Hofstra files lawsuit against commission

Continued from Page 2 no,” ofcials said. “There are other locations in and around New York City to site a casino that are not in such proximity to multiple educational institutions where so many young people live and learn.”

In January Sands Vice Presidents Ron Reese said the company and Hofstra have engaged in discussions regarding the proposal and hopes to have a continued dialogue throughout the process.

“We don’t build $4 billion casinos, we build multi-amenity real estate developments and we want to engage with the community and local labor leaders,” Reese said. “We’ve spoken to Hofstra and we hope there are more opportunities to engage in conversation.”

Reese told Blank Slate Media in January the hotel will be at least 800 rooms, the live performance venue will have a 5,0007,500 seat capacity and there will be roughly 400,000 square feet of “corporate meeting facilities” to go along with other amenities.

Hofstra President Susan Poser previously expressed concerns in a guest essay in Newsday that a casino would exacerbate trafc, contribute to addiction and mental health tendencies in college-age students and would not guarantee an increase in revenue to the area.

“A casino at the Hub is not about the future, and it would not be an engine for economic and social prosperity,” Poser said in the essay. “It would be dangerous for adjoin- ing neighborhoods and create a nightmare of trafc and pollution, not to mention antisocial behaviors that often crop up around casinos.” plaint it receives, according to ofcials.

Despite Hofstra’s opposition to the plans, a pair of other local colleges have expressed support for the idea, with Nassau County Community College and Long Island University announcing they will aid Sands in its plans.

The partnership between the two colleges will allow students to advance their two-year associate’s degree into a four-year bachelor’s degree, ofcials said. The program, according to Sands ofcials, would be benefcial to graduates seeking to pursue a variety of hospitality roles.

A complaint could either be determined to be “substantiated,” meaning that misconduct did occur, or “unsustained,” which means the complaint did not qualify as misconduct, according to ofcials.

If there is no evidence to prove that the alleged misconduct or incident actually occurred, ofcials said, the complaint would be deemed as “unfounded.”

Once the analysis of complaints is completed, ofcials said, three board members will decide whether or not they approve the investigators’ recommended disciplinary actions, according to ofcials.

Aside from the establishment of civilian oversight, Long Island United to Transform Policing & Community Safety also called for the full disclosure of all police investigations and complaints. Nassau has declined to turn over those records despite the repeal of Civil Rights Law 50-a in June 2020, which permitted police departments to withhold misconduct and other personnel records.

The New York Civil Liberties Union fled an order to show cause against the Nassau County Police Department in March in its ongoing efforts to obtain misconduct and personnel records.

Hodgson said the New York Civil Liberties Union requested access to Nassau’s department disciplinary records, use of force, feld interviews, civilian complaints and investigative reports, among others through a Freedom of Information Law request in 2020.

Hodgson said that the police department was ordered by the Nassau County Supreme Court to turn over disciplinary records after June of 2020 within 60 days from the order handed down by the Nassau County Supreme Court on May 2, 2022.

The police department has denied the requests despite the repeal of Civil Rights Law 50-a in 2020, which permitted police departments from disclosing misconduct and other personnel records.

“Turning these records over is the frst necessary step in having any sort of informed public discussion about what police accountability looks like in Nassau County,” Hodgson said. “In a world where these records are secret, the public knows zero about how the police [department] police[s] themselves.”