Avoiding tax cap penalties

Richard Tedesco

The Mineola Board of Trustees unanimously voted for a local law Thursday that allows the village to exceed the state-mandated 2 percent tax cap on the tax levy.

The board’s vote is in keeping with other municipalities throughout the state, which have passed similar measures to avoid potential monetary penalties that would be imposed if the 2 percent tax cap is exceeded – whether on purpose or not.

“It’s a responsible thing. It just makes sense not to lie in the hands of someone else and take the chance of making a ‘legal mistake’,” said village attorney John Spellman.

Spellman noted that increased costs of state pension funds are not being amortized by the state, but that it is “catching up all at once. The result, he said, was uncertainty for municipalities in what they must contribute each year.

He also noted that the state review of municipal budgets is a “pass-fail” process that could leave a municipality liable to penalties if there is an inadvertent miscalculation in a budget.

“We are looking to have this as a precautionary measure,” Village of Mineola Deputy Mayor Paul Pereira said. “We’re protecting ourselves going forward.”

Trustee Lawrence Werther said the tax cap was “a noble bill” that was ill-considered by ignoring the potential impact of unfunded mandates.

Mayor Scott Strauss said the village budget rose 5.3 percent year-to-year last year due to unfunded mandates in pension and health care costs.

“If we happen to go above 2 percent without enacting this, there’s a hefty fine,” Strauss said.

Spellman noted that the tax cap is set at 2 percent or the annual rate of inflation, whichever is less.

“In this instance, we can’t be sure we can be in compliance with the law,” he said.

During the village board meeting on Dec. 7, Lincoln Avenue resident and Keith Allison said his neighborhood was in a condition of “blight,” from garbage strewn on sidewalks to graffiti penned by local gangs on the apartment buildings on the south side of Lincoln and people sleeping in doorways.

Allison, who said he works as a New York City cop, also said the buildings were deteriorating and waved a photograph of a broken storefront window and a shed at one end of the street, which he said housed rodents. He showed a series of photographs reproduced on regular paper stock to support his contention.

Daniel Whelan, superintendent of the village building department, said reality did not jibe with Allison’s imagery.

Whelan said the street was in order when he went there the following morning after Allison took the photographs. He said he spoke with one of the apartment building owners and the owner of the delicatessen at the corner of Lincoln and Willis Avenue, who both said there had been no gang-related incidents in the neighborhood.

Whelan said one graffiti sample showed cracked paint and was obviously an old spray paint job.

Strauss said he felt “strongly” about resolving any issues on the block when the subject was raised last week. He asked the village Department of Public Works to do whatever was needed, and he and other board members visited the area late Wednesday night after the board meeting.

A reporter who visited the area the next morning noted evidence of deterioration in the buildings. They appeared to be aged and not well-kept, but did not seem to be on the verge of collapsing. There was a broken storefront window on Willis Avenue, but no one sleeping in front of the House of Grace spiritual goods store as there had been in the photos Allison showed without reference to when he took them.

Whelan said the glass in the storefront window was replaced on Thursday. The shed, which had been an entry way to a pedestrian tunnel near the Long Island Railroad tracks, was knocked down and the entry way sealed off by concrete at ground level.

He said there was what he considered to be a “normal” pile of 25 black garbage bags near the eastern end of the street. Whelan said he told the building superintendent that the bags should be put out on the street in the morning for pick up rather than the night before, which gives rodents more time to get at it.

Whelan said Nassau County Police at the 3rd Precinct said they’d received no calls recently about disturbances on the street, or anything else.

In other developments:

• The board voted to give Manuel Carvalho, owner of Churrasqueria Bairrada, a special permit to sell food – but not prepare it – in his Carvalho Imports store at 42 E. 2nd Street in Mineola. At a hearing on the permit application last month, Carvalho said he didn’t realize he needed the permit when he opened the store six months earlier. Spellman said the store would provide a “desirable service” to the village and would improve the “welfare” of the neighborhood.

• The board withheld a decision on a special permit application from Jean Wang to establish a semi-private personal training facility at 153A Jericho Turnpike. Jamie Dryer, a personal trainer and a principal in the prospective business, said the facility would schedule one-hour training sessions with clients individually or in small groups. He said the business is targeting high school athletes and their mothers, figuring the moms can come in during morning training hours and the kids could follow at 3:30 until the place closes at 8 p.m. on weeknights. Dryer said he expected the largest group to be 20 people.

John Fereira, owner of For Birds Only, on the same block as the proposed training center, said there isn’t sufficient parking in the area that already has a number of retail stores such as his bird and fish store.

“We’re got a lot of problems with parking in the middle of the day,” Fereira said.

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