If You Build It, They Will Stay...And So Will Everybody Else

The other evening I attended a public forum at East Meadow High School about the proposal and upcoming Aug. 1 vote regarding the new minor league baseball stadium at Mitchel Field and the new arena to replace the delapadated Nassau Veteran's Memorial Coliseum.

This event was arranged by our ever vigilant EM Legislator Norma Gonsalves, who always seems to have our best interests at heart as a public servant, neighbor and friend. Hosting the event was the Executive Deputy Robert Walker, his staff and the people who are at the top of the food chain in negotiating this daunting task. Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano was a late arrival, but did talk and take many questions from what was a hostle crowd, initially myself included.

Suffice it to say that Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has inherited a quagmire of problems that no person in their right mind would have wanted to try to tackle for all the gold in Fort Knox. He may seem like is acting as if he got beaned by a flying puck in his plan to have taxpayers borrow $400 million to build a new home for the Islanders hockey team, but there is much more to it.

Mangano has cut and trimmed and condensed and consoladated all he can so far. His finances have been taken over by a state control board because Nassau is $176 million in the red and has too little options as to how to close the deficit, because too many services are legally mandated...something that prior administrations locked him into like the red light camera fiasco.  

So, while it seems that Mangano is pressing the public to erect a new castle for a team, owned by multimillionaire Charles Wang, the real truth is that what he wants to build is a center for more jobs and more commerce than Nassau has seen before. The problem, as I see it, is the way they are proposing it. The people that we have elected, both democrats and republicans, tell us that if the Islanders do not get a new arena by 2015, they will leave. And with them will go many dollars and jobs, which will have to be made up of tax dollars.

I personally do not like to be bullied into giving up my lunch money. One store goes out or moves away another takes it's place, right? Wrong when it comes to stadiums and arenas. Just google "Pontiac Silvedome," the previous home of the Detroit Lions pro football team. You will see that Auburn Hills, a suburb like Nassau County is now a virtual slum, because they thought some others would take over the stadium, like soccer. 

Many, many jobs and businesses and homes were lost to this. Now look at little Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The residents erect a new arena, sell naming rights to Mohegan Sun Corp and the teams and franchises flock in droves to play there. The new NALL (North American Lacrosse League) signed there first, before Charlotte or any other location. The WB/PA are thriving and growing and pay almost on third less of the residental taxes they did ten years ago because of the new financial surplus. I learned that it is almost the same price to repair and refurbish the current Coliseum as to tear it down and start over (which actually was MY question).

The difference was only about $18 million dollars, which makes sense as to replace it. We could have the Islanders AND all these others here if we build this. Not to mention things like Pro Roller Derby, ABA Pro Basketball, Snowcross (motorcross racing on snow instead of dirt), Bamboozle concert and many other sports and concerts and attractions.     

Besides the arena is the new Ballpark that will hold the Nassau county version of the LI Ducks, which too will be owned by sussessful businessman, Frank Boulton. Now to offset the costs of this and to insure greater return for my approximate $58 a year for 30 years tax addition are potential proposals for a contracted taxi service at both the ballpark and arena, ball park naming rights, a cell tower, new restaurant franchises like Dairy Queen and Cracker Barrel and more. So if I agree to pay $58 more a year in taxes (based on my home being worth $450,000.00) the profit to the genaral fund in years to come could give me a $200 rebate, which nets me an overall savings of approximately $142.     

The reason for the special election was explained nicely to me, as such. Let's say you have a regular doctors appointment with a $15 co-pay set for 3 weeks from now. And let's say you have a throbbing in your chest, tingling fingers, short of breath. Wouldn't you make an appointment today with your other specialty doctor, even with a co-pay of $30 to check out this important development, instead of waiting?

Well the Hub Project is an important development, and the people in charge made a consious and hard pressed decision to possibly spend the money (over $2 million if we vote no and zero if we vote yes) for this special election because of it's historic and county wide importance and to not have it clouded in issues of campaign rhetoric and potiticial promises and perty lines.

There has been no bigger issue than this in the last 15 years and they did not want to water it down with cheap theatrics. Which you may  or may not like, but makes perfect sense.    

Plus there would be more jobs, not just three years of construction, but construction beyond that. More full time and more part time jobs will come. And the County Executive wants them to go to Nassau residents first. He wants to pound his chest like a silverback gorilla and show everyone that he put us in the black and that he reduced our taxes and that he stopped unemployment in Nassau county and that we are the Sports and Entertainment mecca of the East (kind of like how Walt Disney got started). Nothing would please him and Deputy Executive Rob Walker (and my wife and son too) more.           

Hopefully everyone voting sees the future benefits of this and overlooks the negatives that the naysayers are imagining. And that this is someting that will grow and grow to benefit us all with some adjustments along the way. We (yes, we the residents and proposed landlords) would still need a supermajority vote of the County Legislature and then the approval of the Nassau County Interim Financial Authority, our state minders and the people who hold the purse strings. And while one wishes it could be different, I also wish that one or the other do not kill this reasonable and acceptable scaled back compromise to the crazed Lighthouse plan and complicate our future here.