Police commissioner: No precinct at Cedar Creek

The Nassau County Police Department’s 7th Precinct headquarters will not be relocated to Cedar Creek Park. That was the message repeated by Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter and County Legislator Steve Rhoads at a community meeting on Jan. 19 at Wantagh High School.

What remains unsettled is where a new station will be built. Krumpter said that money had been allocated in the county’s capital budget to replace the aging building at Merrick Road and Neptune Avenue in Seaford. Many locations, within the precinct’s boundaries, which stretches from Massapequa to Merrick, have been considered.

“Policing has changed dramatically,” Krumpter said in explaining why the station, built in the 1950s and last renovated in 1968, needs to be replaced. He said that a new building, which would be similar to 1st Precinct headquarters nearing completion in Baldwin and the one planned to replace the 4th Precinct in Hewlett, would have dedicated areas for prisoners, who now must move throughout the 7th Precinct building during their arrest processing.

The 188 officers and staff working in the 7th Precinct need more space to conduct interviews and store files, he explained. “It really is busting at the seams,” he said. “They are using every square foot of available space.”

The current building measures 7,000 square feet, and the one set to replace it would be 25,000 square feet.

Nassau County had considered relocating the building about a half-mile west to the front of Cedar Creek Park, along the Wantagh-Seaford border. Residents living nearby received notices for a public hearing to subdivide the property for the building, which came as a shock to them. The hearing was immediately canceled at the urging of Rhoads, who said that a community meeting was supposed to come first.

“The community always needed to be a part of the discussion,” Rhoads said, while announcing that County Executive Ed Mangano has decided that, because of the public outcry, Cedar Creek would no longer be considered. He said that the Planning Commission’s notice was sent out in error, and the rebuilding of the station was never intended to be a hidden process.