A new face has joined the Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations.
Norgate resident Dorothy Hill was nominated and elected as the community’s new civic association president during the greater council’s meeting last Tuesday.
“I’m very honored to have been selected,” said Hill, a Manhasset resident since 2007. “We have a terrific opportunity on the greater council to share best practices and ideas with each other, and I look forward to collaborating with residents in my own neighborhood as well as with the other civic associations.”
Hill, who previously served on the school district’s Citizens Advisory Committee for Finance and School Community Association, said she’d like to continue the work of predecessor Chris Quirin to beautify the neighborhood and cut down on the frequency with which motorists “cut through” Norgate to reach Northern Boulevard.
She said she would also like to help digitize the civic association by creating a website and developing a mobile application to keep residents informed of its initiatives.
“I’m a parent in the community, I care deeply about Manhasset and I know that I can make a positive difference for the community and greater Manhasset,” Hill said. “I was very encouraged and inspired by the work that was done by my fellow members within our community, and I saw it as a sign that we could do a lot more.”
The greater council meets the second Wednesday of every month in the legislative quarters at North Hempstead town hall.
The Norgate Civic Association, which represents approximately 60 households, generally meets once a year.
Hill majored in government at Dartmouth College and was a classmate of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York). She now works as a financial services consultant within the technology sector.
She has served the Manhasset School District’s Citizens Advisory Committee for Finance for the last three years, and from 2008-10 sold local advertising for the SCA’s annual community guide, which is distributed to every household in Manhasset.
Hill said she would like to launch the website in October but added it would require approval from the greater council. It would include a membership directory, announcements and updates on projects within the Norgate community.
Production on the mobile application is underway, she said, but Hill did not have a timetable for its completion.
“I’ve done this before through my work, so I know what questions to ask,” Hill said.
Hill said she would also like to hold more public meetings of the Norgate Civic Association, complete with an agenda and minutes, but said it may require the approval of the greater council and a change in Norgate’s bylaws.
The Norgate Civic Association’s leadership team is comprised of Hill and Vice President Eric Breitweiser and three committees focused on traffic and safety, beautification and social initiatives.
“I don’t think one meeting per year is very sufficient to ensure best practices,” Hill said.
The Norgate Civic Association has pressed the Town of North Hempstead for the installation of speed bumps to curtail motorists frequently driving through the neighborhood, Hill said.
Though Hill said the civic association has “made great strides” to beautify the neighborhood through various plantings in the last few years, she said she has sought the advice of other civic leaders and her predecessors for direction on traffic congestion.
“I want to see how they work with the town supervisor and people responsible for traffic and safety so that I’m not recreating the wheel and am using the institutional knowledge that has been built up here over however many years,” she said.
