Serving New Hyde Park, Floral Park, Garden City Park, North Hills, Manhasset Hills and North New Hyde Park
$1
Friday, October 12, 2018
Vol. 67, No. 41
N E W H Y D E PA R K
FALL HOME & DESIGN
NHP INVENTOR DREAMS OF SHARKS
PHILLIPS LEADS KAPLAN IN FUNDRAISING
PAGES 33-48
PAGE 3
PAGE 6
Belmont Arena plans continue to change, grow
ALL SMILES
‘Scope creep’ worrying residents BY J E D HENDRIXSON Additions to the Belmont arena development plan are beginning to get out of hand, according to Floral Park’s elected officials. “I know a lot of us probably think this is about the arena, the Islanders,” Deputy Mayor Kevin Fitzgerald said. “That’s how it started, but it has since morphed into something a lot bigger.” Fitzgerald stood in front of more than 100 people crowded into a room at the Floral Park recreation center last week for an information session to address the proposed redevelopment of Belmont Park. A sports arena, which would serve as a home for the New York Islanders hockey team starting in the 2021-22 season, was the initial proposal. “It’s called scope creep,” Fitzgerald said. “When you start a project, you start with one idea and start putting more and more little ideas on top of it and when you get to the end you realize the
project is a lot bigger than what you envisioned to start with.” Since the 18,000-squarefoot arena was proposed, additions to the project include a 435,000-square-foot mall, a 40,000-square-foot power substation and a 250-room hotel, all of which were not mentioned in the initial plans. A flyer from the Belmont Task Force claims the development project is “ten pounds of development in a five-pound space,” and that “there is such a thing as too much.” When Fitzgerald asked the Empire State Development team and members who would run the proposed mall at an earlier meeting how many people they expected on a daily basis at Belmont, they said 18,000 to 20,000. The arena and racetrack could see at least 100 nights a year with maximum capacity, according to information from the same meeting. “How will Floral Park survive Continued on Page 66
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SEWANHAKA CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
New Hyde Park Memorial High School’s Amanda Saji and Aarman Jivraj were named homecoming queen and king. See story on page 22.
Ex F. Hill mayor aided Trumps’ alleged scheme BY LU K E TORRANCE While serving as the mayor of Flower Hill in the early 1990s, John Walter was helping the family of President
Donald Trump filter millions of dollars through a company that allowed its members to get around the estate tax. In a report last week, The New York Times exhaustively cataloged the ways that Fred
Trump passed down millions of dollars to his children, particularly Donald Trump, while dodging taxes. The Times reported that in the early 1990s — with Fred Continued on Page 66
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