State Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D- Great Neck) gave an impromptu update on the state budget battle at last Wednesday night’s East Williston Board of Education budget workshop, without much good news to report.

Schimel told board members and residents at the meeting that funding for summer special education programs and 4,201 schools for specials needs students had been restored to the Assembly’s version of the budget.

But she sounded an alarm about what she called the “unbelievable and unattended consequences” from the proposed 2 percent property tax cap planned for next year.

“There is very much a heavy-handedness in this tax cap,” Schimel said.

She said there is still uncertainty about prospects for mandate relief in conjunction with the property tax cap.

Outside the meeting she said the state budget is still a “work in progress” with a “big difference” in the process from last year in conference committees including members of the assembly and the senate. And she said she remained “hopeful” that there would be bipartisan action taken to give school boards and municipalities some relief from unfunded mandates.

“I do think it’s an opportunity for bipartisanship,” Schimel said.

Thoughts about state legislators was never far from the minds of board members, particularly when North Side principal James Bloomgarden thanked private donors in the district for making contributions for construction of the school’s new playground last summer.

“Once again, no thanks to former Sen. Johnson,” said Robert Freier, board vice president, referring to the $100,000 state grant Johnson had promised for the project, but that was never delivered. Freier had earlier referred to the “mysteriously vanished” Johnson grants.

In his budget presentation for North Side, Bloomgarden cited projected reductions of $11,783 in the mathematics budget to $32,714 due to a shift to electronic texts, $8,278 in the library budget and more than $35,000 in computers, primarily due to decreases in planned purchases of hardware and supplies. The school’s overall budget is projected to go down 6.4 percent from the current year to $327,594 with a cost per pupil reduction year-to-year from $656.54 to $545.08, but said programs would not suffer from the decreases.

“We intend to maintain all the programs that make North Side special,” Bloomgarden said.

The Willets Road School also is projecting an overall budget reduction of 11.6 percent to a projected $325,299, according to Willets Road principal Stephen Kimmel, including a $19,574 reduction in the school’s athletics budget.

Having moved to electronic texts in mathematics translates into a reduction of $6,828 next year, while planning that same migration in social studies next year will cost that department a $10,500 budget increase. Purchasing lab equipment and firth grade BOCES science kits will increase the budget in that subject by $6,595. But reductions in reference books, DVDs and paperbacks will pare back the library budget by $5,850, Kimmel said.

Citing “slack” enrollment at the Wheatley School, principal Sean Feeney pointed to the academic performance of its students that demonstrated a clear uptick.

He projected submissions of 677 Advanced Placement papers this year, compared to 600 papers last year, and noted that the high school produced 97 AP scholars in 2010, up from 58 in 2009. He said the administration was planning to add the foundation for a new AP World course and a fifth year Italian course as well as new courses in music history; design, drawing and production, and technology electives.

“Clearly these are difficult times but we are adding new programs,” Feeney said.

But as its programs continue to grow, Feeney projected a budget reduction for the third straight year of 7.61 percent to $591,314, with one teaching position to be eliminated. That would reflect a cost per student of $754, down fro $812 in the current year.

David Casamento, the East Williston’s district director of science and technology, also projected an overall 2 percent reduction in his budget, to $992,330 next year from the current budget just over $1 million.

But Casamento outlined plans for plenty of new equipment at all schools, including five document cameras at North Side, 15 Dell desktop computers and six SMART boards at Willets, and more wireless access at Wheatley along with 10 PC laptops, five SMART boards and three SMART board response systems, two Mac Book Pros for the school’s TV studio and PCs to replace 10-year-old machines that have been burned out when the school’s electrical system has shut down, and suddenly come back up.

“Our old-age computers are frying every time we have power fluctuations in this building,” Casamento said.

His technology budget is depending heavily on BOCES money from the state to support new technology purchases, and when one board member asked how he could be sure the state money would be there, Casamento just shrugged and smiled.

In the aftermath of the East Williston Village Board election, there is still a buzz among East Williston residents about an anonymous postcard they received just before election day slamming an unnamed candidate as a “Williston Park” person.

“Keep the East in East Willliston,” was a slogan on one side of the yellow postcard.

The target of the campaign was Community Party trustee candidate Robert Shannon, who lost in the three-way race for two open trustee seats.

Shannon, who is president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Willistons and currently lives in East Williston, was raised in Williston Park and runs a contracting business in Mineola.

Independent trustee candidate Caroline DeBenedittis led the trustees candidates in the voting. Attorney Bonnie Parente won the other trustee seat. Trustee David Tanner led the Community Party ticket, running unopposed for mayor.

DeBenedittis won 479 votes, while Parente drew 407 votes and Shannon drew 319 votes.

Shannon declined to comment on the anonymous campaign tactic.

“I think it was embarrassing. I think it reflects poorly on our village,” said outgoing East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi, who decided to not run for re-election. “It made East Williston residents look elitist.”

Zolezzi said there also were anonymous e-mails being sent and postings on a Facebook page she declined to identify that suggested the village board was paying for the mailings sent by the Community Party.

Zolezzi said the campaign, undertaken by what she described as a “cowardly group,” gave residents another reason to vote for DeBenedittis.

DeBenedittis said her campaign was not involved with that anonymous campaign and said she notified Shannon and his running mate for trustee, Bonnie Parente, that she had nothing to do with it.

DeBenedittis said her campaign suffered a backlash among residents in the wake of the postcard ploy.

