The biggest county issue in Manhasset is reopening the Police Department’s 6th Precinct, leaders of the Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations said this week.
“When we talk about an issue that’s near and dear to Manhasset,” the group’s president, Richard Bentley, said, “the 6th Precinct will rise to the top of the list.”
He said it’s the unanimous opinion of the group’s leaders that the precinct should be reopened.
“This is probably the hottest issue in our town when it comes to county issues,” said Susan Auriemma, the council secretary. “Having spoken to police personnel at many levels, I have never heard anyone say this is a fine plan working just as well as they proposed it would.”
The 6th Precinct, located in Manhasset, merged with the 3rd Precinct in Williston Park in 2012 under a countywide cost-saving plan proposed by County Executive Edward Mangano and passed in a party-line vote by Republican legislators.
The 3rd Precinct was then split into two divisions — the 3rd South Subdivision and 3rd North Subdivision, which covers Manhasset, Great Neck and parts of Port Washington.
Bentley and Auriemma said the quality of enforcement in Manhasset has declined since the merger, and the promised fiscal benefits have not been realized.
“Nobody has ever seen those cost savings,” Bentley said. “On the contrary, what we see is police overtime having gone through the roof.”
Auriemma said the Nassau County police have assured the Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations that the number of daily police patrols has not waned since the merger. But Auriemma questioned the effectiveness of recent patrols.
“It’s like if you took all corporate offices at the Target corporation and consolidated them, so where you had two ad men you had one; but you kept the check-out lines at every store the same,” she said. “Yes all sector cars remain the same, just as all grocery store aisles are still open. But the precinct being asked to do more with less from an administrative point of view has to affect how it functions as a whole.”
Bentley and Auriemma pointed to other issues, like the environment and fiscal management, that will be important to them in the coming county executive race.
The Council of Greater Manhasset Civic Associations will host Democratic county Legislator Laura Curran, a candidate for county executive, at its next meeting on Feb. 8. Auriemma has also been contacted by Charles Lavine, a Democratic state assemblyman who has announced his intent to run for county executive.
“We don’t normally reach out to candidates,” she said. “But if they contact us and want to speak to the organization, we welcome them.”
“The 6th Precinct will be mentioned in the first five minutes of the conversation,” Bentley said.
