Serving The Willistons, Albertson, Herricks, Mineola, and Searingtown
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Friday, September 11, 2015
vol. 64, no. 37
MINEOLA STREET FAIR
MINEOLA RESIDENT EX G.N. SUPER NAMED SEEKS WORLD TITLE NNc INTERIM PREZ
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Village green owner delays tax break bid
t o u g h t r I at h l e t e
Developer requests more time to work on application to county BID BY N O A H M A N S K A R The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency approved tax breaks for two building projects Tuesday evening, but the controversial Village Green, a housing and retail complex proposed for 199 Second St. in Mineola, was absent from the agenda. Mineola Metro LLC, headed by developer Frank Lalezarian, asked the IDA for a last-minute postponement on its appeal for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreement. The developers told the agency it had more work to do on its application, IDA Executive Director Joseph Kearney said. Several members of the public, including Mineola school Superintendent Michael Nagler, came to hear discussion about Village Green and left after Kearney announced the project was off the agenda. Kearney said he expects the developers will be ready by the
board’s next meeting, which has not been scheduled yet. The Mineola school district has previously raised concerns about the PILOT agreement because it cannot include the building when calculating its “tax base growth factor,” meaning it could not raise taxes to account for the students the development would bring into Mineola schools. That concern has been partially assuaged, Nagler said, because the state Legislature is considering changes to the growth factor formula. But administrators “still haven’t seen what the change is,” he said. The school district is also doing an independent study to determine how many new students might come from Village Green. At a July hearing, Mineola Chamber of Commerce President Tony Lubrano said he thought the large number of one-bedroom units proposed for the building inContinued on Page 65
PHOTO COURTESY Of BARBARA STAgNARI
Mineola resident and St. Aidan School swim coach Barbara Stagnari will head to Kona, Hawaii, next month to compete in her fifth Ironman World Championship triathlon. She qualified for the race in July after battling graves’ disease earlier this year. See story on page 3.
Fastenberg leads in Old Westbury trustee race BY B I LL SAN ANTONIO An Old Westbury village trustee reportedly trails his challenger by 249 votes following an initial runoff election
Tuesday, but 268 absentee ballots still await count. Leslie Fastenberg, who earlier ran as part of a late write-in campaign, received 461 votes, while incumbent Trustee Andrew Weinberg had 212 votes,
according to a Newsday report. An additional 260 absentee ballots were still to be counted before the Nassau County Board of Elections, and eight additional absentee votes were Continued on Page 60
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