_________ Oceanside/island park ________
HERALD Your Health
Diabetes & Weight Management
Inside Vol. 57 No. 51
Getting a seat at the Equinor table
oceanside students coding
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DECEMBER 15 - 21, 2022
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Who needs reindeer when you have a jet? Nursery sends off Christmas trees By KARINA KoVAC kkovac@liherald.com
Courtesy DHL
NAssAu CouNtY polICE officers lined the steps of the DHL 767 jet headed overseas filled with Christmas trees, decorations, hand-written holiday letters from children, and Hanukkah menorahs, all for servicemen and women overseas and all part of Operation Holiday Cheer, now in its 19th year.
To spend time with your family over the holidays is a privilege many take for granted. But for those overseas ready to fight for freedoms, holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah are fraught with thinking instead about mission, and maybe even survival. Dees’ Nursery & Florist in Oceanside, however, has been able to make Christmas more accessible with yet another annual installment of its
Operation Holiday Cheer. The partnership between the nursery and shipping giant DHL has sent more than 15,000 trees to servicemembers over the years. This year, the local nursery sent hundreds of trees, decorations and handwritten letters from local schoolchildren to Djibouti, Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait. Operation Holiday Cheer began in 2004 when the mother of an Iraq-based soldier asked Dees’ Nursery if she could send a Christmas tree to Continued on page 4
IDA considers excluding utility companies from PILOTs By KARINA KoVAC kkovac@liherald.com
Vincent Randazzo is not a fan of PILOTs. The payment in lieu of taxes process has been a cornerstone of the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency as a way to encourage businesses to make their home in this part of Nassau County. But on the heels of the E.F. Barrett Power Station assessment the Island Park schools superintendent says caused a financial pitfall for taxpayers, Randazzo hopes to prevent the same thing from happening with Equinor.
The Norwegian petroleum company has partnered with BP to construct a wind energy off the South Shore and near Montauk. Yet despite a combined market cap north of $200 billion, both Equinor and BP hope Hempstead town officials will chip in some money in the form of deferred taxes. Equinor spokesman Brian Young said his bosses are reviewing the programs offered at the state, county and local levels “that would not only assist in the success of our projects, but would also further support the project’s potential for economic growth within the community.” Making it clear the company
was still very early in the development process, Young added that Equinor was reviewing a number of municipal economic development programs, and trying to determine “whether any will be pursued.” In its redacted 2021 project application to the town, Equinor asks the terms of the PILOT be 28 years starting when construction begins. The amount wasn’t spelled out, except that town officials would create a schedule of the estimated amount of PILOT benefit based on anticipated tax rates and assessed valuation as soon as the application was approved. “Island Park residents have
been burned before,” Hempstead town supervisor Don Clavin told the IDA last week. “It is the responsibility of the Hempstead town board to be on the lookout for taxpayers, which is why we are urging our township’s IDA to put an end to PILOTs for utility companies.” Councilman Anthony D’Esposito, an Island Park native
who will soon be on his way to Washington as a congressman, says his hometown continues to contend with the lost potential tax revenue from the E.F. Barrett deal, especially to nearby Oceanside schools that depend on such funds. “They are living, breathing proof of the damage that can be Continued on page 13