“We need housing for the businesses,” Ambrosino said, “and I’m really tired of everyone talking about the ‘brain drain’ without offering a solution. We are losing our young people. A big reason why is that there’s not enough jobs here. So if you can’t make a living here, why are you going to stay?

“We need to create jobs,” he continued, “and I don’t mean hand-to-mouth jobs; I mean sustainable jobs. And to create sustainable jobs, we need businesses to invest here. We need to give them a favorable tax package and opportunities for growth. And businesses have to feel that the area is good and safe. Once businesses invest, they provide jobs to local kids, who will be able to live here and provide for their families. They won’t stay here unless they can afford it.”

Some new constituents

In April, the town announced its purchase of Cherry Valley Ballfields in Garden City from the Village of Garden City, a deal that Ambrosino referred to as huge, and was in the works for 30 years. It will give Franklin Square residents the opportunity to use the fields more, and with fewer restrictions, he said.

“Garden City has … been great neighbors,” he said, “but every year, we never knew when Garden City required the fields and our kids didn’t have a place to go. Garden City determined it was surplus fields for them, and they didn’t want the liability, so we said, ‘Why don’t we just buy them?’”

Redistricting of the town map last year reassigned parts of some communities to different districts — giving council members the oversight of some new territory. A portion of East Meadow is now within Ambrosino’s 2nd Councilmatic District. “Great people,” he said, and pointed to the February announcement of the implementation of parking permit requirements around Nassau University Medical Center as an important plan. “Hopefully it won’t be necessary long-term,” he said, “but it’s been an impediment for quite some time now.”

Belmont’s future