North Hempstead Supervisor Bosworth touts finances in state of town address

Joe Nikic

North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth in her second State of the Town Address on Friday said her administration would continue to run a transparent government and look to improve residents’ quality of life during her second term in office.

“There is nothing more important to me than serving our residents, enhancing our quality of life and running the government in an open and transparent manner,” Bosworth said. “I believe that every law we pass, every initiative we put forth and every issue we might oppose is rooted in the belief that we are here to serve the residents of North Hempstead.”

Bosworth won re-election in November after receiving 68 percent of the votes to defeat Republican challenger Anthony Bulzomi.

She first won election to become the 37th supervisor in town history in November 2014.

Throughout her speech, Bosworth highlighted plans for her second term and lauded the town’s achievements, specifically with its handling of finances.

In September, the bond rating agency Moody’s Investors Service Inc. gave the town a Aa1 bond rating for the fourth time in the last two years, the highest in the town’s history.

“Moody’s reaffirmed the town’s stable fiscal outlook, citing our conservative financial management practices and our reduction of debt by a total of more than $30 million over the past two years,” Bosworth said.

Bosworth, a Great Neck resident who previously served the North Hempstead area for three terms in the Nassau County Legislature, said one of her town initiatives for the upcoming year was to use a $450,000 state grant to develop a new sewer system at North Hempstead Beach Park.

“While attending our Memorial Day fireworks celebration at North Hempstead Beach Park last year I became painfully aware of the fact that we were still using a septic tank system,” she said. “Frankly, I was surprised, to say the least, that our park, so close to Hempstead Harbor, was not connected to sewers. I knew that we had to address this as soon as possible and we were up to that challenge.”

Bosworth added the project would minimize nitrogen content in Hempstead Harbor and the town’s waterways.

She also said the town named design firm Quenelle Rothschild as the firm in charge of designing the new North Hempstead Beach Park.

Bosworth said she plans on improving many of the town’s struggling downtown areas by working closely with the town’s Business and Tourism Development Corporation and Planning Department, as well as community planning facilitator Eric Alexander of Vision Long Island, to find out the issues business owners are having.

“Initiatives like this one are just a step that we are taking towards addressing the problem of empty storefronts in some of our downtown areas,” she said. “It is my hope that by working with Vision Long Island and our Planning Commissioner, we can address some of the issues troubling our downtowns and get an objective opinion on how to tackle this problem.”

Bosworth said the town would make efforts to begin using the “Star Wars-like” technology used by the Port Washington Parking District to verify if vehicles are registered with the necessary permits.

She also said the town was piloting the use of a pay-by-phone parking meter payment program that allows residents to refill their parking meters by phone.

Bosworth said the program would eliminate “the need to rush out of the store with quarters because your meter is about to expire.”

While she said she was proud of her accomplishments during her first term, Bosworth said some plans the town did not allow were just as important as plans the town implemented.

“During the past year, sometimes what didn’t happen was as important as what did,” she said. “A new casino in the Westbury-Carle Place community was never built and we managed to block New York City’s plan to drill into our wells and compromise our aquifers.”

In a short question-and-answer session after her speech, Bosworth said she was still waiting on a response from county officials regarding the re-opening of the Nassau County Police Department’s Sixth Precinct.

“There was a comment in the paper from the acting commissioner saying I was making it political. Which I thought was so interesting because I purposely didn’t do anything until after the election because I didn’t want to be accused of this being political,” she said. “There’s nothing political about it.”

Bosworth also said when she was a county legislator, she opposed the merger of the Third and Sixth precincts and will continue to push for its reinstatement while serving as supervisor.

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