By Andrew Coen
The hearing, to discuss potential fee increases for permits, ticket books and the general tolls for the bridge, which connects the villages of Atlantic Beach and Lawrence, is to be held at Atlantic Beach Village Hall, at 65 The Plaza. The bridge is used mostly by residents of the Five Towns, Long Beach and Far Rockaway. The Nassau County Bridge Authority is considering doubling the annual decal fee from $75 to $150 and raising the tolls from $1.25 for one trip to $2.
During the Oct. 10 Atlantic Beach Board of Trustees meeting, when the issue of bridge toll increases came up, Village Clerk Emily Siniscalchi announced that the hearing would be held at 10 a.m. on Nov. 14, to which residents reacted angrily, saying they would not be able to attend because they would be at work. Siniscalchi said the bridge authority probably scheduled the hearing during the day so that engineers could attend, but that explanation was unacceptable to Atlantic Beach Mayor Stephen Mahler, who vowed to urge the authority to change the time.
"Why should they have [the hearing] in the morning when people are at work?" said Mahler. "The public is more important than when the engineers can get here."
Mahler said he informed the bridge authority - a public entity that operates the bridge and is controlled by the state - of his desire to see the hearing moved to the evening, but was told the best the agency could do was move it from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Peter Gerbasi, chairman of the five-member bridge authority, said that the 1 p.m. meeting time is reasonable, since it will likely last a few hours and allow people to attend when they get home from work. Gerbasi also said that people who cannot attend can express their opinions in letters to the commissioners up to five days after the hearing. He said the commissioners would consider every comment before they vote on the toll increases at a late-November meeting.
"I think this meeting should be more open and at a more reasonable time," said Barry Ringelheim of Atlantic Beach Estates, who uses the bridge daily to commute to work and run errands in the Five Towns. "I don't mind paying the tolls, but I'd like for [the bridge authority] to prove to us that they are in poor financial condition."
The tolls on the bridge, which is more than 50 years old and is the lone toll bridge in Nassau and Suffolk counties, were last raised on Jan. 1, 1997, from 75 cents to $1.25. The price of a ticket book, which covers 40 trips over the bridge, was raised from $10 to $15, and the annual sticker, covering a year's worth of crossings, jumped from $60 to $75. Bridge authority members decided to raise the tolls because, they said, they had suffered operating losses.
Gerbasi said the bridge has gone long enough without a toll increase, and that the number of vehicles using it has remained the same - roughly 7.2 million per year - for the last 15 years. He said that additional money is needed to upgrade technology on the bridge as well as for employees' state health benefits, whose costs have risen steadily in recent years. "We've squeezed every penny out of that thing," said Gerbasi. "It's been a tremendous accomplishment to keep the tolls as low as we have for as long as we have."
Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) said he believes the bridge tolls should be eliminated and the span taken over by the county, which also runs the Long Beach and Bayville bridges. Toback explained that the main reason for charging tolls is to cover the cost of elevating the bridge to allow cargo ships access to an oil tank terminal in Oceanside. This provides economic benefit to the entire county, Toback said, and thus the cost should be shared by all residents rather than just those in the Five Towns and Long Beach. He estimated that for the county to take over the bridge, it would need to invest $4 million of its $2.8 billion budget, which could be accomplished without raising taxes.
"There is no reason people in the Five Towns, Atlantic Beach or Long Beach should have to pay to drive on a road in Nassau County," said Toback. "It's an expense that should be spread out over a general population."
Toback said that making the bridge toll-free would also benefit Lawrence Public Schools, which transport students living in Atlantic Beach to district schools, as well as yeshiva students traveling from the Five Towns to the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach Elementary School. He said he would urge the bridge authority to hold a second public hearing on the future of the tolls somewhere in the Five Towns during evening hours, when more residents can attend.
"I wish the public hearing would be held at an evening time so people in Long Beach who use the bridge on a daily basis can attend and voice their opinions," said Long Beach City Manager Ed Eaton.
Nassau County Legislator Denise Ford (R-Long Beach), whose 4th District encompasses Atlantic Beach, agreed that an evening hearing would be preferable. Ford said she planned to attend the Nov. 14 hearing to see if the bridge authority can make a persuasive case for the toll increases. "I'm going to see what they have to say," she said. "They really have to make the case."
Gerbasi said that Atlantic Beach is a short enough commute for people in the Five Towns, and that there is no reason for a second hearing, since people can submit comments in writing if they cannot attend. He had no comment on Toback's idea to make the bridge free and having the county take it over, saying only that it was up to politicians to make such a decision.
An audit of the bridge authority was conducted by then state comptroller H. Carl McCall in 1998 and 1999, and McCall criticized the authority's Board of Commissioners for operating the bridge poorly, scolding commissioners for their inability to run a more efficient and cost-effective operation and their failure to meet bond obligations without raising tolls. McCall also called for an "effective system of internal controls," and criticized the board for awarding contracts for professional services without putting them up for competitive bidding.
Gerbasi said that since the audit, the bridge authority has implemented McCall's suggestions, and now has competitive bidding and runs a more efficient operation. The number of bridge employees has also been dropped from 70 in 2002 to 61 currently, according to Gerbasi. He also said the days of high-paying patronage jobs being handed out at the bridge, which the authority was accused of a decade ago, are long over.
Mahler said that tolls keep the bridge in solid financial health, and that making it free might encourage more traffic from Long Beach, which would affect the quality of life in Atlantic Beach. In a letter to the bridge authority, Mahler suggested that if it decided to raise the price of annual stickers, it should offer a discount for additional cars registered to the same household in order to reduce the financial burden on local residents. Mahler also said he would like the authority to consider instituting tolls for pedestrians and bicyclists.
"It doesn't do us any good if the bridge is underfunded," Mahler said. "I don't think you can properly maintain the bridge at the current rates."
Comments? acoen@liherald.com.
