Will someone, please, show me where it is written that the broad powers bestowed upon a Long Island Mayor and Board are code for, “contempt for all, favoritism for some?”
The men and women I know do not enjoy being snookered.
New information concerning the inner workings of the Village of Great Neck government fell into my lap recently. Here’s a quick hint – – the “Honor System” is involved.
Early in January 2018, I became curious about the status of a single-family home (near mine) that had been sold and was standing idle.
With the very real threat of developers who seek to demolish every village home they can get their hands on, and a mayor who enthusiastically encourages such demolitions, I was becoming impatient with the system that, by design, keeps residents uninformed.
I wanted answers.
How was it possible that my immediate neighbors knew nothing about what was taking place on their own block?
It turns out that several months ago, the Architectural Review Committee met at Village Hall to discuss the house in question.
According to sources, my name was on the designated list to be invited to this ARC meeting.
My immediate neighbors were also on the list to be invited to this ARC meeting. I can attest to the fact that a least three neighbors, including myself, never received a written notice.
Did any resident on that designated list receive notice, I wonder?
Architects performing home renovation/construction in the village have always been required to send written notification to residents within a 200-foot radius.
But our government has eliminated the standard operating procedure of Return/Receipt for ARC meetings. Here’s where the honor system kicks in.
Although the architect is still instructed to mail invitational letters (village provides the list) – there is no longer a process in place to monitor that the architect has fulfilled his obligation.
Without the mechanism of return/receipt, village government has removed all tangible proof that such a mailing did, in fact, take place.
There is no paper trail tracking how many (if any) residents received the invitational letter. In the worst case scenario, and our Village of Great Neck is frequently a worst-case scenario, an official ARC meeting could take place with zero attendance and zero participation from area residents.
The benefit to the architect is as follows: fewer residents in attendance means fewer objections to blueprint designs.
Case in point: In 2017, this same Honor System resulted in one resident in attendance at a critical meeting to discuss the subdivision of 35 Croydon.
A single lot was designated to be divided into two single-family homes. This meeting should have been Standing Room Only.
Instead, the sole resident in attendance was my own spouse – whose name was not even on the designated list – but who wanted to attend. Where is the honor in that?
Where is the transparency and accountability when critical meetings take place with row after row of empty chairs?
Must we, as residents, resign ourselves to a collective sigh, thereby swallowing our anger and accepting the fact that deception by village government is the new normal?
Only
village residents, who are familiar with the community and its day-to-day workings, will pick up on potentially dangerous and glaring elements of a blueprint design that an out-of-area architect would never anticipate.
It all comes down to a single, disturbing fact. We have elected leaders who have successfully removed our right to participate freely in our local government. They have, effectively, silenced us.
I encourage you to share this letter with friends and commit to reading the Legal Notices of this newspaper on a weekly basis.
Only then will you be informed on what is taking place in your community.
If you have any hope of being an informed citizen in this Village, you will have to make an extraordinary effort. The cards are stacked against you.
As in the game of chess, the players in village government are always two steps ahead, already calculating their next bold move.
In this village, highly paid consultants and developers seem to finish first, while the taxpaying Everyman will always be the last to know. And when he or she does, it will be a fait accompli—too late to do anything about it.
Judy Shore Rosenthal
Great Neck
