Alfonse D'Amato

Long Beach, it’s time to vote for change

Posted

God has blessed the City of Long Beach with a magnificent oceanfront and a fabulous bay area along Reynolds Channel. For years it has attracted thousands of visitors to vacation or to spend a day relaxing at the beach.

The boardwalk, used for exercising or just taking in the sights of the ocean and enjoying the soft breezes, has been an iconic attraction for decades.

Long Beach has gone through some very tough times. You may recall the 1960s and ’70s, when New York state emptied its facilities for the mentally ill, almost literally dumping thousands of elderly mental patients into our community without adequate care. Former Assemblymen Jerry Kremer and Harvey Weisenberg fought tenaciously to combat this horrific state policy. They were true leaders.

Of course, the most recent assault was Mother Nature, and the devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to our city. But the people of Long Beach are resilient, and the city once again made a great comeback.

Yet we can and must do better! The present administration has taken to backroom deals that make New York City’s old Tammany Hall machine look like choirboys.

Long Beach’s Zoning Board of Appeals, with the support of the City Council, granted a variance to iStar, a multi-billion-dollar developer, to construct two 17-story towers on the oceanfront Superblock. The developer promised that if given the variance, it would start construction within 90 days of approval and create hundreds of jobs. It was permitted to exceed the local zoning ordinance by adding an additional 50 feet of height, which would make these the tallest apartment buildings in the city.

On the strength of iStar’s promise to start construction, the zoning board voted to approve the project; Angelo Lomonte was the sole no vote. IStar said, “We have the financing, we have the wherewithal, all we need is this variance.” They lied. The council should have known better. The need for tax concessions from the city or its school district was never mentioned by iStar.

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