By Nick Buglione
But when those same residents left a meeting with Navy officials last week, the writing was on the wall: Whether they liked it or not, in three years, they will be out.
In front of an at times hostile audience of about 100 residents, the Navy outlined its plan, which will include the sale of the East Meadow Mitchel Manor and nearby Mitchel Field military housing complexes by October 2004.
The roughly 1,200 servicemen and women and members of their families who live in the complexes will be able to remain until October 2006. After that, they'll have to find their own homes. Residents will have the option to remain in the housing complex for up to two years, said a Navy spokesman, Lt. Commander Joe Carpenter, who was not at the meeting. The vast majority of servicemen that will be affected by this will be eligible for an official change of duty by then. That's a milestone where the majority of servicemen would be moving anyhow.
Attendees still voiced opposition, saying, among other things, that military salaries combined with housing allowances just aren't enough to sustain a family on Long Island. We live on the Island -- you know there's not affordable housing here, said Hope LaMonica, who lives in Mitchel Field with her two children and her husband, who is in the Army. Another thing they're not taking into consideration is that you have neighborhoods on the Island where the areas are still segregated. The only reason I know that is because I went looking for housing, and they would not rent to me. There are a lot of black and Hispanic families here. Where are they going to live?
LaMonica, who is black, also slammed Navy officials for not giving residents enough notice of the meeting, which may have accounted for the poor turnout. She charged that many residents had fliers stuck in their doors only two or three days before the meeting, while others received nothing at all.
The lower turnouts you have, the less protest you're going to have, she said, insinuating that the Navy was intentionally trying to downplay its plan to avoid public scrutiny.
With a son set to graduate from East Meadow High School in June and a husband scheduled to deploy to Iraq in May, the closing of Mitchel Manor has put seven-year resident Erica Rivera in a quandary. Her husband now wants to relocate his family before he leaves so he doesn't have to worry about it overseas, she said. If he leaves in May, that means we have to leave before June, she said. What happens to my son's graduation?
The decision to sell Mitchel Field and Mitchel Manor, which are run by the Navy but house members from all branches of the military, stems from a region-wide Defense Department initiative, Carpenter said. Under that initiative, the federal government is looking to turn over all Navy-operated housing in the Northeast region to a private developer.
That developer would be charged with refurbishing some of the military housing the Department of Defense intends to keep and selling off housing that is deemed no longer necessary, such as the 48-acre Mitchel Field and 49-acre Mitchel Manor. It has not yet been determined whether those complexes will be sold as a whole or by parcels, Carpenter said.
The Department of Defense feels that a limited liability corporation, wherein the Navy and a private developer worked together, would result in us getting higher quality housing quicker to our families, he said. The vast majority of Navy housing will be improved and overhauled.
But not the Mitchel complexes, since a Navy housing market analysis determined last year that there's a sufficient number of homes on the open market to satisfy the needs of Long Island's military families. Many residents of the complexes vehemently disagree, however. When I first got here, I stayed in a hotel for 32 days, said Army Chief Warrant Officer Reg DeVenanzio, 58, who has lived with his wife and three children in Mitchel Field since 1999. What I found near Fort Totten, where we're stationed, [was] a $1,500 one-bedroom, with no parking and no storage. I got three kids. I got a house here with a couple bedrooms and a couple baths.
After the Mitchel housing complexes are gone, the servicemen and women who remain will receive monthly housing allowances in addition to their salaries, so they can pay for their own homes. Housing allowances vary depending on rank and whether a serviceman or woman is married, and are adjusted to take into account the cost of living in a particular area. Children, however, are not factored in.
I understand the residents' concern, Carpenter said, expressing his confidence in the accuracy of the Navy's housing analysis. These analyses are done diligently; they're done with care.
If the Mitchel housing complexes don't remain open, many military personnel said they would either retire or request a transfer to a more affordable region, adding that in the future, local military installations might have a difficult time coaxing servicemen and women to transfer here.
I have 28 years in the Army, said Army Master Sgt. Godfrey Garrett, 46, who has lived in Mitchel Field for four months. I wanted to stay in maybe another six years, but if they're doing this, I'm gone.
Edward Aulman, director of the Nassau County Veterans Service Agency, fears that selling Mitchel Field and Mitchel Manor will force the closure of the local health clinic, commissary and exchange, where local servicemen and women, as well as some 8,000 retired military personnel, shop at bargain prices.
If you disperse the active-duty families all over Nassau County and into Queens and Suffolk County, they won't be using the commissary, the clinic and the exchange, he said. How long will it take the Navy to close them down because they're not being used by the active-duty? Then what happens to the 8,000 retirees who also use them?
Aulman has petitioned elected officials on the federal level to intervene. A letter urging Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to reconsider the plan was sent on Oct. 21, and signed by five elected officials, including Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy.
It is not fair, under any circumstance, McCarthy said, to ask those we have asked to defend us, our freedoms and our country to make the financial sacrifice that closing Mitchel Field will force upon them.
Still, it seems there's little opponents can do, as the Navy continues to move forward. Three potential developers have already been selected to submit proposals, Carpenter said, which should be in by early December. By mid-January, the Navy will chose one developer from the three, and exclusive negotiations will begin, he said.
Meanwhile, East Meadow civic leaders, who say they've been kept in the dark about the Navy's plans, are interested to see what will happen to Mitchel Manor once it's sold. Use of that land will be up to the future owner, within the confines of local zoning laws, Carpenter said.
We'd like to be kept in the loop, because we want to know what's going to happen to that property, said Richard Bivone, vice president of the Council of East Meadow Community Organizations. Just because the federal government wants to do something doesn't mean it's the best thing for the community, because they don't live here.