“I don’t know what the intent of the sender was, but clearly, it had more of a negative impact on my campaign than that of my opponents,” she said. “I found myself in a position of explaining something I had nothing to do with. It is unfortunate that someone had nothing better to spend their money or time on.” DeBenedittis said.

Trustee Michael Braito denounced the postcard in a letter published in the Williston Times last week.

“A simple-minded person penned this ignorant message,” Braito wrote.

He offered an apology to the village’s neighbors in Williston Park and MIneola for what he called a “coarse and ill-bred act.”

Tanner, Parente and outgoing Deputy Mayor James Daw Jr. declined to comment on the postcard campaign.

In an emotionally charged meeting Monday, Village of Williston Park residents and officials expressed concerns about an agreement by the Mineola School Board to lease the Cross Street School to the Solomon Schecter School of Glen Cove, a private religious school.

Village board members and residents said they were troubled by the potential impact of Solomon Schecter’s plan to use 38 buses to transport 250 or more students and the continued use of the athletic fields there by children in the community.

“The field use is a concern for us, but the main issue is traffic safety,” Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar said.

Ehrbar said that village representatives have held meetings with Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler and representatives of the Solomon Schechter School to address these concerns, and requested a traffic study which he said has not yet been conducted.

“It is not our intention to tell the Mineola School District what to do. This is solely about the property,” Deputy Mayor Teresa Thomann said, adding, “We don’t want to go into court.”

Responding to concerns about the potential impact on emergency vehicles in the area, Nagler said the school buses would not present a hindrance to traffic on Hillside Avenue.

Nagler was repeatedly interrupted by verbal and non-verbal vocalizations by the audience.

At one point, Nagler told the audience he was invited to the meeting as a guest and pointedly noted that “if you were at a Mineola School Board meeting you wouldn’t be treated as rudely as you are treating me.”

Ehrbar struggled throughout the meeting to stop the spontaneous outbursts, repeatedly using his gavel to silence the crowd that filled the third floor meeting room in Williston Park Village Hall. He threatened more than once to eject residents who were out of order or to adjourn the meeting if the outbursts didn’t cease.

The public hearing in Williston Park came on the heels of contentious Mineola School Board meeting last Thursday where questions about the Cross Street lease were also raised.

The decision to lease Cross Street School is the first step in a consolidation plan the Mineola School Board has developed over the past year.

A long line of residents assembled to vent their feelings or pose questions, primarily about what many called “quality of life” issues.

Village of Williston Park Justice Kevin Kiley asked Nagler if the Solomon Schechter lease was a “done deal,” and Nagler said it was.

“In principle, it’s a done deal,” Nagler said, later adding that the school board was settling lease details.

When Kiley then expressed surprise that no traffic study had been done, Nagler said the school board was in the process of consulting an expert to have a study done.

Village board attorney Chris Prior said Williston Park’s code permits a site plan review for the property because the village views the prospective lease agreement as a change of use not solely under the Mineola School District’s jurisdiction.

“We believe the village board has site-plan oversight,” Prior said, adding that the village board also has the right to consult its own traffic expert on that issue.

Thomann again weighed in by stating that, from her board’s perspective, no deal was yet consummated.

“It’s not a done deal. The Mineola School Board did not vote and approve a lease,” she said, reiterating the village board’s right for a site review and its own traffic study.

After the meeting, Thomann said the village board wants time to put together some kind of counter offer to the Schechter lease.

“What we want is some time to explore some options,” she said. “I’m suggesting that it’s not a done deal and there’s time for alternate concepts to suit everybody’s needs.”

Pressed to reveal the terms of the agreement, Nagler said, “Until it is negotiated why in the world would I put it out in public to tip my hand?”

Nagler did value the lease at approximately $250,000 in each of the first two years, and $225,000 for the third year. The first two years included costs of installing a new basketball court in the school, Nagler said. He said he considered the value of the lease deal to be “average in the county” for a school lease in the current market.

Lease documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Law indicate that annual pro rata costs of materials and support for the facilities and grounds, water, telecommunications, maintenance and insurance would total $231,522.

When one resident asked the superintendent what a good offer would be, Nagler said he would have to sit down with the school board to consider any other offers.

“There has to be some kind of offer made to the Mineola School Board,” said Terrence Kennedy, a self-described Williston Board athletics activist.

Mayor Ehrbar noted that any deal the village board might make would impact taxes.

When he asked the assembled residents how they would feel about paying higher taxes to retain control of the property, they applauded.

On the issue of the athletic fields, Nagler said more than once that the Schechter School teams would be using the fields daily, but would stop practices early two days a week through April and May to permit little league use, which would also be permitted on Saturdays.

“We’ve been using those field for 75 years. It’s definitely going to have an impact on this village,” Trustee Kevin Rynne had said early on.

The Solomon Schechter School head of school, Rabbi Lev Herrnson, said the school was relocating because it considered Williston Park a more attractive, central location that it hoped would continue to make the school “viable” in the face of decreasing enrollment.

“If we come here and we’re going to come here, we want to be good neighbors and we want to be good friends. We want to talk things out,” Herrnson said.

The Mineola School Board set a Thursday night meeting to discuss a Cross Street traffic study.

More than 150 swimmers from the Long Island Aquatic Club will compete in the 2011 Short Course Junior Olympics at the Nassau County Aquatic Center on March 27 to 29.

The athletes representing Long Island Aquatic Club will compete against swimmers from all over the New York Metropolitan area during the three day meet.

