Court ruled 1st precinct lease invalid

Supreme Court Justice Vito DeStefano ruled recently that a 30-year lease signed by Nassau County in 2009 and involving the construction of a new First Precinct in Baldwin’s Rosen Shopping Center is invalid.

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano had long opposed the agreement, which was the brainchild of his predecessor (and current candidate for the County Executive’s office,) Thomas Suozzi.

The lease was invalidated, DeStefano explained, because Suozzi and his camp failed to sign an addendum to the deal that would have required contractors working on the project to use union labor.

The conditions of the lease would have required Nassau County to pay a private landlord, Grand Baldwin Associates, $500,000, to oversee construction of the new precinct house as well as selecting contractors. The deal was approved in December of 2009 by an outgoing Suozzi administration, which also inserted the union labor requirement as a separate amendment. County officials, DeStefano ruled, signed the lease, but not the amendment — an oversight the court said rendered the contract unenforceable.

Grand Baldwin Associates initiated the court case after Mangano nixed the lease on Feb. 22, 2010, and refused to send payments to the company. Mangano has called the lease an “insult to Nassau’s taxpayers,” and his search for a better policing solution has resulted in the protracted project on Merrick Road.