There's been, when it comes to the proposed development of the Nassau Hub, a certain surreal quality.
First, a draft report is released ¬ only by the time of its release it wasn't a draft at all anymore, but a document reviewed and ratified by the Long Island Regional Planning Board.
Then there was a hearing held by the Nassau legislature's planning committee at which proponents of that study learned, among other things, that the site for a proposed new train station was actually the site of two wells belonging to a local water district.
Still, we later found out, that very pertinent piece of information didn't sway proponents of the Hub plan one iota. It turns out that at a meeting of the transportation subcommittee of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Privatization Committee, that proposal for a new train station, which would link to a monorail system serving the Nassau Hub, was very much on the table.
At that meeting, Irwin Kessman, of the Nassau County Planning Commission, as much as told the privatization committee that such a station would be a likely no-go. Why? Because, he explained, you'd first have to complete a federally mandated environmental impact study. That alone would set the plan back 18 months to two years (and remember, the proposal calls for much of the development in the area to be completed by then).
After that study is completed, Kessman said, a public evaluation project would have to be undertaken and federal funding sought. The county estimates those dual processes will take at least five years, followed by another five-year delay as the new station is constructed.
And yet, somehow, it seems like those promoting the development of the Nassau Hub as a kind of 21st Century urban/suburban center will not be deterred.
How can that be? Because it seems that Nassau County, a county that prides itself on civic activism, and on having elected governmental officials who are responsive to their needs, now also have a phantom government operating outside of their control and behind closed doors.
A number of county legislators, for instance, have wondered aloud in recent days, who gave the coliseum privatization committee the authority to explore transportation issues at all, and how they can champion a new railroad station when no elected governmental body has considered, commented on, or approached such a proposal.
Mort Certilman, the personable chairman of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum Privatization Committee, has described the development for the Nassau Hub, of a new coliseum complex, and finding solutions to transportation problems in the area, as the most important project to be undertaken on Long Island since the creation of Levittown.
And yet the decisions being made to shape this project are being made in private, at meeting as that are not subject to the state's open meetings law. Further, as far as anyone knows, no minutes have ever been kept at these meetings. All of which smacks of fat cats slicing the pie and leaving the crumbs to the local citizenry.
It's time for County Executive Thomas S. Gulotta and the Nassau County Legislature to transform this process from a closed one to an open one.
If there are to be serious proposals to build train stations and to erect monorials in area communities, let's put these proposals up for public referendum.
If tens of millions are to be bonded in order to build a new sports and entertainment complex in Nassau, let's have public hearings across the county, not just to ascertain the public's will, but so that it can be explained to local citizens how much exactly those bonds will cost them in terms of taxes and in terms of that debt-loads impact on government services.
All of us will be impacted by whatever happens to the Hub. Isn't our future quality of life something we should all have a say in?
People don't want phantom governments. They want representatives who are responsive to their needs and who feel accountable to those who pay their salaries, support open government through payment of their taxes, and who enter the polling booth on Election Day.