Athletes in this competition range in ages from 8 to 18.

To qualify for the event many of the swimmers have been practicing five to six times a week and achieved their qualifying standards in other local swim meets throughout the year.

When asked about their training, head coach Ginny Nussbaum said, “The swimmers who have qualified for this weekend’s competition have challenged themselves in practice all year long and we look forward to watching their success this weekend.”

Long Island Aquatic Club, located out of Garden City, is the premier USA Swimming club on Long Island.

The team regularly sends swimmers to compete at regional swim meets as well as at US National competitions and the US Olympic Trials.

LIAC has been ranked as high as 14th in the USA swimming Virtual Club Championship, a national ranking of Age-Group club teams.

Many of the swimmers in this weekend’s competition began in the organization’s Long Island Swim School lesson program, now compete on the more elite age group level, and will eventually go on to swim in college.

Long Island Aquatic Club’s graduating class of 2010 sent athletes on to prestigious universities such as Harvard, Cornell, Duke, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, and New York University.

“Swimming teaches children to overcome new challenges and be successful on a daily basis. The lessons our swimmers learn each day about perseverance, dedication, and excellence apply in the pool, in the classroom, and throughout their daily lives.” said head coach and program director Dave Ferris.

Only five local residents showed up to Sewanhaka Central High School District superintendent search meeting last Thursday, which residents blamed on poor communication on the part of the Sewanhaka board of education.

Transparency and lack of leadership were the primary complaints residents expressed during the meeting in the Sewanhaka High School auditorium.

“I don’t think they really wanted the meeting,” Felix Procacci said in reference to the Sewanhaka Central High School District Board of Education. “I didn’t see any mention of the meeting on the Sewanhaka High Web site, and I checked the Web site daily, even the night before the meeting was to take place.”

“If you want to feel like an outsider, go to a Sewanhaka Central High School Board meeting,” Floral Park resident Linda Barreyre said. “They keep us in the dark, they just don’t tell you things and the programs aren’t well communicated.”

Last Thursday’s meeting was intended to gain public input about the qualities residents want in a new superintendent. But Procacci, a member of the citizen budget advisory committee for the Franklin Square School District, expressed dismay at the scant turnout of district residents, who he said could not adequately reflect the opinions of the Sewanhaka district’s residents.

The district comprises approximately 135,000 residents.

“This disturbs me greatly. I feel this is a waste as we don’t represent 80,000 households,” Procacci said.

School Leadership President Charles Fowler, along with consultant Laruth Gray conducted the meeting, presenting residents with three overall questions.

School Leadership was hired by the Sewanhaka school board to help find a replacement for outgoing superintendent Warren Meierdiercks, who is retiring at the end of the current school year.

“What are the good things about Sewanhaka, what do you see as the challenges the new superintendent will encounter, and what experiences and style of leadership do you expect from the new superintendent,” Fowler said, articulating the questions.

According to Gray, School Leadership conducts the meetings with local PTA, civic associations and public meetings in order to look for “the common theme.”

“I think it would be easier to take one superintendent from one of the component schools in the elementary district and have them take over as the next superintendent of the high school district,” Procacci said.

Procacci said he has presented the idea of consolidation to the Sewanhaka school board in the past, but added the idea was not well received.

“In the future perhaps we should accept candidates that don’t just have a specific background in finance or education. What we are looking for are leaders, sharp, strong and smart leaders,” Elmont resident Muzzio Tallini said.

Muzzio used President Abraham Lincoln as an example of a leader he believed portrayed the values he sees as important.

“Lincoln surrounded himself with people who had different opinions. I hope that the new superintendent does not surround themselves with ‘yes’ people,” Tallini said

Fowler said results of the meetings will be presented to the Sewanhaka school board in late April in what he described as a “specification development report,” which he said consists of the five or six main ideas the local community is looking for in a superintendent.

There are approximately 40 applicants so far, according to Fowler, who said there were no applicants applying from within the district.

What the New Hyde Park village election lacked in suspense, it also lacked in voter turnout, as Deputy Mayor Robert Lofaro and Trustee Richard Coppola were re-elected to their respective village board seats with no opposition.

Lofaro drew 123 votes and Coppola drew 125 in the village exercise in democracy on Tuesday.

As a point of comparison, the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park school budget election last May drew 2,641 voters to cast ballots.

Observers were anticipating a low turnout. At the village board meeting preceding the vote, Village of New Hyde Park Mayor Daniel Petruccio urged residents to come out and vote so they wouldn’t get out of the habit, despite the fact that the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Lofaro declined to comment on his re-election. Coppola was unavailable to comment on the election.

Both men were first elected to the New Hyde Park Village Board in 1999, joining the board at a time when the village finances were in a state of disarray and the village was facing the prospect of dissolution.

Lofaro has been a resident of New Hyde Park for 25 years, and Coppola has lived in the village for 33 years.

Lofaro was the chairman of a five-member citizen’s budget advisory board that gave the village recommendations to the village board on streamlining expenses and reducing taxes. He is director for trade and risk services for an international financial institution.

Many of the recommendations of that committee were implemented after he was elected as trustee.

Lofaro has cited the completion of several major road improvement projects in the village, the beautification and revitalization of the area around the Long Island Rail Road tracks, and local statutes to curb over development of the village among his primary accomplishments during his time in office.

Coppola is the village board liaison to the LIRR, the little league, the chamber of commerce, the parks commission and the Nassau County and auxiliary police.

