Serving New Hyde Park, North New Hyde Park, Herricks, Garden City Park, Manhasset Hills, North Hills, Floral Park
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Friday, January 20, 2017
Vol. 66, No. 3
N E W H Y D E PA R K Winter Dining guide to
litmor publicatio a blank slate media /
ns special section • january
GUIDE TO WINTER DINING
TEMPLE BOYCOTTS NEWSPAPERS
CATHOLIC SCHOOL WEEK
PAGES 37-52
PAGE 3
PAGES 29-36, 53-60
JAnuAry 29 - feBruA ry 4
A Blank Slate Media / Litmor Publicati ons Special Section • January 20, 2017
20, 2017
3rd track foes get political as hearings start
AN IDOL’S HOMECOMING
Mayor says gov is using project as prop, drawing defense from backers BY N O A H M A N S K A R Politics have bubbled underneath debates surrounding the Long Island Rail Road’s proposed third track since Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced it in January 2016. New Hyde Park Mayor Robert Lofaro brought them to the surface last Thursday, charging that the second-term Democrat is using the $2 billion plan to fuel his political ambitions, including a run for president in 2020. Cuomo’s strategy, Lofaro said, involves boosting a coalition of powerful interest groups and political allies — the Right Track for Long Island coalition — who stand to reap financial benefits from the project, while paying lip service to local concerns. “He wants to win,” Lofaro told a crowd of about 150 people at a village-sponsored meeting at the New Hyde Park Road School.
“It’s not about you, it’s about him.” Lofaro digressed from his analysis of the draft environmental study the LIRR released in November to his view of how politics are fueling the long-delayed project. Dave Kapell, Right Track for Long Island’s executive director, was at the meeting and said Lofaro’s statements were “strictly disingenuous.” The coalition has been promoting the project for about four years and had been organizing support “behind the scenes” before Cuomo threw his full support behind it last year, Kapell, the former mayor of the Village of Greenport, said. Its impetus was a 2012 study by the Rauch Foundation Long Island Index, a nonprofit group for which Kapell is a consultant, showing the benefits of the projContinued on Page 70
PHOTO FROM GIANNA SEE VIA YOUTUBE
Herricks High School graduate Michael Linden performed at the school’s 13th annual “Herricks Idol” music competition on Jan. 6. See story on page 23.
NHP doctor makes second plea for working kidney BY J OE N I K I C Dr. Hetty Chung has spent the last 14 years at her private practice in New Hyde Park helping patients as an OB-GYN. But around the beginning
of 2015, Chung said, she herself became a patient when she went into kidney failure and now needs a kidney transplant for a second time. She said that although over 100 potential donors have
come forward to donate to her, it is difficult to find a direct match because of her high level of antibodies, the result of treatment for a previously diagnosed lupus condition. Continued on Page 70
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