Town changes Harbor Links agreement

BY BRANDON DUFFY

The North Hempstead Town Board during a special meeting Wednesday morning passed a resolution to add 26 private outings to Harbor Links Golf Course in Port Washington, drawing criticism from some users of the public course.

Private outings at Harbor Links, and how many there should be, have been a topic of concern since last summer.

Port Washington’s Jack Genicoff, a golfer who brought up issues with the course last year, disagreed with the board’s decision to hold the vote on short notice.

“Twenty-six outings take up almost an entire month of the season,” Genicoff said. “I think it’s absolutely shameful that I receive an email Monday afternoon that you are voting Wednesday morning for this proposal. You should have just told us last year you don’t care about what we think and we would have gone elsewhere.”

The vote passed 5-1, with Democrat Mariann Dalimonte the only opponent of the resolution, saying she wished to continue the vote and wanted more time to discuss the matter with residents and golf officials.

Republicans Dennis Walsh, David Adhami and Supervisor JenniferDeSena voted for the resolution along with Dems Peter Zuckerman and Veronica Lurvey. Democrat Robert Troiano was not present during the meeting.

The board in December extended the management contract with Harbor Links, a taxpayer-funded course, for one year which included a provision that limited the number of private outings to once a week on Mondays. Under that resolution, any additional outings would have to be approved by the Town Board.

James Viras, general manager at Harbor

Links, said the outings that happen on Mondays run from the second week of April to October for approximately 22 outings.

He went on to say that the proposal includes at least two outings per week, four weeks with three outings and outings would be held on six Fridays of the year. Viras added that the senior rate would be extended to Fridays this season, making a round of golf $57 instead of $81 and outings that start at 1p.m. or later would allow residents to play that morning.

Eleven of the outings are slated to start at 1 p.m. or later. An 18-hole round of golf takes approximately 4 1/2 hours, according to the

United States Golf Association.

“Last year and in years past we would have weeks where there were five events a week,” Viras said. “We were almost in essence closed to the public for an entire week. I think going from five to two is a reasonable re-

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