Coppola is president of All Vehicle Leasing, Inc. at Hempstead Ford Lincoln Mercury.

Coppola has been a member of the New Hyde Park Fire Department for 29 years. Lofaro has been a member of the Floral Park Fire Department for 32 years.

Both men have been involved in village recreation. Coppola is past president of the New Hyde Park Little League. Lofaro has been a coach and manager for girls softball in that league. He has also been a coach for the New Hyde Park Wildcats Soccer Club and girls basketball for Notre Dame Church CYO.

New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School district administrators presented a proposed 2011-12 school budget at Monday night’s meeting of $33.5 million, reflecting a 2.97 percent increase over the current budget and translating into a 5.89 percent rise in the tax levy.

New Hyde Park- Garden City Park Superintendent of Schools Robert Katulak said the proposed budget “miraculously” provides the district with the lowest year-to-year increase in the past seven years.

“It also delivers a staffing budget that not one employee loses a job,” said Katulak, who noted that the budget also keeps all existing school programs, including the music programs, intact..

Katulak said the administration had made more than $200,000 in cuts, including the elimination of a “contingency” teaching position of $88,000, $60,368 in new textbooks, $41,000 in reduced hours for lunch monitors and $14,000 from an outdoor educational experience for 5th and 6th graders in the district.

Michael Frank, superintendent of business for the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park district, said to keep costs down the administration is also proposing to draw $584,690 from the district’s reserve fund.

“I do not anticipate being able to replicate this again,” he said.

Frank pointed out that the costs of the Employees Retirement Service, Teachers Retirement Service and NYSHIP health insurance are collectively rising by 15.5 percent.

“These are things we don’t control and they’re driving our budget,” Frank said,.

The school district also must cope with a $623,507 year-to-year reduction in state aid, from $4.4 million to $3.8 million as a result of the current state fiscal crisis, Frank said.

Under the proposed school budget, the $33.5 million in costs would be supported by a total tax levy of $27.39 million.

If the budget is rejected by district voters, a 1.92 percent budget increase would be mandated, requiring the board of education to cut $388,565 from its proposed budget, Frank said. That means new equipment and capital projects would be cut and an additional $336,845 would have to be removed.

Frank criticized Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2 percent tax cap, which would take effect in the 2012-13 school year, saying it could eventually “bankrupt” the school district.

“It’s going to decimate our school system as we know it,” Frank said.

If the proposed school budget passes, the average property tax bill in the district would be $2,849.18 compared to $2,808.76 under a contingency budget. That’s based on an assessed valuation of $465,000, according to Katulak.

Residents in the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park district also pay for approximately 25 percent of the Sewanhaka Central High School District’s budget.

“We’re all on a track to go bankrupt, and that’s very scary,” said board member Patricia Rudd.

Before the budget presentation, Rudd said that discussions she had with state legislators in Albany indicated that the proposed tax cap may exclude pensions and health care.

But she said state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) told her that the possibility of eliminating or changing the Triborough Amendment, which assures public employees of annual “step” salary increases with or without negotiated contracts, is “off the table.”

Rudd said that her conversations in Albany indicated that the school district might receive an additional 1 percent in state aid.

Frank Cienski, a member of the Hillside Grade School PTA, echoed other residents’ comments at the meeting, calling the budget “commendable.”

But then he added, “some line items could have been cut more.”

Frank reiterated that school district would maintain all programs under the proposed budget.

“I believe the budget keeps all the programs in place as is,” he said. “If people in the community think there are programs that should be cut, we can have those discussions.”

As if to emphasize the point Katulak made about maintaining music programs during his presentation, there was a musical prelude to the meeting with performances by the Manor Oaks-HIllside Grade School and the Garden City Park-Road School bands.

The Sewanhaka Central High School District administration is proposing budget cuts totaling $2.7 million, including $1 million in teaching positions, in a $166.6 million budget representing a 6.6 percent increase from the district’s current budget and an 8.7 percent tax levy hike.

Cutting $1 million in teaching salaries and benefits would mean eliminating 15 full-time and part-time teaching positions in the district’s five middle school and high schools, according to Sewanhaka Superintendent of Schools Warren Meierdiercks.

After presenting the budget numbers at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, Meierdiercks said he is “optimistic” about getting cooperation from the district’s employees on revisiting the terms of their contracts. The projected budget includes a 4 percent rise in salaries to $96 million.

“We’re talking about getting the contracts reopened to get concessions from these bargaining units to get these budget numbers addressed,” Meierdirecks said.

After the meeting, Meierdiercks said the respective bargaining units had indicated that they are “willing to talk.”

That could be crucial to paring the budget down to numbers voters in the district can accept, since the proposed budget would push the tax levy up by nearly 9 percent to $131 million.

“If we were to go out with the current numbers, I don’t think the public would find it palatable,” board member David Del Santo said.

Felix Procacci, a member of the citizen budget advisory committee for the Franklin Square School District, pointed out that 30 percent of the teachers in the Sewanhaka district make more than $100,000 in annual salary. He said costs in the district have doubled over the past decade.

“The cost has been exorbitant. We’re getting less and we’re paying more. There’s something wrong there,” Procacci said.

The $2.7 million in cuts already proposed include $338,303 from the district athletic programs, $320,000 for evening high school, $311,000 for summer school, $236,000 from building budgets, $117,000 in textbooks, $105,000 from adult education, $72,800 for school clubs and supervision, $71,000 for athletic director’s summer days and $13,000 in mini-grants.

