Newsday – Building halt to extend till June

By Dandan Zou

The North Hempstead Town Board extended the building moratorium in Port Washington’s waterfront district in a remote meeting Monday where board members called in to participate and cast their votes.

The moratorium, which was set to expire in April, will be in effect for two more months until June 1.

The construction moratorium, which was put in place in December 2017, has been extended multiple times. Town officials have been reviewing the code in the waterfront business district and trying to come up with a plan that would allow development in the district without losing the area’s small-town character.

The plan the town revealed last year was stalled after developers told officials the proposed code would make future development nearly impossible, while residents argued the code didn’t go far enough to protect their quality of life.

“The plan is to get it done before June,” said town spokesman Gordon Tepper, noting the extension would give the town more time to finalize the plan.

Newsday – Lack of social distancing: Officials warn of summonses if more don’t obey

This story was reported by Keldy Ortiz, Carl MacGowan, John Asbury, Ted Phillips and Dandan Zou. It was written by Ortiz.

Local government officials are growing increasingly frustrated with Long Islanders not adhering to social distancing guidelines, warning that they may resort to issuing summonses and closing more parks and other public spaces to force compliance.

Babylon Town Supervisor Richard Schaffer said officials have received calls from residents pointing out various places where social distancing guidelines are not being followed. He said officials have fenced off the basketball court and skateboard park in Tanner Park in Copiague and that he has not closed all parks because some offer residents a place to go for a stroll.

“But if it then becomes a problem, where people don’t follow the social distancing guidelines, we may have to do that because these people refuse to comply,” Schaffer said. “We have our public safety personnel out. They’re breaking up these groups that are going to any of the facilities we fenced off. I’ve told them if they believe someone is purposely violating the guidelines, they have no problem issuing them a summons as well.”

As the virus accelerates, officials are increasing their efforts to stop its spread by making more public spaces off-limits, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who on Wednesday ordered the closure of New York City playgrounds after social distancing guidelines were disregarded.

Glen Cove Mayor Timothy Tenke closed all the city’s parks, beaches and its golf course on Monday, as well as the dog park and Welwyn Preserve, because people haven’t practiced social distancing.

“The Glen Cove Police Department has advised that there have been numerous cases of social distancing violations,” Tenke wrote in a statement posted on the city website. “As we work to slow the spread of COVID-19 Coronavirus in our City, we need to take the directives for social distancing very seriously.”

Droplets from a sneeze or cough can travel up to 6 feet and land on people nearby, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is why officials have stressed the importance of maintaining a safe social distance.

In Brookhaven, town officials said they recently had to break up a soccer game in Mount Sinai and tell the players to disperse. Town parks and playgrounds were closed to the public at least a week ago. The only activities allowed are hiking and biking, at safe distances apart.

In Long Beach, where officials shut the boardwalk on March 26 due to crowd control concerns, new signage has been installed around restaurants labeling downtown areas as curbside-only parking areas.

City officials found groups of people were congregating last week outside bars and restaurants while picking up takeout orders. City leaders are urging customers to place their orders in advance and only park for up to 10 minutes.

In Oyster Bay Town, officials have had to make staffing changes to try to ensure residents adhere to social distancing guidelines. Public safety officers have been reassigned from the bay constables and government buildings to boost the number of officers patrolling parks from 12 to 20 to enforce the guidelines, town spokesman Brian Nevin wrote Wednesday in an email.

The town has also brought back 24 parks department staff who had been deemed nonessential to issue verbal warnings to parkgoers violating social distancing practices. The town also contacted residents via robocall to ask parents to tell their children about the importance of social distancing while using town parks, Nevin said.

In Nassau and Suffolk, whether officials have closed public spaces and facilities or not, there is agreement that social distancing is not voluntary but mandatory.

“They’re putting people who have to be out there, essential workers, whether they be law enforcement or medical personnel or our volunteers in the EMS rescue system, firefighters, in jeopardy,” Babylon’s Schaffer said Wednesday. “Most of them are adults who are supposed to know better, who are supposed to be teaching their kids we’re in a pandemic.”

Crowds have not been a problem in North Hempstead Town, said spokesman Gordon Tepper, because town facilities and parks are already closed to the public. But Supervisor Judi Bosworth said social distancing should remain a priority. 

“I cannot be emphatic enough: The only way to maintain public health right now is by staying apart. This includes social distancing – even for children,” Bosworth said during a remote town board meeting Monday. “While this may serve as a temporary inconvenience, understand that the decisions we are making can

Newsday – Future financial impact: LI governments concerned about global slowdown

By Dandan Zou

As the reality of a global financial slowdown sets in, budget officials and elected leaders of Long Island towns and villages said serious local impacts were possible in coming months.

“People will remember where they were during this period,” said Smithtown Comptroller Donald Musgnug, who said financial damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was possible on the scale caused by superstorm Sandy or the Sept. 11 attacks.

