The legislation empowered the county assessor to provide credits or refunds to co-op and condominium owners for the difference between their 2003-04 school tax payments and what they would have paid under the four-class system the city abandoned in 1982. Co-op and condominium owners are now subject to the previous tax rate and were provided credits against their upcoming school tax bills for last year-s overpayment.
Three new Civil Service commissioners, along with seven new members of the Ethics Commission, were sworn in by City Manager Glen Spiritis at the April 7 meeting of the City Council.
The new members of the Civil Service Commission, Leary Wade, Susan Mackston-Solomon and Andrew Malekoff, took over a commission that received a poor rating in a report by the New York State Civil Service Commission.
The three were sworn in after the discovery in March that the previous commissioners, Kenneth Jaffe, Maximo Almonte, and Herman Neuman were not legally appointed to the positions, according to Spiritis. Jaffe and Almonte received letters informing them of their dismissal. Neuman resigned from the commission in early March.
The city administration maintained that the commissioners must be approved by the city council after they are appointed by the city manager. Only the city manager appointed the previous commission.
On April 16 was Long Beach High School-s hugely successful Teen Night Out, presented by Long Beach Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking. The night was designed as a safe and fun place for teenagers to spend a Friday night.
The pool was opened up for swimming and the gymnasium featured batting cages and pillow hockey, an insane mix of soccer, hockey and jai alai.
The night also featured a remote-controlled car racetrack, a wall of video games, foosball, air hockey, boccer ball, karaoke and movies in the auditorium.
Principal Nick Restivo said the number of students who showed up was amazing, putting the number between 400 and 500. More than that, however, Restivo was happy to see the entire city represented. It-s such a great cross-section of the city, he said at the time. Every neighborhood is represented. You have black, Hispanic, white. I had no clue it would be like this.
May
May began with the hiring of a new superintendent of Long Beach schools, Dr. Robert Greenberg. Greenberg previously served as the deputy superintendent of the Plainview-Old Bethpage school district, where his responsibilities included personnel, pupil services and special education, legal issues, board policy, technology, transportation and safety. Before that he was a deputy superintendent in Valley Stream.
I worked with Bob in Hicksville for a period of time, said former superintendent Dr. Ron Friedman. He was brought in to fix their special education, which was a major problem in the district. I remember him as not only resolving the issues effectively, but winning the confidence and trust of the parents and staff as well. He was a really positive force there.
Throughout my candidacy, I was impressed at the pride and love I saw people showed in their Long Beach schools, Greenberg said after he was approved by the Board of Education in May. I invite the public to partner with me to continue the great work done here by Dr. Friedman.
The school district got another boost when its $92 million budget was narrowly approved, as was the library-s $2.5 million budget. This was five school budgets approved in as many years, and it came on a day when school budgets across Long Island, including those in Oceanside, West Hempstead and Lawrence, were defeated in record numbers. The school budget represented an average 5.9 percent increase, among Long Island-s lowest.
We know it-s very tough on the taxpayers, who had to pay out of their own pockets for the difficulties caused by Nassau County-s flawed reassessment, Friedman said. But we also know how much this community cherishes education, and how proud they are of how well our students are doing in our schools.
I-d like to thank the community for supporting education and giving us the resources we desperately need to educate the kids in this community, school board member Steve Weitz said. I-m happy our new superintendent, Dr. Robert Greenberg, is coming onboard in an atmosphere of community support for education.
May marked the resignation of Eugene Cammarato as chairman of the Long Beach Democratic Committee after 10 years to become vice chairman of the Nassau County Democratic Party.
Cammarato was a powerful political figure who was seen by many as the boss of a political machine that dominated Long Beach-s government.
Cammarato became the city-s first director of operations, a position that was created two years after he had been in the job as a quasi-deputy mayor, in 2001. There was a great deal of resistance from members of the community, who said the city was creating a job for the political leader that usurped the power of the city manager, Bruce Nyman.
After losing a close battle in 2001 council race, the coalition candidates Mona Goodman, Tom Sofield and Jim Hennessy ran again in 2003, focusing even more of their attack on Cammarato, whom they painted as the epitome of a bloated, corrupt political boss.
They needed a villain, Cammarato said of the 2003 campaign at the time. In the 10 years I was head of the Democratic party, homes in Long Beach tripled in value and the taxes stayed constant. History will write the facts.
Usage fees continued to be raised by the City Council in May, which upped the fees for fire prevention devices, sidewalk excavation, pet adoption, water and sewer usage and additional building code fees.
City Manager Glen Spiritis said at the time that the rise in fees brought Long Beach into line with other municipalities after fees had not been raised for years, although critics charged the hikes were a way of bilking homeowners without having to admit they were raising taxes.
Long Beach was the subject of intense media coverage when a local pit bull named Aries was accused of menacing a neighborhood and killing cats. After a few weeks in the city-s animal shelter, however, Aries was released to his owner being found guilty only of being off a leash.