If the budget is rejected, a contingency budget would require the school board to reduce the proposed budget by $7.3 million, Meierdiercks said.

“People are complaining about small things. We’re worried about big things coming out of the budget. We’re worried about people,” board president Jean Fichtl said.

Meierdiercks also presented a list of essential capital projects at the five high school totaling $1.5 million. That list includes installation of a new fire alarm system and replacing the elevator in New Hyde Park Memorial High School for $385,000, renovation of fire escapes in Sewanhaka High School for $230,000, repair of brick and window panels at H. Frank Carey High School for $200,000 and replacement of gym bleachers in Elmont High School for $115,000.

Board members expressed frustration over the district’s situation because of the current state fiscal crunch, with an anticipated year-to-year drop of nearly $1 million in state aid.

“We’re cheap. We don’t spend a lot,” board member Joseph Armocida said.

Sewanhaka currently ranks 54th among the 57 Nassau County school districts in per pupil spending at $17,287.

“They’re telling us to use our reserves, but our reserves are there for a reason, if a boiler breaks,” Fichtl said.

Meierdirecks said that the administration has already put $4 million in reserves in the budget “to get where are with this tax levy.”

The superintendent said the board would meet in executive session after the public meeting to discuss prospective personnel reductions.

“I know we haven’t presented you much, but we don’t have much to present, except to say there will be program cuts and personnel.”

He said under normal circumstances, the board would have the budget finalized by now, but because of the “dynamic, changing process” with no final numbers on state aid yet, he said the board would have to schedule two more public budget meetings this month before it’s finalized.

After their exciting 2-1 victory over the L.I. Rebels to win the Tier III LIAHL Championship, the Great Neck Bruins Bantams were playing their best hockey of the season going into the state tournament just outside Syracuse in Onondaga County.

They stepped on the ice at the Onondaga Nation Arena (also called “Tsha Hononnyen Daka” or “where they play games”) and ran straight into a buzzsaw.

The Batavia Ramparts eventually won the tournament. The Bruins fell behind early and trailed 7-1 after two periods – losing the game 10-2. There were some positives to build upon in that third period, as the Bruins began to match their opponent’s speed, started competing for and winning loose pucks and applied sustained pressure on the opponent’s goal.

They would need all of those qualities to be successful the rest of the way.

Game two was an early Saturday morning affair against the Cortland Flames. From the drop of the puck this was an even match-up of two determined teams.

The action flowed end-to-end with the Flames scoring first but the Bruins holding the edge in play. After the Cortland goal the Bruins (no strangers to playing from a goal down as it was their pattern all season) started rolling as all three forward lines began pressuring the Cortland net.

The equalizer was netted late in the second by Steven Cacchioli off a scrum in front and the Bruins had new life.

The third period had it all: power-plays, breakaway saves and big hits as each team traded scoring chances and threw everything at their opponent. The Bruins persevered.

The winning goal by Steven Cacchioli came off a gorgeous feed from Dagoberto Rodriguez. His tape-to-tape pass found Cacchioli darting in from the high slot and No. 22 finished the play going top-shelf, glove-side.

From there the defense stood tall with Ryan King showing why he was the Bruin’s best player in the tournament.

The Flames simply could not get by King and his partner Freddie Ondris for clean scoring chances as time and again they stopped odd-man rushes and broke-up passes coming into the defensive zone.

Couple the strong defensive-zone play with key saves from goaltender Emily Becker and the Bruins got their first tournament win 2-1.

Later that same day, the Bruins took on the Norfolk/Norwood Icemen in a game where the winning team would advance to thesSemifinals.

The two teams locked-up in a battle that was even for most of the opening period. The Icemen struck first and held their one goal advantage into the second.

The game was now being played predominantly in the Icemen’s zone with the Bruins pressing for the equalizer. The turning point came late in the second as Cacchioli was thwarted from point-blank range and the Icemen scored a controversial high-stick goal to extend their lead to two heading into the third.

With their backs against the wall, the Bruins scored twice, on a breakaway goal from Jordan Domnitch and a bang, bang goal from Cacchioli, but the Icemen also netted two to claim the semifinal berth 4-2.

While the season did not end with a win, they played every game to the final buzzer and lost only to the two teams that made it to the finals.

Even though they fell short of their goal, these Bruins played like champions and put together a great season, one we will remember for a long time.

I watch the line get longer and longer until it snakes along the curb and into the drop-off zone in front of the Island railroad station in Great Neck.

In this early morning hour, the buses – the N57 and N58 – pull up regularly, discharge much fewer passengers, and then fill up with the waiting people.

One thing you notice: 99.9 percent of those boarding the bus this morning are minority, the vast majority women. Most are bound for Kings Point homes and likely earn minimum wage. Most are hesitant – even suspicious – of Tara Klein of Vision Long Island, which advocates for sustainable development and transportation alternatives. Klein is handing out flyers about the upcoming MTA public hearing on March 23 at Hofstra University.

By July, if Nassau County and the MTA don’t come to an agreement, Great Neck’s entire bus service to the north – the 57 and 58 buses – will be ended entirely, and Sunday service would be ended on the N25, which brings health care workers, patients and visitors to North Shore and LIJ hospitals and medical complexes on Community Drive and Lakeville Road from the railroad station. The 1,500 riders that use the service each day will have to find some other form of transportation, or quit their jobs.

