According to a story in today's Newsday, Ed Mangano has spoken with the Shinnecock Indians about building a Hotel and Casino on the Nassau Coliseum site. A site where Charles Wang, owner of the New York Islanders, submitted, and won, an RFP, spent millions of dollars on environmental and other studies, submitted those studies to the Town of Heampstead, conducted hundreds of community outreach meetings, and is currently patiently awaiting a decision on zoning for the site. The above sequence has taken over 8 years, and a decision has still yet to have been made on whether or not to put a shovel in the ground.
The question is what do Long Islanders want on a site that is within a few square miles of two colleges and other elementary, middle, and high schools. Do they want a place where prominent businesses will call home for decades, will bring millions of dollars in tax revenue to local municipalities, affordable housing, create thousands of jobs, and will provide a proper home for the New York Islanders? Or do they want a monstrosity that will create twice as much traffic, low wage jobs, and little to no tax revenue to the local municipalities.
What do you want, Long Island?
Comments
Long Island is becoming a place of either the Very Rich or Very poor. The middle class is being squeezed out
ReplyDeleteI can not argue with that comment. Will whatever is built on that site improve the way of life for the people of Nassau County and provide a prominent, stable work force and bring in sustainable tax revenue? I have a hard time believing a Hotel/Casino will do either of those things..
ReplyDelete