Readers Write: NHP Fire District shuns open government

The Island Now

At an open New Hyde Park Fire District board meeting held on Tuesday Nov. 17, 2015, I inquired to the Board of Fire Commissioners about the Herald Courier’s November 6, 2015 article “$125.5M budget approved for commissioner-operated districts” by Joe Nikic, reporting that this district now has the second largest budget increase of all special districts in the Town of North Hempstead.  

The Nov. 6 article stated that attempts to obtain comment from this district were made “to no avail.”  

I inquired during the Nov. 17 meeting regarding the troubling comment that the paper did not receive a response from the district.  

The chair, Commissioner Stein, refused to provide any response.  

When I renewed my request regarding this issue during the most recent board meeting held on Dec. 1, the Commissioners of our District inexplicably continue to refrain from providing responses to key questions regarding the finances of the district.

In yet another example of the district playing games with the taxpayers’ money, it was announced at the Dec. 1 meeting by Vice-Chair Commissioner Bonura, that the board acknowledges it did not properly provide a formal motion which would have allowed Commissioner Derenze to attend an event in Louisiana.  

Now upon his return, the district, after the fact and without pre-approving the trip, made a formal motion to cover the expense of Derenze’s attendance.  In line with the board’s typical practice of non-transparency, no dollar amount of Derenze’s expenses was provided.  

This board’s failure to respond to valid inquiries regarding financial issues shows its continual inability to perform one of the most fundamental tasks given to it by the people of the District; properly manage the budget.  The board continues to show its incompetence through its failure to even perform the simplest of tasks, holding a vote to approve an expenditure.  

This is not the first time the board has made errors in its operations.  The last time they simply and improperly made up a vote and had the district secretary enter a fraudulent vote into meeting minutes back on April 16, 2013.  

In that instance motions that were not passed by unanimous votes were instead identified as being passed by unanimous vote and the minutes discussed a four-paragraph detailed motion that never took place.  

This incident was described by the District as simply being an “innocent mistake” and the minute entry was ultimately rescinded.  

The problems with the district board do not only rest in their incompetence, but in their unbelievably crass attitude about their positions.   

Commissioners show absolute disdain when asked questions regarding district matters at the open sessions of meetings.  

Many times, commissioners either do not respond to questions at all, or provide non-responses in to a condescending tone to district residents.  

Other commissioners just completely fail to appear for meetings to actually perform their job.  

As of Sept. 1, 2015 Commissioner Derenze has missed three consecutive board meetings: June 16, July 21 and Aug. 18 and three earlier meetings: Feb. 17, March 17 and May 19 — for a total of six of 13 meeting in the first year of his five-year term.  To date, no explanation for his absences has been provided.  

The failure of commissioners to regularly appear for mandated meetings, the continuous refusal of other commissioners to simply perform their job in a professional matter, and the overall lack of responsiveness to inquiries, shows that the members of this board are simply failing to perform the duties and fulfill the obligations that they were elected to do.  

With the annual Fire Commissioner’s election to be held on Tuesday, Dec. 8, and unfortunately no competition to be had against sitting Commissioner Michael Bonura’s re-election bid, any hopes for positive change going forward for both the residents and the district is quite dim.

I invite you all to get involved.  

Without qualified individuals holding special district positions and with little to no involvement by the general public, the piggy bank that is the Long Island special district will only be broken and your taxes will rise if no one keeps them in check.  

Deirdre Dolan 

New Hyde Park 

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