In all, the MTA plans to cut more than half its existing bus routes, meaning that 16,000 riders will lose their bus service.

Even more significantly, since the Able Ride service, which handles disabled passengers, is mandated within 3/4 mile of a bus stop, eliminating those bus stops will also eliminate all practical transportation for these individuals.

At a time when communities everywhere are looking to increase public transportation and reduce dependency on gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing, air-polluting, traffic clogging cars, and also look for ways to develop the economy and create jobs without the negative impacts of density, the idea of losing a public bus service seems outrageous and intolerable.

At this point, though, there seems to be a game of brinkmanship between Nassau County, which actually owns the public buses (paid for with federal grant money) and infrastructure, and the MTA which operates the buses.

But as in all games of brinkmanship, it is innocent civilians – the public – who get caught in the crossfire.

And so we searched for the source of the stalemate, and more significantly, a way out.

First, to set the stage: The Long Island Bus carries 100,000 riders a day – some 31 million riders a year – making it the third largest suburban bus system in the country.

In Great Neck, some 1,500 riders a day take the N 57 (386 riders) and N 58 (1,100 riders), the only public transportation to the north end of the Peninsula.

Nassau County owns the buses (purchased with federal grants), the terminals and the infrastructure, and in essence contracts with the MTA to operate the buses. Even so, it is the MTA that has decided which routes to cut (they claim based on ridership); the county, which in this case is the owner and “client” has no say.

There isn’t a single example of a public bus system that operates without a public subsidy. The present impasse between Nassau County and the MTA is over the size of that subsidy, but also, whether what MTA claims it needs – $36 million – is justified.

In the late 1990s, when Nassau County hit its fiscal crisis, the MTA stepped in to help fund the system, “a perk that no other suburban county enjoys,” said Ryan Lynch, senior planner and LI coordinator of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a regional transportation policy watchdog organization.

Nassau County puts up $9.1 million, but MTA claims to be putting up $24 million to cover the shortfall between the $134 million per year operating expense, minus revenues from fares, state subsidies and dedicated state taxes that go to the Long Island Bus. They claim there is still $33 million gap to operate, minus the $9.1 million that the county has been paying.

“Today, given our own fragile fiscal condition, this is something we can no longer afford. This is distinctly unique to Nassau, MTA doesn’t provide a subsidy to any other bus service or county in the state, including Westchester,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said.

“This is an unfortunate result of a county that refuses to meet its own obligation to fund its own bus system. We had to make a difficult choice here, to cut services,” Ortiz said.

Except that Nassau County’s is the only bus service that MTA operates outside of the five boroughs: Liberty Lines operates Westchester (which pays a $17 million subsidy for essentially the same number of riders as Nassau County) and another private company operates Suffolk (which pays a $30 million subsidy).

What is more, MTA has refused to show its books or how it arrives at the $25 million “gap,” or to explain the math when the MTA claims to also have cut $10 million in spending in 2010 and $6 million in 2011. Shouldn’t these cuts have reduced the gap?

The county is suspicious of MTA’s “bookkeeping” as well as its motives in this standoff.

“We send them $9 million, they get $26 million from the federal government, $25 million from the state – all this money goes to LIBS,” says Brian R. Nevin, senior policy advisor and communications director to the county executive. “We say, ‘Show us your books, show us where the money is allocated – whether it is public relations reps, lawyers. We’ve been asking for a year, and they have not been able to provide it to us…”

In fact, when we did our own calculation, based on these numbers, we get $130 million in revenue, even before taking into account advertising revenue from the bus shelters, which the county says MTA has refused to disclose. (We figured 31 million riders at $2.25 each is $70 million, plus $26 million from the federal government, $25 million from the state, $9 million from the county).

Meanwhile, the county offered to increase its subsidy by $6 million – to a total of $15.1 million only to be rebuffed, without any counter-offer.

Add to that the ongoing resentment over the MTA payroll tax and the scandal a couple of years ago over the bookkeeping irregularities.

“Today, Nassau County taxpayers give the MTA nearly $100 million more in tax revenue than ever before through payment of the payroll tax.  Rather than thank our businesses and residents who bear these costs, the MTA has chosen to cut Long Island Bus services by 56 percent,” Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano said in a statement. “Because their action is unacceptable, I have solicited proposals for public-private partnership to operate bus service and help our residents.”

The “privatization” that Mangano has in mind essentially means finding another operator to replace MTA (rather than selling off the buses and infrastructure, as we feared), which seems perfectly acceptable.

The county issued a request for proposal in which it offered a subsidy. Three companies responded – Veolia, First Transit and MV Transit. The county has made some modifications to its RFP regarding service levels and will have final bids by March 21 at 5 p.m.

The county, we understand, did not specify a $9 million subsidy, but all three bids came in asking for less than $9 million from the county.

After talking with Nevin, I was reassured that Mangano was not using this latest budget “crisis” as an excuse to slash public bus service.

Even Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos has taken a stand to acknowledge the economic and social importance of the public bus system:

“Nassau County residents depend on LI Bus to get to work, to school, visit doctors, shop and enjoy everything Nassau has to offer,” Maragos said. “Nassau’s economy depends on LI Bus. This is not the right time for the MTA to pull the plug on the Nassau County subsidy.”  

Maragos did his own study to evaluate three options for the county to keep the Long Island Bus Service running – staying with the MTA, privatizing using peer county models and selecting the best among the request for proposal issued by the county.

