1972-01-27

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WHERE THE HISTORY OF YOUR o* nY IS RECORDED WEEKLY
An Official Newspaper of the Incorporated Village of Farmingdale — Serving Greater Farmingdale, Bethpage and Melville
V O L . 9 N O . 2 3 Second Class Postage has been paid at Karniingdale. N. Y. 1 17.15 • Published by THE OBSERVER, INC., Box I4G, Farmingdale, N. Y. Thursday, January 27, 1972
Lawmakers Tell Residents:
Hold the Budget Line
The people of Farmingdale, at least a little more than 100 of them, came to the
open forum sponsored by the Dolphin Green Civic Association last Friday night
at Farmingdale High School. The purpose of the meeting, to learn more about the
men who represent them in Washington, Albany and Oyster Bay and to tune their
representatives in to their wishes, seemed to have been accomplished. A
basketball game, however, ended the exchange of ideas a bit prematurely.
HELP FOR PRICE: With no state funds available until April.
PRICK, the anti- drug abuse agency in Farmingdale is in dere need of
funds. Shown above. PRICE administrative director Art Jacoby
accepts a donation from Father Thomas Hartmann of St. James in
Plainedge. PRICE has just decided to keep going despite a critical
shortage of funds.
The somewhat unexpected end
came when Congressman James
Grover excused himself shortly
before 11: 00 p. m. to have a
chance to watch the Knicker­bockers
- Lakers game on
television together with his son
who was home from college. At
that point everybody got up and
started to leave also, leaving
Dolphin Green president Frank
Ranieri and the other
representatives no choice but to
conclude the meeting.
The topic of the night was the
economy and Congressman
James Grover as well as
Assemblyman Philip Healey
launched into that problem in
their opening remarks.
Grover stressed the great
problems of country and the
communities: " Everyone is
extremely conscious of the
property tax burden. There
seems to be some federal relief in
the offing for education. But in
the meantime we are reaching a
crisis where the local school
Fundless PRICE Hangs on With
The Help of Hope and Charity
A good- looking young priest
walked into the P R I C E .
building on Main Street in Far­mingdale
recently and in­troduced
himself. " I'm Father
Hartmann," he said. In his hand
were personal checks from the
priests of the St. James R. C.
rectory on Hicksville Road in the
Plainedge, North Massapequa
parish. " We heard that
P R I C E , was in financial
trouble and may have to close.
We couldn't let that happen". The
checks in the amount of $ 50.00
each were signed by Reverends »
Thomas Hartmann, Frank
Heidig, Peter Duvelsdorf, Ber­nard
McElroy and John Cadogan.
Shortly before the priest
arrived on the scene, the
professional staff and the
executive board of P R I C E . ,
the Drug Prevention Program in
t h e F a r m i n g d a l e - N o r th
Massapequa area, had a meeting
to discuss the desperate straits
their program was in, due to the
state budget crisis, and they had
made an important decision:
P R I C E , would continue, no
matter what. Too much hard
work had gone into building their
program, into building trust and
momentum, that once lost, would
not be so easy to regain. The
professional staff is willing to
work without pay for awhile, if
necessary. P R I C E made its
plea to the community and only
hope that the community will
respond.
" Father, what motivated five
priests to give money to us out of
their own pockets?" asked a
grateful but curious P. R. I. C. E.
member. " A short time ago," the
priest began, " Art Jacoby, ad­ministrative
director of
P. R. I. C. E. called and introduced
himself and we invited him to
lunch at the rectory. We were
impressed by what he had to say
about what your organization is
doing and what you hope to ac­complish.
We have met young
people with drug problems" the
priest continued, " and we realize
the problem is serious. We feel
that our knowledge is limited to
our own perspective and that we
must call upon resource people to
help us deal with it. As priests we
are committed to work with
people with problems. We were
pleased to learn from Art of the
many ways in which we, as
spiritual leaders, may be able to
work with P. R. I. C. E. Then one
day, after our meeting, one of the
priests read an article that
mentioned the desperate
financial situation your
organization is in and realizing
the alternatives, we felt that each
one of us, as an individual, has a
responsibility to do'something to
help '
" Father alter talking to you, I
may even change my religion,"
an inspired executive board
remarked. " Oh no, don't do that,"
Father Hartmann said with a
wink. " You've got to do your own
thing."
During the next month, young
volunteers from P. R. I. C. E, will
be visiting every family in the
community on a door- to door
campaign for $ 1.00 membership
dues. In addition, several
volunteers are approaching the
business people of the community
lor donations to keep the building
open.
