Former East Rockaway trustee sues Town of Hempstead

Posted

A retired Town of Hempstead employee is suing the town, Supervisor Anthony Santino and Oceanside santitation head Thomas Metzger so he can continue caring for feral cats at the Oceanside landfill.
According to Stanley Lombardo, 63, a former East Rockaway Village trustee, the town retailated against him by denying him access to the cats because he did not demonstrate loyalty to Santino. Lombardo, who had worked for the town for 27 years, retired last November.
At a news conference at the Oceanside Sanitation transfer station, Lombardo announced that he is filing a civil lawsuit in federal court, seeking damages for the expenses he has accrued and an admission of wrongdoing by the town.
The suit alleges that Santino retaliated against Lombardo for denouncing Santino’s political appointments. “Santino resented the fact that Lombardo would not simply go along with Santino’s efforts to hand out high paying jobs to his unqualified friends,” the lawsuit reads. “As such, Santino engaged in a campaign of retaliation and harassment against Lombardo in a misguided effort to punish Lombardo’s perceived lack of loyalty.”
Hempstead Town spokesman Mike Deery said the town does not comment on pending litigation, but noted that the lawsuit is “frivolous and completely without merit.”

The lawsuit, which was filed by Jonathan Tand of Garden City-based Tand & Associates, asserts that Santino held a grudge against Lombardo, which began in 2013. Lombardo said that Santino, who was then the town councilman representing East Rockaway, used his political influence to persuade Village of East Rockaway trustees to appoint Tommy Steinbeck as a full-time Department of Public Works employee for the village. But Lombardo recused himself from the decision, and former Trustee Ed Corrado voted against the appointment.
“The DPW had enough employees at the time, we felt,” Lombardo said.
Shortly after, Lombardo was appointed as senior supervisor of the Oceanside Sanitation transfer station, eventually becoming assistant superintendent of the Oceanside landfill. But, according to the lawsuit, Lombardo did not receive any monetary raises, and the assistant superintendent’s position did not give him any actual authority.
During his time in the post, Lombardo said he cared for about 40 feral cats that were living at the landfill, paying for the animals’ food and shelter himself. In June, the town barred him from the landfill, so he said he was no longer able to care for the animals.
Lombardo said he told Santino in January that he wanted to volunteer for the town so he could still care the cats, but he said that Santino refused. “His parting words to me were, ‘I’ll get back to you,’” Lombardo said. “I never heard from him again.”
Since then, Lombardo said, the cats have not been properly taken care of. He added that he encourages animal rights activists to go into the landfill and see how the cats are doing. “Every report has been no food, no water, no proper shelter,” Lombardo said. “No evidence of the animals being taken care of.”
In June, however, Town of Hempstead officials told the Herald that the cats were being cared for. “The colony enjoys a spacious shelter, daily feeding and water,” Deery said in a statement at the time. Gary Rogers, the Nassau County SPCA spokesman, echoed Deery’s assertion and said that a detective found no problems with the cats’ accommodations.
At a June 20 town council meeting, Santino also provided photo evidence that the cats had food and water, but that did not assuage animal rights activists such as JoAnn Winkhart, a representative for the Humane Society of the United States. “I don’t believe for a minute that these cats are being taken care of,” she said at a protest criticizing Santino for the alleged mistreatment of the feral cats, adding that Santino’s answers were “insufficient” and “indirect.”
In the lawsuit, Lombardo is also seeking access to the landfill to feed the cats, but said that he doubts he will be granted the request. “I just think that they’re going to stay steadfast and claim that nothing’s going on, and we’ll see,” he said. “We’ll have our day in court.”

Peter Belfiore contributed to this story.