Slowing home sales, shuttered recreation centers and village courts: Once dependable sources of revenue to fund the work of local governments are being choked off at a time when some of those governments face costs for which they never budgeted, like Freeport’s cleaning of a municipal building after a staffer received a positive virus diagnosis.

“We don’t know the extent of this crisis, and we don’t know how long it’s going to last,” said Martin Melkonian, adjunct assistant associate professor of economics at Hofstra University, who predicted falling revenue from sales and property taxes would hit Long Island and New York City especially hard. “Unless there’s federal money forthcoming, we’re in trouble.”

All of the officials interviewed said their municipalities were well-positioned with strong reserves to ride out any downturn, and credit rating firm Moody’s Investors Service in a March 19 report said that consequences for most local governments across the country would be modest, in part because an important revenue stream – property taxes – tends to be relatively stable over the near term.

But some governments will experience “significant budget stress” if revenue from sales tax and other local consumption taxes declines during an extended period of self-quarantine, Moody’s analysts wrote. Municipalities using short-term debt could also face significantly higher borrowing costs, they said. Even Aaa-rated Southampton was having trouble placing $17 million in long-term bonds. “We’re ready to borrow $17 million, but our advisers are saying to hold off because they’re not getting any bids or the rates are too high,” Comptroller Len Marchese said.

Some potential concerns:

Commercial garbage fees. Towns such as Brookhaven and Smithtown charge for disposal of the garbage that businesses generate. Brookhaven Town chief of operations Matt Miner said activity has dipped at the town landfill, which depends on a strong building and renovation market for income from construction and demolition debris collected by contractors. Musgnug warned that lower volume and possibly fewer surviving businesses could cut into commercial fees, budgeted at $7 million in 2020.

Mortgage recording tax. This one-time tax is 1.05% of the value of a mortgage in Suffolk and Nassau counties. It is imposed by New York State, but a portion flows back into town coffers. In a healthy real estate market, it is lucrative – Musgnug expected it would generate $4.3 million in Smithtown this year, about 4% of revenue – but its revenue is likely to drop significantly through July, he said, as nervousness about the economy combines with the logistical problems of home shopping during a pandemic. In a sustained downtown, “the most likely town revenue sector to be impacted would be related to mortgage recording taxes and other revenue connected to property taxes,” Babylon spokesman Kevin Bonner wrote in an email.

Building permits. Smithtown officials expected fees for these permits to generate $2.1 million in 2020, “but we’re thinking there’s going to be a significant softening as the economy contracts,” Musgnug said. A North Hempstead spokesman, Gordon Tepper, said officials there were “tightly controlling” spending in areas outside essential services and virus response in expectation of dropping revenue from permits and fees.

Recreation fees. Freeport’s Recreation Center, whose ice rink, pool and gymnasium Mayor Robert T. Kennedy expected would generate $300,000 in fees per month, is now closed. Beach-ticket and other tourism-derived revenue could drop in Southampton, Standard & Poor’s analysts wrote this week. Tepper said North Hempstead also expected recreation fees to drop.

Health care premiums. Smithtown pays about $16 million a year in premiums for its workers now, and has taken steps to ensure their safety, such as twice-daily office cleanings and staggered work schedules. But the state health insurance system is a consortium, so the town would bear a share of increased claims in other municipalities. “If that goes up, that could be a significant number for us,” Musgnug said.

Pension contributions. Poor market performance could force municipalities to increase payments to the state pension system for their workers.

Virus response. Municipalities may pay more for overtime and cleaning costs.

In Freeport, the second biggest village in New York State, Kennedy said he was facing many of these problems at once. Police overtime was up because some officers are sick with the virus and healthy officers were covering their shifts. Water and electric revenue were already down.

“People are calling up and saying they can’t afford to pay” their bills, he said.

Kennedy, president of the New York Conference of Mayors, also worried the pandemic could lead to Nassau County cutting the village’s share of sales tax revenue generated within its borders, or cuts to two New York State aid programs best known by their acronyms, AIM and CHIPS, that help fund general municipal needs and roadwork.

Many local governments will dip into reserve funds or build budgets around property tax levies that exceed the state-imposed tax cap, though officials have been loath to do that in the past, said Gerald K. Geist, executive director of the Association of Towns, a lobbying and information group in Albany whose membership includes most of New York’s 932 towns.

Critical information such as the rate of real property tax collections is not yet known, he said. Nor is it clear what help local governments can expect from New York State, which is approaching the end of its fiscal year with a multibillion-dollar deficit; or from Suffolk and Nassau, the most fiscally stressed counties in New York, according to a 2019 state comptroller’s report.

“We are providing essential services on the front lines,” Geist said of town governments. “But there doesn’t seem to be an outcry to help local governments deal with this.”

With Denise M. Bonilla, Vera Chin