By Matthew McGevna
For many in West Hempstead, news of the new resident brought new urgency to the campaign to shut the hotel down.
According to the New York State Sex Offender Registry, 38-year-old William Wright was convicted in 1990 of first-degree rape and sodomy in an incident involving two underage girls, one of them a 9-year-old. He was sentenced to four to 12 years in state prison. Under the special conditions of his release, Wright was required to undergo a mental health exam and was not permitted to have unsupervised contact with minors.
Officials at St. Thomas school said they have been notified of Wright¹s whereabouts, both by Nassau County police and the West Hempstead School District.
Area leaders say that such notification is of little comfort to children staying at the hotel. ³That hotel also houses a lot of welfare [recipients] and there¹s a lot of little kids running around,² said Malverne Mayor Anthony Panzarella. ³Putting little kids together with sex offenders is an outrage.²
³How can the Department of Social Services place a family with children in a facility that has ... arrests every year, with the type of activity that goes on there?² said Rosalie Norton, president of the West Hempstead Civic Association. ³It¹s unconscionable, not only because of the threat it poses, but what an influence to have on their life. The stigma and emotional trauma they¹re already going through is horrible, and then you compound it by making them live there.²
According to Karen Garber, program coordinator for the Nassau County Department of Social Services, the agency does not place families at the Courtesy. ³What we do is, if we give hotel money ‹ a voucher ‹ the family can choose to go wherever they want to,² Garber explained. She also noted that the DSS helps parolees who are homeless find places to live, and the same principle applies: Parolees are given a choice of where they want to live. Garber could not disclose whether the DSS knew whether Wright had applied for assistance.
The DSS also refers people to private agencies for placement, and these agencies can use their discretion in determining where to send families. But according to one such agency, most nonprofit organizations do not have the funds to place families in hotels. ³I¹m not aware of any agencies placing people in hotels,² said Joan Noguera, director of the Nassau Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless. ³We just don¹t have the funding for that.² Noguera acknowledged, however, that it is possible for a family to receive a voucher from the DSS and then check into a place such as the Courtesy, and inadvertently be living next door to a sex offender.
A manager at the Courtesy said that she knew nothing about a sex offender living in the hotel, and that she does not take vouchers from any social service organization for needy families. She also added that there are currently no children staying in the hotel.
³This is just beyond comprehension at this point,² said Scott Jablow, president of the Cathedral Gardens Civic Association. ³The fact that there¹s a known sex offender living at the Courtesy. Now is the time for the Town of Hempstead to say, ŒEnough is enough. We¹re padlocking the hotel.¹²
In 2004 the Town of Hempstead attempted to close the Courtesy by invoking the town¹s nuisance law, which allows such action if three felony arrests have been made on the property within a year. The town won its case to padlock the hotel, but lost on appeal when questions were raised regarding the constitutionality of the nuisance law. Now, armed with evidence of more arrests at the Courtesy, the town said its attorney¹s office is making another attempt to implement the nuisance law and close the hotel.
Norton said she has gotten more than 600 e-mails from residents demanding the Courtesy be shut down. She said that when that number reaches 1,000, she plans to hand-deliver them to town board members. Norton said she still believes that the best chance of shutting the Courtesy shut down is with a sale of the property to Trammel Crow Residential, one of the firms currently proposing to develop the property.
³What are they waiting for?² she said, referring to the town. ³Something major, a tragedy to occur at the hotel? And what¹s the excuse gonna be? Knowing that all this is going on at the Courtesy, they¹re opening themselves up for a lawsuit for negligence. What else has to happen?²
Said West Hempstead resident Tony Brita: ³I just hope people are keeping their kids away from the Courtesy Hotel.²
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