These are the first elected positions for Tangney and Tepper, both of whom come from known families. Tangney's brother-in-law Michael is a police lieutenant and former Board of Education trustee. Tepper's father, Roy, is a Long Beach city court judge and a former council president, as was Roy's father.
Over the protests of the remaining Republicans on the council, the Democrats appoint John Laffey, the former police commissioner, as city manager, replacing Charles Theofan.
A group of developers announced their intention to build a 53-acre island a few miles south of Long Beach that could deliver 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day to customers on Long Island and New Jersey.
The project was universally denounced by the region's politicians. "If God wanted another island south of Long Beach, he would have put it there," quipped Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg.
The city has vowed to fight an application by the Suffolk County Water Authority to tap into the Lloyd Aquifer, the ancient underground reservoir located deep beneath Long Beach that is the city's only water supply.
Suffolk officials would like to dig an 845-foot-deep, 300-gallon-per-minute well into the Lloyd from Northport that would be used to dilute the unacceptably high nitrate levels that have been found in the drinking water supply of Fort Salonga, an unincorporated community in the Town of Huntington, near Suffolk's north shore. But state law forbids further tapping into the well by non-coastline communities, so the Suffolk Water Authority is applying for a waiver to that law.
The application will be vigorously opposed by Long Beach, promised City Manager John Laffey who described the city's policy against sharing the Lloyd as "unbending."
The fight continues.
Republican City Councilmen Tom Sofield Jr. and Jim Hennessy released a harshly worded letter in February demanding an investigation by New York State Civil Service Commissioner Daniel E. Wall into the hiring of Long Beach City Manager John Laffey and the steps the city took to secure him a waiver from state pension regulations.
Laffey, a retired New York Police Department deputy chief, would have had to forfeit 75 percent of his pension if he earns more than $27,500 from jobs that are part of the state pension system, such as city manager. State law says the pensioner is eligible for a waiver from this restriction, called a section 211 waiver, if he is hired after a thorough search and found to be the only qualified applicant.
Laffey was appointed city manager almost three full weeks before an ad ran in The New York Times announcing the search. Hennessy and Sofield charge that the ad was an attempt to fool the state into believing a search had been conducted.
Meanwhile, Laffey announced that former city manager Edwin Eaton would be retained by his office as a consultant on the upcoming budget.
The topic of underage drinking was again thrust into the forefront, as District Attorney Kathleen Rice brought a forum on the topic to Long Beach's City Hall in March, in conjunction with the Long Beach Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking. The meeting was sparsely attended.
Joe Sinnona, a Realtor and business owner in the West End, launched a spirited but ultimately doomed campaign for a seat on the Board of Education. His race was notable in that he was the favored candidate of the Long Beach Classroom Teachers' Association, which was locked in a bitter contract dispute with the board. His attempt to unseat board president Roy Lester failed in the May election, and the teachers' union finally agreed to a contract in June.
The voters also approved the school and library budgets by wide margins for the sixth consecutive year.
The City Council adopted a first-of-its kind Social Host law, which effectively made parents responsible for underage drinking occuring in private homes.
The controversial ordinance passed 3-1.
The City Council unanimously -- and finally -- rejected the Army Corps of Engineers' proposal. With that rejection, Point Lookout was left scrambling.
The Army Corps' project leader, Cliff Jones, said this week that his office is evaluating whether a smaller project that would repair Point Lookout alone is economically or scientifically feasible. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars earmarked for the barrier island's beach repair sit in an account in Albany, waiting for somebody to figure out how and if they will be spent.
"Now we have to evaluate the Point Lookout portion of the previous plan, to see if it can stand alone," Jones said.
As of this writing, much has been promised by elected officials up and down the ladder, but nothing has been accomplished.
But the Army Corps vote was one of the few unanimous ones the council could manage, at least on big issues. Case in point was the 2006-07 municipal budget, which called for a 25 percent increase in residential property taxes.
While various ammendments were proposed, neither side could agree on a compromise, and tax hike went through untouched after being defeated 4-1.
With plenty of blame to go around, the Democrats on the council seemed less united then ever, and among the casualties of the budget vote was City Manager John Laffey, who decided he'd had enough. He resigned June 21 and was replaced by Edwin Eaton.
Eaton had served as city manager from 1979 through 1999. He came back on an interim basis in 2001 through the beginning of 2002, then considered himself retired and moved to Florida. But he was back again in June, replacing Laffey and announcing his intention to stay on at least through 2007.
The family of little Katie Flynn spent their summer bracing for the trial of Martin Heidgen, the 24-year-old drunk driver who was accused of killing Flynn, 7, and Stanley Rabinowitz, the driver of the limousine in which she was a passenger in July 2005.
The district attorney's office took the unprecedencted step of charging Heidgen with second-degree murder, claiming the amount he drank -- his blood-alcohol content was three-times the legal limit -- and the distance he drove in the wrong direction on the Meadowbrook Parkway before finally colliding with Flynn's limo constituted depraved indifference to human life.
After a four-week trial, the jury agreed and convicted Heidgen on every count, including the two murder charges, several assault charges and drunken driving.
His sentencing has been postponed until 2007 pending the outcome of several appeals. Meanwhile, Heidgen remains in prison.
Another jury convicted Herve Jeannot, 25, of Deer Park of killing Bobby Calabrese, the son of a retired Long Beach Police officer. Calabrese was shot in December 2004 in a secluded area of Island Park, and the first two trials failed to yield a verdict.
Calabrese worked as a mortgage broker and had been a standout varsity wrestler at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale.
And the Long Beach City Council was able to come together and pass a sweeping upgrade of Megan's Law, extending the ban on residency for the most dangerous offenders to 1,000 feet from schools and 500 feet from parks, the beach, daycare centers and even school bus stops.
