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Vol. 56 No. 36
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SEPTEMBER 2 - 8, 2021
9/11 responder honored with street renaming By ToM CaRRozza tcarrozza@liherald.com
Tom Carrozza/Herald
THE NEw YoRk City Police Department Ceremonial Unit, in uniform, presented the colors.
Dozens of people gathered at the intersection of West Henrietta and Fulton avenues in Oceanside last Saturday morning to commemorate their neighbor, New York City police officer Steven Brandow, who died in February of Covid-19. Family and friends were on hand to see Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin ceremonially rename West Henrietta after Brandow. Brandow lived on West Henrietta with his wife, Gladys,
and son, Steven. He was an NYPD officer for 20 years, with experience in the 41st Precinct in the Bronx; the Queens North Task Force; the Hazardous Materials and COBRA (Chemical Ordinance, Biological and Radiological Awareness) units; and at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks. He spent a month helping with the recovery effort in the wreckage of the twin towers. Gladys Brandow and Steven, 15, an incoming sophomore at Chaminade High School, reminisced about the life of the Continued on page 3
Sanitation District 7 taxes going up 3.9% in 2022 By ToM CaRRozza tcarrozza@liherald.com
On Aug. 26, Oceanside Sanitation District 7 Commissioner Austin Graff took to Facebook to announce the department’s proposed 3.9 percent tax increase for the 2022 budget, citing “rising costs like insurance, gas and salaries.” Graf f estimated the tax increase would cost between $17 and $42 per household. He also said that he and the other commissioners wanted to avoid using reserve funds for situations like another wave of Covid-19 or a hurricane. Reserve funds once totaled
around $4.5 million, but some were used in 2020 and 2021. “The expenses are going up, and as opposed to drawing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the reserve fund, we’ re raising the taxes in order to preserve the fund for a rainy day,” Graff said. “There can be another Sandy or another Covid, and we have to protect the taxpayer and make sure we cover our costs.” According to Graff, the sanitation district has incurred more than $200,000 in Covid-19 costs that he had hoped would be reimbursed by the Town of Hempstead through the CARES Act and federal funds.
T
he most important things are [making] sure we fund the district the way it needs to be funded. aUSTIN GRaFF
Sani Commissioner
To date, District 7 has not received any funds, with Graff calling it “the forgotten sanitation district.” Town of Hempstead Communications Director Gre g
Blower provided the following comment: “Sanitation District 7 never filed an application for Town of Hempstead to provide Covid-19 federal CARES Act funds. Many other government entities and front-line agencies, including hospitals, universities, fire districts, libraries and schools, requested and received funding.”
Graff responded by saying the district had reached out to Town of Hempstead Councilman Anthony D’Esposito and not been made aware of the application process for financial aid. On the same day of Graff ’s Facebook post, Oceanside resident and for mer Sanitation Continued on page 18