The goal for the fund drive is
$ 6,000, the amount needed to run
the building on a full- time basis
for the next two months. Thus
far, during the past two weeks,
approximately $ 650.00 has been
raised.
board is increasingly unable to
offer the kind of education it
desires. The federal government
has for far too long taken away
the tax resources of the states
and revenue sharing, when it
comes, will take some of the tax
burden off the shoulders of the
state."
" Over the y e a r s , " the
Congressman said, " we have
been a great competitive nation.
But now we are turning more and
more into a service oriented
industrial nation without pro­ductivity."
Taking a shot at the excesses of
unionism, Grover said: " The
philosophy of a good days work
for a good day's pay hat to return
to this country."
Assemblyman Healey took the
financial planners of the State to
task: " I feel that economically
our State government has not
acted wisely. But I believe, we
have come up with a set of rules
that will assure fiscal stability at
least for the next five years. We
simply will not spend more than
we take in."
Questions about the cost of
education ranged high among the
residents. Both representatives
urged school boards to hold the
line in future budget decisions.
" We did not have such a beautiful
school," Grover said, " we did not
have a TV set in every classroom
and we had 35 students in one
class. Teachers are well paid
now. Those are the realities we
will have to live with."
Healey advised the community
to stay within the framework of
three per cent increases which
can be covered by the three per
cent increase in state aid. Tur­ning
to special problem of Far­mingdale
which suffered a tax
loss when the airfield of Republic
Aviation was taken off the tax
rolls, Healey said: " It is wrong to
take a piece of property from a
community and offer nothing in
return. Our tax relief bill was
vetoed by the Governor last year
but we will submit it again during
this session."
Representing the Town of
Oyster Bay, Councilmen Joseph
Saladino and Salvatore Mosca
. were exposed to questions
perhaps closest to the
frustrations of the residents.
They wanted to know for
example, what the town was
going to do about the potholes in
the streets.
They also asked why the new
park on Heisser Lane does not
get a swimming pool. The answer
to that question was given by
Mosca: " If the people of Far­mingdale
are willing to pay for a
pool they would get one just like
the other communities in the
township."
Frank Ranieri, president of the
Dolphin Green Civic Association
was pleased with the meeting
itself, although he expressed his
disappointment over the small
turnout." I want to thank all our
local leaders in the village
government, in education and
organizations for attending this
meeting," he said.
There will be another public
meeting of the Association on
Friday, March 3, at the Far­mingdale
High School. This one
will deal with County, Town and
District relationships in the tax
structure. Anticipated guest
speakers that evening are deputy
county executive Joseph H.
Driscoll, Oyster Bay supervisor
John W. Burke and superin­tendent
of Farmingdale Schools,
Dr. William A. Kinzler.
Equitable Ways of Applying
Water Rates Studied by Board
Farmingdale village trustee
Norman Krasnow feels that there
are some inequities concerning
the way the Farmingdale Water
Department is billing its
customers. After having listened
to his reasoning, trustee
Krasnow s colleagues on the
village board agreed that this
matter deserves further con­sideration,
and resolved to do just
that.
As Krasnow explained, the
present method of billing takes
into account only actual usage ol
water What is not taken into
account are the cost of services
the water department must be
prepared to render tor some
customers who have normally
only a minimal demand lor
water, but could under certain
circumstances p » e empt the water
department's total capacity.
To illustrate his point, Krasnow
cited the example of a lum
beryard, which normally does not
need very much water for its
operation, and therefore pays
only minimal user charges. In
case of a fire, however, it would
place a heavy demand on the
water department a demand
lor which it must be prepared.
The cost of being prepared for
just one customer, who moreover
is only a marginal water user,
must obviously be borne by all
users, since the water rates
relied the overall expenditures
of the department.
Mayor John Hallahau and
trustees Willis Carman. Jr. and
Uocco Posillico agreed that
Krasnow s presentation merited
further study.
Other matters before the board
raised the possibility of Far
mmgdale's becoming a place for
gourmets to visit
Richard Sanders, president of
the Van Cott Building Corp..
announced unofficially that the
construction of a family- type
restaurant at the former Bruno
property on Fulton Street and
Heisser Lane is comtemplated
and Cliff Law. one of the three
partners negotiating the pur
chase oi Villa Sweden on Fulton
and Main Sts.. applied for a
permit to enlarge the
restaurant s kitchen. This in
crease in kitchen space would be
needed because Villa Sweden
would become a Chinese
restaurant And Chinese
restaurants require large kit
chens.