Saddle Rock out $100K in Johnson grant fiasco

Melissa Gafney

The Village of Saddle Rock recently joined the long list of villages, schools and special district to learn that it will not be receive a $100,000 grant promised by former state Sen. Craig Johnson.

“It’s with great trepidation I tell you our grant was rejected,” Village of Saddle Rock Deputy Mayor Dan Levy announced Wednesday night, May 4 at the Village Board of Trustees meeting

Village of Saddle Rock Clerk Donna Perone said following the meeting that the money was spent in 2010 for the repair and replacement of the village dock in anticipation of the village receiving the grant money.

Village officials said they now have to find a way to replace the money.

Levy said the village board will discuss options when Village of Saddle Rock Mayor J. Leonard Samansky is present at the next meeting. He was ill and could not attend the meeting Wednesday, Levy said.

More than $8.5 million in grants to the Town of North Hempstead and local governments was canceled by state Senate Democrats after Johnson lost in his re-election bid against Jack Martins, the Republican mayor of Mineola.

Martins has said research he has conducted into the grants revealed that at least in some cases money that was promised was never there.

Perone said Senate Democrats had reallocated the money.

Repeated efforts to reach Johnson since he lost a disputed election in December have been unavailing.

The next village meeting will be on Wednesday, June 1, at 8:30 p.m.

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