Observer_1984-07-18; East Rockaway/Lynbrook Observer

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East ho^m^^y g
E a s t R o c K a w ^ V ' ^ ^ ^^^^
Official
Newspaper
INCORPORATED VILLAGE
East Rockaway
SCHOOL DISTRICT
INCORPORATED VILUGE
Lynbrook
SCHOOL DISTRICT
"THE GOOD NEIGHBOR NEWSPAPER "
y s m M l E • 4^7 Library LL'^^^^tic Ave. ^
E a s t R o c k a w a y , _ N Y i i 5 18
Since 1967 by Mailed Subscription
Executive Offices: Seiffert Building, 2787 Long Beach Road, Oceanside, NY 115721
Post Office Box A, East Rockaway, NY 11518 (516) 764-2500
"YOUR VOICE IN THE
COMMUNITY" USPS 165080
VOL. 32 NO. 35 Wednesday, July 18,1984 25c PER COPY
Facing Budget Crisis,
Board Raises Taxes
BAR-B-QUE. East Rockaway Republican Executive
Leader Phil Christ (left) and Marian Mulligan join Ocean-side
Deputy Executive Leader Mike Scarlatta and his wife^
Joanna, at the Oceanside Republican Club Bar-b-que held
at Camp De Baun.
Facing an anticipated
revenue shortfall of almost
$90,000, the East Rockaway
Board of Education voted
on Monday night to raise
the District 19 school tax
rate by $.45 per hundred of
assessed valuation. Using as
a basis $5,000 as an "aver-age"
assessed household,
this represents an increase of
$22.50 to the "average" tax-payer.
The Board also
adopted $106,484 in budget
Lunch With President Reagan
By Hank Bialick
It all started with a tele^
gram on behalf of President
Reagan by Merrie Spaeth,
Special Assistant to the
President as Director of
Media Relations personally
inviting me to a Regional
Press Briefing and to lunch
at the White House, hosted
by President Reagan on
Monday, July 9. To make
the necessary arrangements
to attend and for security
clearance, 1 was given a
Washington, D.C. tele-phone
number to call. After
some reservations and brag-ging
a bit about the invita-tion.
1 was advised to attend
as it is an honor for the pub-lisher
of three local newspa-pers...
the Oceanside Bea-con,
Baldwin Citizen and
the East Rockaway-
Lynbrook Observer to
represent those areas at such
a prestigious function. I
called the number and made
the necessary arrangements.
I checked in at 8:30 A.M.
on July 9 at the old Execu-tive
Building, next door to
the White House. My carry-all
was checked very tho-roughly,
and in fact, the
Secret Service man had me
snap a picture with my
camera before he would
allow me to take it in. At 9
A.M. Sue Mathis, Deputy
Director, Office of Media
Relations welcomed about
50 men and women from
newspapers, television and
radio. Some of the ground
rules regarding the Presi-dent
were discussed.
At 9:30 A.M., the Secre-tary
of the Treasury Donald
r. Regan came in the brief-ing
began. His remarks were
upbeat declaring that the
economs has never been in
better shape...4'V inflation.
6 million new jobs in the past
three years; productivity up
4%Vand 60% of the popula-tion
of 106 million Ameri-cans
are currently employed.
An interesting fact that he
supplied us with was that
75% of the new jobs are in
small businesses and servi-ces.
When asked about the
huge deficits and high inter-est
rates, he answered that
high interest rates are the
result of banks and Wall
Street not being convinced
licked
Down
deficit
that the inflation i«
and will not rise. The'
Payment" on the
means the first steps have
been taken to reduce this
amount. He reminded the
audience that President
Reagan is committed to
balancing our budget. The
other important point the
Secretary stressed was that
the hopes of the Reagan
administration to create
"free enterprise" zones to
(Continued on Page 10)
reductions.
"This is a very'sad fact for
all of us,' stated Board Pres-ident
Richard Meager. He
said that we were "person-ally
shattered" to discover
that the Board was approx-imately
$90,000 short of pro-jected
revenues.
The Board recently disco-vered
that their end-of-year
balance amounted to only
$60,000 as compared to the
$250,000 to $300,000
expected. "Since $ 150,000 of
the anticipated balance had
been planned to be applied
to the 1984-85 budget as 'use
from balance,' we must close
the $90,000 gap between the
$150,000 originally esti-mated
and the $60,000 that
is actually available,"
Meagher explained.
The Board adopted a list
of cuts proposed by Super-intendent
Michael Maiden,
amounting to $106,484.
