A tough choice on Coliseum vote

Business and labor organizations, development groups and politicians have all expressed their opinions on the plan to borrow $400 million to fund the construction of a new arena and minor-league baseball park at Nassau County’s Hub in Uniondale. Now it’s your turn, as taxpayers who want to be able to afford to keep living and working on Long Island, to cast your votes in the bond referendum on Monday.

Asking residents and businesses to pay for a new hockey arena is brazen. Most taxpayers wonder why New York Islanders owner Charles Wang can’t pay for it himself, even though the Coliseum belongs to the county, not Wang.

We join those who complain that this vote comes on short notice, following poorly publicized hearings, and should never have been scheduled for a Monday in August — a blatantly cynical maneuver to make sure the trade unions can get the “yes” vote out and make it as hard as possible for opponents to muster “no” votes.

The political nature of development at the Hub has had a destructive effect on the process. That was true of the Lighthouse project — a much bigger idea, formulated by Wang and former County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, that took many years to go nowhere — and it’s true now with Wang’s new collaboration with County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican.

The consequence of this hyper-politicization is that citizens have lost trust in the numbers and statements being presented. People just can’t accept Wang and the county — or the opponents of their proposal — as objective or believable. County-paid consultants say one thing, and critics say another. It’s a decision made easily only by the most politically faithful.