Using figures that have come from the MTA and Nassau County, there does not seem to be a real budget “crisis” at all. But even so, there are other ways to make up the difference: With 31 million rides a year, a quarter increase in the fare, to $2.50, would generate $7.75 million more revenue. Adding advertising on buses (which Nassau County Legislator Judi Bosworth has proposed), and raising fees for bus-shelter advertising (remember how that was supposed to solve the revenue problem?), would also go a long way to fill the gap, without making the Draconian service cuts.

In Great Neck, though, MTA does not just propose to reduce service but eliminate all service to the north, and eliminate Sunday service on the N25 to the hospitals.

“The loss of service on these Great Neck bus routes would be devastating because it hurts riders that have little or no other means for transportation – hard-working people without cars, students, seniors, disabled riders, at a time when these people are struggling,” Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender said after visiting with bus riders and hearing their stories. “These MTA cuts have been announced because Nassau County won’t honor its long-time obligation to subsidize the service typically paid to the MTA by the host county for the benefit of its residents. The Great Neck Plaza Village Board is opposed to these service cuts because of the inconvenience and negative consequences to affected riders, the adverse economic effects to our local economy, and additional congestion created when transit service is slashed.  

Losing all our bus service would be a travesty. Indeed, instead of losing the loop bus service, Great Neck should be campaigning for a trolley-style bus, perhaps just during commuter hours and as a shopping/entertainment bus on the weekends, that would run up and down Middle Neck Road, with bike racks like I see just about everywhere else I travel (Lee, Massachusetts; St. Petersburg, Florida; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon and Louisville, Kentucky where the trolley is free).

Nassau County had been making much of the Nassau Hub plan (you don’t hear much now, but it was a hot topic for about a week), in which the transit planners discussed the need to expand mass transit and pointed to buses as the most cost-effective and efficient means of solving the growing transportation problem.

“We have a responsibility to provide government service, to provide for our residents, and to make this county work,” Bosworth said. “I don’t understand how you can jeopardize a public bus system that so many people depend upon for so many reasons, most people aren’t riding the Long Island Bus because they don’t feel like driving, but because it’s their only way to get to work, a doctor’s appointment, visit family, their only way of functioning in our county.”

“The basic fact is that our community will be underserved in a basic need –transportation for those who cannot afford to commute any way other than public transportation. While it is obvious that Nassau County is in dire financial straits, it is unacceptable that one of the richest counties in the nation cannot provide the basic needs of its populace,” Village of Lake Success Mayor Ron Cooper, whose residents do not have access to Great Neck Park District commuter lots, and who has a stake in health care workers reaching the hospitals and offices in his area.

An MTA-sponsored hearing is on Wednesday, March 23, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Hofstra University, in the Adams Playhouse. You must register in advance to speak. The MTA hearing hotline is 718-521-3333. You can also e-mail your comments at the mta.info site.

To get involved with the committee to Save Long Island Bus, contact Jobs with Justice at LIJWJO1@aol.mail, or call 631-346-1170 ext 310.

There has been a great deal of discussion these days not only about public institutions and the people who work there, including libraries, but the advent and explosive popularity of new technologies that might seemingly usurp libraries. Those technological marvels, such as the Kindle, the Nook and other devices are nothing short of astounding when you think about it. If you travel, as many members of my family do, and you love to read you’d be crazy not to have one.

The Nook, produced by Barnes and Noble, measures 8″ by 5″ and can hold literally thousands of books at a time. You can even borrow books from the library to download onto your Nook. And when you get bored with reading, you can play chess, do a crossword puzzle, even search the web.

Who wouldn’t like that? If you’re lucky enough to have $249 in discretionary funds to buy one, please do. And if you are not sure how to use it to download books, come into the library. We have staff members who can help you with that.

Libraries, as cultural institutions and centers of learning, adapt to new technologies. We don’t shy away from them. When computers first came into wide usage in libraries, it was well before they were a fixture in people’s homes. As each new viewing technology blossomed, from VHS to DVD, libraries adapted. When digital movies become the norm, we will have those, too.

People are surprised to learn that we offer books to download onto portable viewing devices and that we offer audio books to download onto your portable listening devices. You can even download books directly onto your smart phone.

Sadly, however, there are still thousands – probably millions – of people in America who do not own a smart phone; do not have $249 in discretionary funds and may not even have a computer in their homes.

Luckily for them, libraries are still here. Despite the naysayers who think that libraries are not necessary and are going the way of the dinosaurs, libraries open every day across this country and help students with their homework, help the jobless find jobs, help readers find books and enrich their patrons’ lives every day with programs of all kinds.

That kind of service to our patrons can be seen every day here at the Great Neck Library.

Just the other day, one of our librarians was sitting with a patron, explaining to him how to find something on Google maps, then showed him how to get directions to that location.

Every day, in Levels, teens can pitch an idea to the staffers who will then encourage them – and help them – to make it happen.

The result? Music videos, CD’s, artwork created on the computer and much more. Walk into the children’s room on any day and ask for a book to read to your baby, toddler, preschooler or school aged child and chances are excellent that the librarians will suggest several.

Adding to the value of libraries are the programs we offer. Here at the Great Neck Library, we have a hard working, volunteer Music Advisory Committee who produces several outstanding musical programs every year for our patrons to enjoy – all of them free.

