_________________ WANTAGH ________________
HERALD Students show kindness
Ceremony honors our veterans
Collecting toys for a cause
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VOL. 71 NO. 47
NOVEMBER 16 - 22, 2023
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Making friends through the Jones Beach Club By CHARLES SHAW cshaw@liherald.com
Charles Shaw/Herald
State Sen. Steve Rhoads, center left, honoring Philip and Carolyn Jimenez, to his left, for spreading happiness and building communities as members of the Jones Beach Club.
For some, it’s a place to have a one-day-a-year summer adventure, but Jones Beach State Park plays a larger role in the lives of thousands of Long Islanders. The Jones Beach Club, a Facebook group that has grown to more than 25,000 members strong, has been bringing people together since its creation five years ago. Members include people from all over the island, many of them from Wantagh, Seaford, Bellmore, Merrick and Freeport. Freeport resident Philip Jimenez, a moderator of the group, said that people from all over the country join to share their memories of the beach. “The group keeps on growing,” he said. “It hasn’t staggered. Every year there’s new people, and it’s good seeing that, because we keep hearing new stories.” The club is a social group in which members interact by sharing memories of the famed South Shore destination. Jimenez said that many members no longer live in the CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Water authority seeks path to takeover of Liberty By NICOLE FORMISANO nformisano@liherald.com
The South Nassau Water Authority is making progress on a potential public takeover of Liberty Water Yet, even as progress is made, one question lingers: Is a public takeover of the utility even worth it? It was on the minds of a number of customers who voiced concerns at the water authority’s second-ever public meeting Oct. 30 at the Lynbrook Public Library. Liberty customers pay significantly more for water than Town of Hempstead customers for the same service, advocates
for a public takeover claim, as well as millions in property taxes a year. But, if the cost of taking over Liberty is steeper, L y n b r o o k D e p u t y M ayo r Michael Hawxhurst said, the South Shore may need a new plan. “At what point does the valuation become not an effective and efficient way to do this?” Hawxhurst asked the board. Taking over Liberty is about more than the acquisition, he added. It costs money to maintain, as well. “What does it cost to hire all these extra people?” Hawxhurst asked. “What about customer service people? What about
everything else in the community?” John Reinhardt, the water authority’s temporary president, said that feasibility studies and valuations of assets are moving targets that must be continually updated to remain accurate. “Right now, we need to come up with a value agreed upon by both parties to get a value to be able to say to ratepayers, ‘This is the number, here is the feasibility,’” Reinhardt said. And the cost to acquire the utility should be cheaper, according to Claudia Borecky and former county legislator David Denenberg, since Liberty
Water customers have, in part, already paid for the maintenance of the assets and should not have to pay again for the acquisition of those assets. Borecky and Denenberg are the co-directors of Long Island Clean Air Water & Soil, who have pushed to make the utility public. “The infor mation about
assets being paid for by the ratepayers has been heard dozens of times by the courts,” Re i n h a rd t s a i d . “A n d t h e courts, every time, have found that the ratepayers did not own the assets of any utility.” That’s not a decision Reinhardt says he agrees with, but one that only the courts have CONTINUED ON PAGE 16