By Anthony Rifilato
The election will be held on July 26, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the district building on 2080 Grand Ave.
Current commissioner and Chairman John Cools is looking to retain his seat on the five-member board, saying that he is looking to maintain the stability and efficiency of the district. His challenger, Wilhemina Funderburke - a 41-year Roosevelt resident and community advocate who ran unsuccessfully last year - is running on a platform of reform. Funderburke said she was unavailable for an interview.
Cools is a lifelong Baldwin resident and is hoping to serve a second term as a commissioner. He is also a 24-year member of the Baldwin Fire Department, where he is an assistant supervisor and a former captain of Hose 3.
As a commissioner, Cools is part of a board responsible for a $9.8 million operating budget for a district that serves Baldwin, Roosevelt, South Hempstead and parts of Uniondale, Rockville Centre and Freeport.
The responsibilities of a commissioner include overseeing a comprehensive collection system of solid waste, collection of recycable items and establishing rules and regulations to prevent and prohibit litter. They are also responsible for preparing the annual budget and setting the tax rate. Commissioners are paid $7,500 per year.
Sanitary No. 2 and other districts have come under fire from Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman in recent years, part of his call for the consolidation of special tax districts. In 2005, Wietzman conducted an audit of Sanitary 2 and other districts. Customers of Sanitary 2, Wietzman said, were grossly overpaying for garbage collection due to excessive spending and no-bid contracts.
Last year, Residents for Efficient Special Districts, a non-partisan group that advocates for efficient fire, sanitation and water services within the Town of Hempstead, also said that Sanitary 2 customers were being overtaxed. Last year, RESD endorsed Funderburke - a member of the group - saying that she would fight to curb overspending and give taxpayers a voice.
For his part, Cools said that he and his fellow board members have worked to correct Weitzman's findings or implement many of his suggestions.
"We corrected many of the areas they pointed out and we made the necessary changes," Cools said.
Among the changes made in response to Weitzman's audit, Cools said the district has upgraded and computerized its accounting practices and records, after Weitzman said the district did not adequately maintain its books, though the audit did not find any malfeasance in regards to the district's accounting practices, sanitation officials said. "He thought we had an antiquated system," said Cools.
Still, he and other commissioners maintain that they have come out of the audit in good standing and "with no serious findings," saying that much of Weitzman's criticisms were unfounded. They took issue with the comptroller's contention that commissioners are reported to the State Retirement System as full-time employees even though - according to Weitzman - commissioners don't have a defined work schedule.
Cools and others said Weitzman's criticism that the district did not report the commissioners correctly to the retirement system is incorrect, adding that the state said that Sanitary 2 is reporting its commissioners accordingly.
Cools said that as a commissioner, he worked with the board to institute stricter, standardized hiring practices, while also upgrading the district's recycling program - in part by changing from a five-truck system to a four-truck system - at a savings to taxpayers. He also said that the district has taken steps to be more transparent, in part by reaching out to the public and putting information on its Web site, which includes commissioners' salaries and other information, such as garbage and recycling pick-up and how to make a complaint.
"We put that out there so people can go on and ask questions," Cools said. "The board works very well together. The focus is on saving taxpayer money while maintaining a safe district - and keeping the district clean."
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