least Sinclair Haberman from a fiscal responthat cost Long Beach sibility standpoint. $75 million over the The proposed $95.5 long-delayed plans to m i l l i o n b u d g e t doNNA GAYdEN build a pair of resirequires no borrow- City manager dential towers. If it ing, a “substantial hadn’t been settled, departure” from preLong Beach could vious years, when Long Beach have been on the hook for double took on more debt to pay costs that. for departing employees. The proposed budget doesn’t This time around, however, include this settlement. officials were able to fully budget Also, the bond rating agency separation costs, like severance Moody’s raised its outlook on the pay. Long Beach officials budget- city’s financial position as “posied $2.5 million for such costs, a tive,” while the state comptrollittle less than 3 percent of the ler’s office has lowered the city’s total city’s total expenses. fiscal stress level to “susceptiThe city also expects to bene- ble.” In 2019, Long Beach had fit from both an arbiter’s deciContinued on page 7
By JAMES BERNSTEIN jbernstein@liherald.com
T
Brendan Carpenter/Herald
lEoNId loS, 59, fled the war in Ukraine and traveled to Long Beach with amputated toes, a trip that took five days.
‘My heart is with Ukraine’
59-year-old escapes war, makes it to the U.S. By BRENdAN CARPENTER bcarpenter@liherald.com
Leonid Los remembers exactly when the bombing started in Ukraine. He was in a hospital, recovering from an accident that cost him two of his toes. He was living in Bronyky, a small village in Ukraine, caring for his elderly mother. He fell asleep one day with his feet on a chimney. A diabetic with neuropathy, he didn’t feel what was happen-
ing. The toes were amputated on Feb. 14. Ten days later, Russia invaded, and Los heard the bombs fall. Despite his injuries, Los, 5 9 , m a n a g e d t o e s c ap e Ukraine and make it to the U.S., where he has family in Freeport. A nurse practitioner, he managed, while traveling west through Europe, to change the dressing on his bandaged foot and even administer his own shots. He wound up at Mount
Sinai South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside, before being moved to the Park Avenue Extended Care Facility in Long Beach on April 20. Earlier this week, Los spoke with the Herald through a translator at the Park Avenue facility, where he is being treated free of charge. The memories of what happened in his home country are still fresh. When the bombing began, Los and othContinued on page 4
he proposed budget represents the next step in the resurgence of Long Beach.