We have had a different author come to the library almost every month since July for readers to meet, hear about their works, their writing process and their plans. We have an outstanding lineup of popular movies shown for free every Tuesday afternoon at the Main Library and on different days in the branches. We also program to children from birth through high school.

The program listings that ran recently in one of our local papers included story hours at all four library locations, craft programs coordinated with favorite books, computer help and senior computer help at multiple locations, music recitals, art exhibits, films, staff-led book discussions at multiple locations, and a special dramatic presentation sponsored by the Brandeis National Meeting. This is a typical week.

You can’t get these very tangible and measurable benefits from a Kindle or a Nook. But you can get them from a library.

Jane B. Marino

Library Director

Great Neck Library

The New York Board of Regents is hoping to finalize next month significant changes to mandatory regents high school examinations, Regent Roger Tilles said at a public discussion on education issues with state Sen. Jack Martins last Thursday at Great Neck South High School.

Tilles, who is from Great Neck and has represented the board in the Tenth Judicial District since being first elected in 2005, explained that a recent study was done in New York City which showed kids who pass the mandatory regents tests with less than a 75 grade-point average are not ready for college-level courses and are in need of remediation.

Currently, students must pass five regents exams in algebra, global history and geography, U.S. history and government, comprehensive English and science with a score of 65 or higher to receive a regular high school diploma. To receive an advanced regents diploma, students must also pass additional exams in science, math exam a foreign language.

Tilles said raising passing requirements on regents math an English tests to 75 or 80 will improve flexibility for state students and provide benefits in several areas beyond the classroom.

According to Tilles, the board is also looking to expand the regents tests to art, economics and technology and let a child choose three regions other than math and English to pass the requirement.

“It makes it easier to develop an average and I think many people will benefit from that,” Tilles said. “It means that kids can go in the direction that their strengths are in.”

The regents exams, administered under the authority of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, are prepared by teachers three years before issuance dates.

Elected by the Legislature, 17 regents are responsible for the general supervision of all state educational activities, presiding over the university and the state Department of Education.

In front of dozens of teachers, administrators, parents and students gathered in the Great Neck South library, Tilles and Martins discussed a number of education-related issues and welcomed questions from those in attendance.

The public discussion entitled “Education In New York State Today: An Update From Albany,” centered on the impact of state budgetary and legislative policy on local school districts.

“These are our schools and that is what we are here to talk about tonight,” said Great Neck Superintendent of Schools Thomas Dolan, the moderator of the event.

Regarding the current state of the budget, Martins, R-Mineola, said the governor sets the tone when it comes to preparing and presenting the budget, but it’s up to legislators to “put a human face on it.”

“When there are things that perhaps the governor has cut that should not be cut, it’s up to the Legislature to bring to the governor’s attention.” Martins said.

Martins said the state must find ways to provide quality education and state aid without creating an education gap between those school districts that are well funded and those which rely heavily on state aid.

The first-term Republican lawmaker said he expects cuts across the board in the coming months.

“The question is whether those cuts will be made with a machete or a scalpel,” said Martins.

Tilles said regents have a two-fold mission: to close the gap and make sure all of are capable of coping with the responsibilities of work after graduation.

“When you devote all of your resources to one it’s hard to focus on the other,” Tilles said.

With commercial property contributing twice the amount to the tax roles of any county in the state, Tilles said Nassau County’s classification system has gotten out of whack.

“There’s a tremendous amount of revenue coming into districts like Great Neck without people voting on it,” said Tilles. “Nassau County is the only one in the state where tax refunds go back and are paid by the county and not the school district that they are in.”

Tilles said with such a situation, people from places like Roosevelt help to pay the refund for Great Neck.

“In essence they end up helping to pay Great Neck’s bill,” said Tilles. “I think it’s our responsibility to look at those that are not so lucky.”

As chairman of the local governments committee, Martins said in the next two or three weeks there will be items voted on that have to do with a number of different mandates.

“I am looking at mandate relief as it applies to local governments,” he said.

Martins said he anticipates a “rather spirited and healthy debate” in Albany on pension reform and contributions to health care, which have impacted the Great Neck Union Free School District budget for 2011-12.

“It’s important to realize that they are being discussed,” Martins said. “Before anyone gets alarmed, they are being discussed and I think it’s important to realize that they are being discussed/”

The two guest speakers differed somewhat regarding solutions to the relationship between property tax cap and state mandates.

“I voted for it and I believe that it’s important, especially during these tough economic times, that there has to be a real commitment towards limiting the growth of expenses as they are passed on to out taxpayers,” Martins said.

He said every homeowner is paying for pension benefits, but often times they themselves do not have health care or pensions.

“I think we need to re-evaluate how that works in the spirit of shared sacrifice,” Martins said. “When we do have people who are not contributing and are receiving, we have to consider whether or not it is fair as a basic principle to continue to ask out taxpayers to bear the expense of increasing pensions and increasing health care. There should be a contribution that comes from the employees themselves.”

Tilles said the governor is doing the right thing in calling for reforms in pension and health care “but I don’t think all of these reforms of education in terms of financing, when you are talking about eliminating mandates or reducing mandates should come at the expense of two mandates.”

“I have a real problem with trying to put a cap on superintendents salaries,” Tilles said.

The state board of regents will be calling districts to work on new evaluations for teachers who will be required to achieve and effectively maintain a state teaching certificate in an effort to keep the tenure system in place while improving the overall quality of teachers statewide, according to Tilles.

“Teachers deemed inefficient will lose there certificate,” he said.