Members of advisory committee for revitalizing Middle Neck Road announced

Janelle Clausen
Village of Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral announced the members of the citizens advisory committee on Tuesday night, following a public safety meeting. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)
Village of Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral announces the members of the citizens advisory committee, following a public safety meeting. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)

Village of Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral announced the names of seven people and two liaisons on a citizens advisory committee for the revitalization of Middle Neck Road on Tuesday night, following a scheduled public safety forum.

Officials announced their intent to form a committee in March. The group’s objective is to gather input from the community, serve as a liaison to the board and, based on a blueprint that engineering consultant VHB created, come up with ideas of how to boost the peninsula.

“The purpose is not to say necessarily what I want, for example, as a resident to come to Great Neck,” Mayor Pedram Bral said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “It’s how I’m going to provide incentives for development and for the store owners and for developers to build, to bring, to create what we, as a community, as residents, want to have.”

Bral said at least 20 people, many with connections to Great Neck, expressed interest in joining the committee.

Among the seven people selected were Sam Yellis, a social studies teacher at the Village School in Great Neck, Namdar Group CEO Effie Namdar, longtime resident Jean Pierce, physician Adam Schneider, Laleh Asher, Jonathan Yunason and Michael Hauptman, village representatives said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Yunason is the president of 925 Capital, which develops residential, commercial and hospitality projects, as well as the founder of REDA Group, a Manhattan-based real estate firm.

Additionally, Board of Zoning Appeals Chair Dennis Grossman and Architectural Review Committee member Afshin Dilmanian will be liaisons to the committee, Bral said.

“I didn’t only want one kind of person,” Bral said.

Problem oriented police officer Thomas Brock takes down notes as he speaks to a Great Neck resident at a public safety forum. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)
Problem oriented police officer Thomas Brock takes down notes as he speaks to a Great Neck resident at a public safety forum. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)

The announcement followed an unrelated safety forum, where concerned village residents and trustees honed in on concerns with traffic safety, like speeding and opening doors on the street side rather than sidewalk side.

“I’m not saying we need 400 tickets a month – that wouldn’t be very pleasant for anybody either – but many people do drive here with impunity, and I think that’s a problem,” Deputy Mayor Bart Sobel said.

One particular area of concern was an area surrounding North High School, where school trustees will be creating a new parking lot for the students.

“That was the major concern at the beginning of the evening,” Thomas Brock, a problem oriented police officer for Nassau County, said.

In general, Brock said Great Neck is not alone in its traffic problems.

“The speeding and traffic is becoming just an issue everywhere now,” Brock said.

But, Brock added, “it is being addressed” as many new officers fresh from the Nassau County Police Academy are on the job and writing more summonses.

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