The Canivan Center was filled with more than 200 residents bent on making a better Oyster Bay. Many had spent the day, on Friday, June 22, at the Oyster Bay Library taking part in focus group discussions. Nassau County Legislator Brian Muellers and Michelle Bassen of Island Properties attended both the day and evening sessions, as did many local residents.

Dan Burden, director of Walkable Communities, Inc. was there to help people figure out what they want in their town. He was recently featured in Time magazine as an agent of change. Mr. Burden visited Oyster Bay in April to introduce his program. This time it was to a larger audience.

He asked people to think positively, and to write on index cards their view of Oyster Bay in 20 years. Those cards were collected, to be used in their final report.

"It is your plan. You own it so it works," he said. "It's only 15 minutes to go across town. You already have a jewel - all you need to do is polish it," said Mr. Burden.

Residents seem to agree. The suggestion of many in the survey was to clean up downtown with 41 votes cast and add trees and flowers with 40 votes. Everyone had 14 votes/colored circles to cast on items the audience mentioned that were listed on charts.

An open air amphitheater received 28 votes; clean up Commander received 23 votes; public restrooms got 21 votes; no discharge zone in the bay got 18 votes; give incentives to clean up private property got 14 votes.

There were many more suggestions, which will be part of the final report.

Mr. Burden said he already had his landscape expert working on making parks in parking lots. He said we might like a parking garage like the one in Saint Louis Obispo, where it looks like an arched gem of a building - not a garage. He showed reverse diagonal parking as an easy way to get out with great sight lines.

Mr. Burden told a story of Corning, New York, where the company, Corning Inc. was considering moving out. They hired executives, trained them and after a year they left because there was no "liveablity" in the town, they said. (Remember the article about Stuart Chase and his Rockwell Museum project for that same company.) The town said they were willing to rebuild, he said. It is now the most liveable city in New York State.

As the evening ended he said, "Do immediate things." He showed a slide of a window on Audrey Avenue, an IP building, and said, "If it's broken, fix it! Sweep the streets."

Someone mentioned getting rid of town hall and Mr. Burden said, from his experience: town hall going will kill the town.

"It's a great thing going on," said Brian Muellers. "I'm a little disappointed that the town and state are not here. We made it clear at the Quality Communities meeting that this report would dovetail in with theirs," he said.

Glen Cove Mayor Tom Suozzi attended the event. He said, "The harder I work, the luckier I get." His city is also working on a traffic calming plan for the heavily trafficked Franklin Avenue.

On Saturday, the Main Street program continued with walking tours for about 100 people and a planning session with about 50 people. It was very exciting to see people clustered around maps of Oyster Bay and planning what they would like to see here in 20 years. Town Supervisor John Venditto visited the planners at work and said, "This is terrific." He said the workshop would ensure the production of the best possible plan for the hamlet.

It was great to see the people really getting involved. Mike Rich was hard at work at one table. Rob Crafa was bent in half over a table to get close to a map. John Specce, Tullion Donisi and Rich Ciechiuch were huddling over a map.

On Monday, June 25 Mr. Burden and his team will tell the community what you said you want, using the work that took place over the weekend.

We will be there listening and taking notes. We hope you were there too.

This is an exciting time in Oyster Bay. There appears to be some skepticism about having another plan being presented while the Quality Communities plan was being done, but we think, this time more people getting involved, we have a better chance of getting things off the drawing board. Early on Friday evening, Bill Sheeline, OBMS board member said many plans have been made to help the village but they ended up on the shelf. We watched the Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce try several times, but they were "a lone voice crying in the wilderness." This time, we think we can do it.

We are almost there. It will take some tweeking, some cleaning, and some tender loving care and we will be there.

Pick up the next piece of street debris you see and we'll have a lot of it licked.

At one time our office was at 76 South Street. As we walked up to the Village Camera store with our film, we would carry a plastic bag and pick up the detritus we found along the way. It's not much, but if we all do it, and don't wait for someone else to do it, things will begin to happen. Come on - let's do it!

-DFK