Opinions are mixed at council’s first hearing on budget proposal

By BRendAn CARPenTeR bcarpenter@liherald.com

The city held the first of two public hearings on the proposed 2023-24 budget Tuesday night, at which a crowd of community members took advantage of the opportunity to voice their complaints, or concerns.

The proposed spending plan includes a tax rate of 12.74 percent — the highest in several years, and more than double the current 5 percent. The city plans to spend a total of $102.9 million, up from this year’s $95.5 million. The budget was released late last month.

“I say to the city that this is an urgency,” said council meeting regular James Hodge, who sported a “L.B. Cleanup” shirt, “and like the shirt and the organization that I wear, we look for City Council members that help clean up and help us with taxes.”

The proposed double-digit tax rate is mostly attributable to the city’s $75 million settlement with the developer Sinclair Haberman, who filed suit after the construction of a building he proposed was blocked. In 2015, the State Supreme Court in Mineola granted Haberman a motion for a default judgment, in a case that has been wend-

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But McHenry got tied up on the Long Island Expressway on his way to Manhattan for the annual convention of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network at the Times Square Hotel. There Harris spoke about the gun violence that is roiling America — and that touched Long Beach on Easter Sunday, when a 33-year-old father of two was gunned down in the Channel Park homes.

He regrets having missed the chance to meet the vice president. “I got caught in a long line of traffic,” McHenry said.

And as a result, Harris did not get to see the portrait, which depicts Harris with a sober expression, fit for a serious occasion. There is a slight smile on her face, but the overall impression, McHenry said, is one of apprehension.

ROn McHenRY artist

McHenry received a call from Sharpton’s organization three days before Harris was to appear, and he was asked to do a portrait of her. He said last week that he had never had to complete a project that quickly.

“She is reflecting on all of the gun violence in America,” the 36-year-old artist said.

In her speech at the National Action Network convention, Harris noted that the country had observed the 55th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was shot on April 4, 1968, as he stood on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support a strike by sanitation workers.

Harris said the country faced “many important fights” — among them, “the fight for our children. And all the people to Continued on page 10