Closer, Closer, But Still Far

It's after 11:30 pm and I'm just getting around to reading that this afternoon the vote to approve a public hearing on the County Executive's plan for "The Hub" was approved by a very slim margin.

Here are the first three paragraphs from Newsday.com

The move to build a $350-million arena and a $50-million minor league baseball stadium took a step forward Monday as the Nassau County Legislature's rules committee approved a public hearing on a referendum on paying for the project.

The committee's four Republicans voted to hold the hearing next Monday at the legislature's offices. The three Democrats abstained because they did not have time to study the proposal.

The legislature's eight-member Democratic caucus is scheduled to meet with the Mangano administration on the Coliseum issue Tuesday.

How did the Dems not have time to study the proposal? The press conference was last Wednesday? The press release wasn't that long people, one cup of coffee and you could have been through it.

Now, while we (the fans) are all doing everything we can to promote a YES vote for this referendum, there are still those who are calling for a NO vote in fear of increased taxes.

I was waiting for actual figures, but I have not received them yet. However, if you go to the Nassau County site, Ed Mangano has already helped to alleviate certain property taxes for home owners such as eliminating the heating tax.

However, what people fail to say when they are painting signs for now new taxes is that with or without this $400 Million bond to improve The Hub, Nassau County taxes will go up. That's Long Island and Nassau is in a budget crisis it needs to fix.

If Mangano's plan fails, the taxes will go up far more than if it passes because it will be the County residents who will have to pick up the slack left by an empty Coliseum and it's loss of revenue stream and jobs. Sales tax will suffer greatly and so will many of the surrounding small businesses.

And please don't think that if the Islanders move out, someone will be happy to move in. The troubles developers have had with the Town of Hempstead and Nassau County have been widely publicized. Do you really think someone else will come along and want to waste another few MILLION dollars on a plan that won't be completed?

Not a chance in hell.

While Mangano's plan may not be the perfect scenario and may have some fuzzy math associated with it, it is probably the last best hope for the area.

He's done very well so far trying to get Nassau out of the black hole of ruin and even seen the Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment Plant win a Platinum Award for engineering. Question: Was that the sewage plant that wasn't supposed to be able to handle what the Lighthouse Project was going to flush it's way? Just a question.

Support for this plan is coming from as far as the Netherlands. But the most important support is going to come from Nassau County itself. So get out there and promote the vote on August 1st... should there be a vote to promote.