Serving Manhasset
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Friday, April 17, 2015
Vol. 3, No. 16
This week’s top 7 entertainment picks
Arrest in alleged murder-for-hire scheme
68 years of service
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Blaze breaks out at historic estate 200-plus firefighters respond to brush fire B Y B ILL SAN AN T ONIO More than 200 firefighters from multiple North Shore departments battled a large brush fire that erupted on site of the Greentree property in Manhasset, officials said. The fire did not break out near any physical structures or threaten residents or pedestrians at the nearby North Shore University Hospital but spread quickly throughout the open and wooded areas, officials said. A Nassau County paramedic coordinator told Blank Slate Media that firefighters were “winding down” around 7 p.m. but conditions were “very windy” and the fire “spread fast.” Scott Garrigan, chief of the ManhassetLakeville Fire Department, said Tuesday more than 200 firefighters and emergency rescue volunteers from 17 departments worked to put out PHOTO BY bill san antonio the fire. He said personnel were at the scene past Emergency vehicles parked at a staging area near a brush fire that broke out 10 p.m. to extinguish the fire, which expanded Monday at the Greentree property in Manhasset. across 15-20 acres worth of brush.
“Where it started, it was about the size of two football fields or so but then it jumped out and started to affect a wooded area,” Garrigan said. “...With 20-25 mile-per-hour winds, it spread fast, but the conditions were dry. It’s amazing that anything could be dry with all the snow we had over the winter.” According to an initial Newsday report, Nassau police were notified of the fire around 3:45 p.m. in the vicinity of Community Drive and Shelter Rock Road. A staging area was set up on the estate, where paramedics from Nassau County, the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department, Great Neck Vigilant Fire Department, and Williston Park Fire Department, among others. The 400-acre Greentree property is the former Gold Coast estate of the Whitney family, whose patriarch, William Payne Whitney, an industrialist and horse trainer, purchased the property in 1904. Garrigan said two responders were hospitalized with minor injuries.
School district receives $4.2M in state aid B Y B ILL SAN AN T ONIO
$4.2 million in state aid for the 2015-16 school year, officials said Wednesday. The funding is $397,000 The Manhasset School District will receive approximately more than the district received
in 2014-15 - about a 35 percent increase - and includes the restoration of $227,000 the district lost in past years as a result of the state gap elimination adjustment program, officials said. Additional funds - including about $50,000 in “bullet aid” for Manhasset’s early childhood education program from state Sen.
Jack Martins’ office - are still being sought in advance of the district’s April 21 budget approval date, officials said. Manhasset Superintendent of Schools Charles Cardillo said the state aid puts the district in a better position to continue the restoration of “the 4 As” - academics, arts athletics and activities - that were lost during the
2013-14 budgetary process, when the district cut various programs to stay within its allowable tax levy limit. “From 2014-15 and now to 2015-16, I think people will be able to see progress has been made,” Cardillo said. The district’s $397,000 increase was part of a $1.6 billion Continued on Page 40
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