The North Hempstead Town Board passed several laws to assist local businesses in recovery from the coronavirus pandemic at its meeting last Thursday.
Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth said at the meeting, held over Zoom, that the laws had come as a result of a recovery group set up by the town.
“In response to the coronavirus pandemic, we formed a COVID-19 recovery work group, charged with discussing and recommending initiatives to help our residents and businesses recover from the devastating impact of this horrible pandemic,” Bosworth said. “The efforts of the business recovery work group resulted in the three local laws that are being discussed and considered tonight.”
The first passed was a local preference law stating the town’s intent “to award contracts for goods and services to a responder other than the lowest responsible responder where such responder is located within the County of Nassau.”
“The current economic downturn being experienced by the town as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is adversely affecting local businesses through a reduction in business activity and a concomitant loss of jobs,” the law reads. “This Town Board further finds that there is a public benefit to spending public funds in the local economy. [The board] also finds and determines that the award of contracts to entities outside the Town of North Hempstead and the County of Nassau, at a time when the Town is experiencing an economic downturn, tends to exacerbate local economic difficulties. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to grant local businesses a preference when seeking to do business with the Town.”
Bosworth noted that Suffolk County and the towns of Brookhaven, Huntington and Hempstead had similar legislation in effect.
“We hope that this bill will assist our local businesses in these challenging times and beyond,” Bosworth said before the board unanimously voted to pass the legislation.
The second of the three local laws on the agenda allows construction activity “on Saturdays between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. in business and industrial zones, when such activity does not create or is not likely to create a noise disruption,” which Bosworth said “aimed to help our businesses recover from the delays that were caused by shutting down work due to the pandemic.” This law also passed unanimously.
The last local law presented at the meeting served to “[suspend] certain regulations regarding the provision of additional seats and provide a framework for temporary outdoor seating.” Bosworth said that the recovery group had been working on the bill prior to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s allowance of outdoor seating.
“This is the most ‘fun’ of the three laws,” Bosworth said. “In their discussions, the work group thought that a good way to help our restaurants would be to allow for outdoor seating, especially in anticipation that the restaurants would be subject to reduced interior seating requirements. As of now, there is no interior seating allowed, so this becomes more viable.”
The third law also passed unanimously.
The town council will next meet on July 23 at 7 p.m., though the manner of the meeting is as yet undetermined.