However,.due to a miscalcu-lation
in preparing the 1984-
85 budget, $17,700 was
added to the budget. These
savings did not go to meet-ing
the shortfall before the
Who Were the "Mill Ducks?"
by Mildred Roemer
One of the first exhibits
that was planned for the
Museum, and still one of the
most admired, is the Bay
Area. This includes a dio-rama
of Hewlett Bay, an old
maq^ in a duckboat, and
numerous other articles per-taining
to the sea and old
East Rockaway.
This exhibit, designed by
architect Douglas Wilke was
carefully assembled by a
group of professional and
amateur artists. The latter
were members of an East
Rockaway High School
Spector Reelected
Board President
Charles Spector
Charles Spector was re-elected
as president of the
Lynbrook Board of Educa-tion,
at an organizational
meeting held recently. Alir
cemarie Bresnihan was
elected vice-president and
Joan Hines, secretary.
Other members of the
Board are George Berch,
Joanne McSherry, Robert
Delmond and Susan Ruch-man.
Barbara Sabbagh is
District Clerk, Joseph P.
LaRocco, treasurer and
I.eonard Minches, school
attorney.
Adult Education watercolor
class. Don't know who, but
someone dubbed these
ladies in flowing smocks and
paint-smeared hands, the
"Mill Ducks."
They painted the large
diorama on three panels in
the Village Hall basement
and they assembled them in
the Museum. Carol Harri-son
and Gertrude Howell
directed the work, and Carol
constructed the old man in
the boat from chicken wire,
lead pipes, and papierm-ache.
The oilskins the man
wears were donated by Lou
Pearsall, who also arranged
an excellent display of
shells. Bob Ackerly gave the
duckboat and jacking lant-ern
on its bow. Many other
articles in the exhibit were
donated by local Villagers.
The Mill Ducks did not
wash their brushes after this
initial work, but continued
adding color to the various
panels and arranging new
"old" exhibits and articles as
they were received from
'donors,
Board; a total of $88,784,
which represented the dif-ference
between savings and
added expenditures, was
transferred to the "Repair"
line of the budget. These
funds will be applied to
payment for the clean-up
of the oUspUl earlier this
year.
With only $800 in addi-tional
revenues (state aid for
transportation), the Board
was forced to raise the tax
rate for the school district by
$89,200. Since each increase
of $2,000 amounts to
approximately $.01 per
hundred of assessed valua-tion,
the increase amounts
to about $.45/hundred.
The move brought imme-diate
outcries from those
residents present. "Who is in
charge here?" demanded
John Hambel. "Who is
going to take responsibility
for this mess?" Board Presi-dent"
Meagher stated for the
record that Superintendent
Maiden bore the ultimate
responsibility for the short-fall
of funds. Mrs. Shelly
Stern stated that she was dis-turbed
to have voted on a
1984-85 budget, only to have
the tax rate hiked once
more. "Collective bargain-ing
is still going on," she
added. The cost of collective
(Continued on Page 12)
Lent to Seek
Term In Congress
Representative Norman
F. Lent (R,C-East Rocka-way)
was unanimously
renominated to run for
Congress in the Fourth
Congressional District at
the recent convention of the
•Nassau County Republican
Committee.
Congressman Lent, who
was first elected to Congress
in 1970, will be seeking his
eighth term in the U.S.
House of Representatives, A
former New York State
Senator, Lent's career of
public service spans 22
years. Lent, one of the most
senior members in the
House of Representatives,
serves in a number of legisla-tive
leadership posts, includ-ing,
Chairman of the Long
Island Congressional Cau-cus
and ranking Republican
on the Subcommittee of
Commerce, Transportation
and Tourism of the House
Committee on Energy aHid
Commerce. Lent also serves
on the Merchant Marine
and Fisheries Committee
where he is a member of the
Subcommittee on the
Panama Canal and Outer
Continental Shelf and the
Subcommittee on Coast
Guard and Navigation. In
both ol these subcommittees
Lent has played a leadership
role in shaping legislation
vital to the interest of Lon^'
Island's marine oriented
environment and economy.
A staunch supporter of
the Reagan economic recov-ery
program. Congressman
Lent has been instrumental
Rap. Norman F. Lent
in guiding the President's
agenda of ,tax cuts and
reduced federal spending
through the House of
Representatives. Said Lent:
"Thanks to the Reagan pro-gram,
more Americans are
working today~in meaning-ful
and productive jobs~
than ever before in the his-tory
of this Nation; inflation
once the crudest of all taxes,
has been defeated; interest
rates, although still too high,
have been cut in half from
the highs reached und» r the
previous administra 'ori.
The signs of economic rec-overy
are all aroiund us:
people are working, families
can afford to buy new
homes, new car sales are up,
housing starts are up, new
factories and businesses are
springing up throughout the
United States"
(Continued on Page 12)