The story gained widespread attention from the New York Post, which ran the story under the headline Killer Canine, as well as on WCBS 880 and 1010 WINS and local news television stations.
The demolition of the Atlantic Hotel and the development of the land into 50 condominium units was approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals, drawing the ire of a minority of residents and the city council who saw this is another example of overdevelopment in Long Beach.
The application, filed by developer David Shokrian, originally called for 64 units, but was reduced to 50 to secure building variances. Most of the neighbors of the hotel, however, were thrilled that one of the city-s more notorious blights was finally going to be cleaned up.
An appeal of the variances has been filed by certain high-rise residents.
June
June began with a campaign promise fulfilled in the form of a city budget with a zero percent tax increase delivered by the coalition of Jim Hennessy, Tom Sofield and Mona Goodman. The trio had run on a platform of not raising taxes for two years and made sure that they delivered. The initial budget proposed by City Manager Glen Spiritis had called for a 4.5 percent hike in taxes, but cuts made resulted in their target number.
The budget, however, called for the sale of city-owned land to balance the budget, including $1 million for the land beneath the Waldbaum-s shopping center, which has yet to be approved. The budget passed 3-2, with Lenny Remo and Denis Kelly voting against. The sale of city-owned land requires a vote of 4-1.
It would-ve been very easy for us to say, ÔWe didn-t know about [the previous administration-s borrowing of] the $4.7 million,- and people would-ve believed us, Hennessy said in June. Keeping our promise of a zero-percent tax increase was very important to us, and I think we took a step towards renewing people-s faith in the city.
Kelly was most concerned with the lack of a tax increase because, he said, it leaves the city unprepared for a rainy day in the future. Kelly recalled the zero percent increase the City Council approved in the late Ô90s as an example of the council taking political credit for not raising taxes while mortgaging the future. Zero is not necessarily a good thing, Kelly said.
Zero was a very good thing for the Long Beach girls softball team in terms of losses suffered until early June. The Lady Marines were flying high after winning the Nassau County Championship, having won 23 in a row. The perfect streak ended in the Long Island Championship when they ran into a buzzsaw named Bailey Vertovez, who threw a two-hit shutout to lead West Islip to a 5-0 win.
The Lady Marines dominated their county competition behind the hitting and defense of junior Casey Fee and the lights-out pitching of junior Jessie Scaglione. Fee would later be named the Nassau County Player of the Year and both girls would receive all-state honors.Ê
We have to take a step back and look at everything we accomplished, Verde said at the time. Going undefeated in Nassau and winning a county championship is a lot to be proud of.
The ongoing battle between Spiritis and the CSEA got heated during June as both sides struggled and screamed to settle their dispute over health insurance.
The administration was trying to find cheaper insurance alternatives for the CSEA, who countered that they were entitled to the exact same coverage, and couldn-t be switched if the coverage was different. A difference in coverage required a majority vote by the union. The month of June featured weekly barbs from both sides.
The situation was eventually settled when both sides agreed to switch to the Empire Health Plan, a cheaper and better alternative to Aetna, what the union had been receiving.
The city named its Planning Advisory Board, a body created to develop the city-s master plan, which was last updated during the 1980s. The board serves as an advisory committee to the city manager and director of planning and development.
Damian Sciano, 36 was named chairman of the board. Sciano, who has lobbied Kennedy Airport to reconsider the airlines- flight patterns, which he believes put Long Beach at unnecessary risk.
Jose A. Rodriguez, 33, of Vanderbilt Place in Island Park was arrested in June for attempting to kidnap a 12-year old girl on the corner of Edwards Boulevard and East Walnut Street.
Rodriguez was then arrested again two weeks later for the exact same thing.
Jack Jordan was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of his friend, April Henderson-Bivens. Police said that Jordan stabbed Henderson-Bivens to death after she hit him in the face with a frying pan over a dispute about money.
Jordan, 69, was a friend of Henderson-Bivens- parents, and helped her out from time to time. When Henderson-Bivens asked Jordan for money, police said he refused, and physical altercation began. Henderson-Bivens, who was stabbed multiple times, staggered out of Jordan-s apartment and onto East Broadway where she collapsed. Passing motorists called police, who quickly arrived and arrested Jordan, who had been sitting on a nearby retaining wall.
The Herald newspapers made some news of their own in June when the home offices in Lawrence burned to the ground. The fire, which started in the press room, destroyed what had been the Herald-s headquarters for several decades.
Despite the minor nuisance of the building-s destruction, all 16 weekly papers put out by Richner Communications were published just one day late.
The Herald quickly rebounded and found new digs in West Hempstead, and the entire Richner Communications family plans on moving to a new, state-of-the-art facility in Garden City by the end of next year.
