Five Towns NY Rising planning continues

The Five Towns NY Rising Community Restoration Program Committee was not one of the eight winners announced in Albany on April 23 of a bonus $3 million to implement their proposed rebuilding projects.
Fifty committees statewide, including 13 in Nassau County, competed for the extra money. The Five Towns is expected to receive a total of $27.6 million for projects in Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, Meadowmere Park, Inwood, Hewlett, Hewlett Harbor and Hewlett Neck.
One of the Five Towns’ committee members, Jonathan Polakoff, said that he thought it would have been nice to get the bonus money, as project plans could always use extra funding. “I don’t know the exact criteria they used to pick the bonus winners,” he said. “Regretfully, there were a lot of other communities who also had a tremendous amount of damage.”
Bob Block, co-chair of the Five Towns’ committee, said it was important to keep a positive outlook. “We are now looking forward to guidance on how the [state] government starts the implementation process,” he said. “It was an honor to present what was accomplished in the Five Towns.”
Infrastructure, access to evacuation routes and studying the coastline are the primary focus of the local projects, Block said. “We need to do a better job of informing our residents the location of and access to these routes,” he said. “Our infrastructure projects for mitigating flood waters are not a one-size-fits-all approach.”

The committee’s plans for infrastructure include the use of pervious paving (that permits for water to move through the surface, but traps solids and filters pollutants), bioswales (landscape such as trees, bushes and grass which allows for increased water drainage) and increasing the pipe capacity for rainwater.
Block said that his committee listened to several different perspectives. “We did it more with our ears, followed New York state protocol, and experts,” he said. “We listened to our neighbors. And mayors. We spent a lot of time gathering information, and with that, we came up with our plan.”
At the closing of the awards presentation, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced another funding competition, where $50 million will be awarded in January 2015. The money will be given to the committees with the most innovative projects, and implementation of current project plans. “Now you’ve heard about these other ideas, and now you’ve seen what we’re looking for in terms of awards,” Cuomo said. “Go back to your communities, then come back (in January) with innovative projects.”
Cuomo, who was remembered by Block for his visit to the Five Towns Community Center in 2012 just before Thanksgiving to help hand out turkeys, said the job is not done in proceeding with the infrastructure work. “Implementation of these project plans is even harder than conceptualization and planning it,” he said. “There’s nothing like seeing progress. Seeing a building going up does wonders for the morale of a community.”
Details for the next competition have yet to be announced. To see a video of the awards presentation go to, http://livestre.am/4PYUy.