Why are we rushing the Coliseum plan?

“We’re under the gun,” Chief Deputy County Executive Rob Walker told the Legislature last week during discussions about County Executive Ed Mangano’s plan for the future of Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Walker was referring to the legislators, but he could have been speaking for county residents as well.

We have no concrete information about Mangano’s plan, yet he wants residents to vote on a $400 million bond referendum on Aug. 1 to fund a new arena for the New York Islanders and a minor league baseball park. The Legislature voted on May 31 on a resolution authorizing the referendum, passing it 11-7.

But the Legislature, like county residents, has little information about the project. The only concrete detail is that the bond referendum, if it passes, would add $48 to the average resident’s property tax bill. Mangano says that cost could eventually be lowered — or eliminated — through a revenue-sharing plan with the Islanders, but a $400 million bill seems a pretty heavy hat to hang on one hook.

It seems that the threat that the Islanders might leave when their contract with the Coliseum ends in 2015 is being used to push this project through much more quickly than it should be. The Lighthouse project went through years of reviews and hearings. Why is Mangano’s plan exempt from this back-and-forth?

At last week’s meeting, Legislator Wayne H. Wink Jr., a Democrat from Roslyn, wisely proposed holding off on the referendum until Election Day, Nov. 8. His reasoning was twofold: First, it would save the county $2 million that it would cost to hold a special election. And second, many more residents would come out to vote in November than in the middle of the summer, when many people are at the beach or away on vacation.

Wink’s idea makes a lot of sense to us. Even though the Republicans in the Legislature say the vote has to happen now so union workers can get to work as soon as possible, we need to know much more about exactly what they’d be working on. A suggestion by Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick, that the vote be held on Primary Day, Sept. 15, also makes more sense than going ahead with an arbitrary mid-summer date.