By MIKE CAPUTO
The Lighthouse project was one of several topics, including taxes, consolidation and other initiatives, addressed by a seemingly relaxed, yet focused Murray during a recent one-and-a-half hour interview with the Herald at her office in Hempstead Town Hall.
As town officials continue into the 17th month of a state-mandated process that includes analysis of the Lighthouse’s 1600-page Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS), Murray says they have been accommodating to the development group, led by Islanders owner Charles Wang and real-estate executive Scott Rechler.
History has shown that the environmental review process for projects of this magnitude can take years to complete, Murray pointed out, making the case that the town is being prudent toward the Lighthouse.
“Some folks are complaining and I think it is because of a lack of understanding for the environmental review process,” Murray said. “Sixteen months sounds long, but in fact, it is incredibly fast.”
Murray explained that the town revised its typical methods because of the prominence of the project. Usually, the town would conduct its entire environmental analysis and then turn all of its outstanding questions over to the developer. However, whenever the town has inquiries or specific findings about the DGEIS, it immediately turns them over to the Lighthouse developers, the supervisor said.
“It gets arcane sometimes, people kind of glaze over and think we are just being bureaucrats,” Murray said. “But it is a very real and very rigid state law that we have to follow.
Wang has asked the Town of Hempstead to provide him with a clear-cut answer by October, the beginning of hockey season. When the Islanders schedule revealed a September exhibition game in Kansas City, speculation in the media and amongst fans was that Long Island’s only major professional team was considering a move to the midwestern city. Wang has said publicly that he plans on keeping the Islanders on Long Island.
Murray said she acknowledges the need for a new-look Coliseum, but that the proposal goes beyond the future of the professional hockey team and its aging arena.
“This is all about a real estate deal,” Murray said. “This is not about the Islanders, really to a very, very large extent.”
Following a rare, private meeting on June 5 between Murray, Wang, Rechler and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, the supervisor announced that the town council planned on stamping its completeness tag on the DGEIS at its July 7. That action would open the process to public comment, allowing other agencies to weigh in. Many questions surrounding the project remain, Murray said, including traffic patterns and the development’s impact on nearby business districts.
“The agencies out there will then get to weigh in on all of these very considerable issues,” the supervisor said.
On taxes and other issues
Without cutting programs or laying off workers, Murray said she expects to present a tax-freeze town budget at the end of September. In the Town of Hempstead, the budget covers the calendar year, and is usually approved by Council in October.
“With budgets, if you don’t constantly babysit them, then they can get away from you,” Murray said. “It sort of goes back to the old-fashioned hard work and having an eagle eye on the bottom line.”
Even though Hempstead town taxes account for about 9 percent of a Nassau County taxpayer’s bill, the municipality provides most of the services for its constituents — with the exception of some living within special districts and villages — including sanitation, water and sewage.
Murray said the town intends on maintaining and even expanding its services, which also include its parks and senior citizen programs.
She used a recent example of when the county cut funding for a senior program in Levittown, the town decided to absorb members into their own nearby centers in East Meadow and Westbury.
The supervisor also touted the town’s credit rating, which is at AAA, the highest level for a municipality, which simplifies the lending process for projects, large or small. The high bond rating also gave the town a chance to refinance old debt, which amounted to millions in savings, Murray explained.
“It really does translate into true tax dollars and that is why it is so important to keep the municipality very fiscally stable,” Murray said.
A recent state law passed by a tumultuous Legislature streamlined the process to dissolve special districts and villages or consolidate them with others.
The Town of Hempstead has several special districts — sanitation, water and sewage — within its borders, but Murray said such decisions remain up to the constituents who pay for those services.
“If a district like a sanitary district or water district comes to the town and says they think its time has passed and wanted to be incorporated into the town services, I would say ‘Fine, that is the will of the people’ and that has been my opinion from day one,” Murray said.
The town supervisor said fire districts should not have been included in the law.
“I think a big centralized district is impersonal and that sense of volunteerism goes out the window to a large degree,” Murray said. “On many levels, the fire district consolidation is extremely unwise.”
Townships are not included within the consolidation law. However, Murray reiterated the town’s role in local government, which she said goes beyond picking up garbage and maintaining roadways.
“In providing clean water, technically the township can do that and say we are fulfilling our mission,” Murray said. “That is just a drop of the bucket for what the town does.”
During her interview with the Herald, Murray pointed up at the solar panels that light up her office. Through grants and a public-private partnership with the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, the supervisor’s office is solar powered, along with other parts of Town Hall in Hempstead.
“I think it is incumbent upon us to incorporate all sorts of alternative energies and technologies into government operations to be an example for others,” said Murray, who noted that residents have turned out in large numbers for town-run seminars on solar panels.
Staying with her green initiatives, Murray also talked about the town’s fleet of hybrid garbage trucks.
Vying for another term
Murray, who is running for reelection to a fourth full term, said she has yet to meet her challenger, Kristen McElroy, and admitted that she does not know much about her.
McElroy, a Democrat from Garden City, lost a tight race to incumbent Republican state Sen. Kemp Hannon in the November 2008 elections.
But for Murray, knowing her challenger is not on her priority list. She simply rather go about her business as town supervisor.
“I don’t concentrate on my opponent,” she said. “The bottom line is I really focus on delivering for the people as opposed to knocking down my opponent and engaging in politics of personal destruction. People don’t want to hear that, they want to know what you are doing for them.”
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