considers reducing speed limit School budget vote, trustee election set for May 16th

BY KASSARA MCELROY

During the final of a series of board meetings dedicated to next year’s school budget, Garden City’s Board of Education expressed its support for the current proposal, which is up for community vote next week.

“I think this budget has been meticulously planned,” began President Joseph Sileo. “Tough decisions have been made to account for the tough environ- ment we’re in; there are significant increases in certain non-variable expenses, like insurance. However, most of the budget goes towards teaching children in classrooms. I’d recommend everyone go out and vote for it. The contingency budget is a bad option. It’s happened before in other districts but we don’t want to see that happen here.”

The overall proposed bud-

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On Tuesday, May 16th the Mineola Garden City Rotary Club will be holding a food drive outside Kings Supermarket, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and we hope many members of the community are able to drop off donations.

As a member of the Rotary, we have hosted guests from many charitable organizations on Long Island, but our eyes have been opened to the fact that there are a lot of people in need literally on Garden City’s doorsteps.

The recipient of Tuesday’s food drive will be the Faith Mission, a food pantry that is run by Mary Joesten in Mineola. Mary and her volunteers distribute over 250 boxes of food to people in need each week.

This week, the Rotary also had as its guest speaker Major Soo Jung Kim who, with her husband Maj. Young Sung Kim, runs the Salvation Army Center in Hempstead.

Maj. Kim recounted to the Rotary members of some of the desperation of the people they serve by providing food, youth programs and emergency assistance. She told of children who couldn’t go to school in the winter because they lacked winter clothing, and of parents who were so grateful to get food for their kids.

Garden City is a very special place, and we know that residents will reach out helping hands to our neighboring communities where there is need.

A Mega Casino

To the Editor:

At a hearing this past Monday, Las Vegas Sands finally revealed its estimate of the number of visitors and the expected amount of gross gambling revenue or GGR (revenue to Sands, gambling losses to you).

Sands is estimating more than 20,000 daily visitors per DAY. That equates to 7,300,000 visits per year – that’s more than the total annual attendance of the Mets and Yankees combined. Sands also stated that it expects the GGR or gambling losses will be $2.0 BILLION per year. Given that GGR estimate, it is likely that the actual number of daily visitors will be even higher than 20,000, one Sands representative was quoted as high as 23,000. Plus Sands say 5,000 to 8,000 employees will be working at (and likely driving to) the proposed mega casino. The numbers are absolutely staggering.

So what does that mean for Garden City residents:

1) Despite Sands’ spin, the arrival of gamblers will not be spread evenly through the day or the week. There will certainly be peak times during the day and you can be assured that the number of visitors will be much higher on the weekends.

2) Given our already congested roads, adding that many visitors will likely result in a significant increase in traffic on the major roads of Meadowbrook, Stewart, Clinton, Washington and Old Country, but also on our village side streets as casino visitors use Waze to avoid traffic.

3) On weekends during the summer and the holiday season, traffic will be horrendous.

4) An increase in DWI is inevitable –even if just 0.5% of the visitors drink too much, that means 100 drunk drivers on our roads every single day.

5) $2 billion dollars is a lot of money to be lost at this casino, that money will no longer be spent in our local restaurants and businesses. The implication of such a large diversion of discretionary spending is a big unknown and our County has done zero analysis.

So what can you do:

1) Display a Say No to the Casino sign on your lawn to raise awareness among your neighbors. Email GCsaynotocasino@gmail.com to request a sign.

2) Write an email to our 19 legislators – use this website to write one email that is automatically sent to all 19https://bit.ly/saynotothecasino

3) Join our Facebook group - “Say No to the Casino Civic Association” - and encourage your neighbors to join as well.

4) Most importantly, you must attend the County Legislature on Monday, May 22nd when the vote will be held whether to approve the lease with Sands. You can attend just to show support or speak for 2-3 minutes.

Most of us have never been involved in a protest in our lives – this is our moment to make a difference, take a stand and preserve the quality of life that we enjoy in Garden City.

Members of the Garden City Coalition of the Say No to the Casino Civic Association:

Monica Kiely

Betsy and Peter Andromidas

Effie Campbell

Rich Catalano

John Chiara

Anne C. Griffin

Mike McKeever

Alison Metzler

Bill Metzler

Anthony Ziniti

Common sense

To the Editor:

Last week you published a wonderful common sense article written by Leah and John Pittoni entitled “Casino: Good Idea.”

In this article the benefits of such a casino were all spelled out clearly and the needed monies to Nassau County

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