Yes or no on the Coliseum project?

Q. You wrote about the Lighthouse project a while back. With all the discussion about the vote on a new Coliseum, what do you think of the situation?  Can we afford this, from what we have heard, and what other items do we not know about?

A. Yes, we can afford what we know about. I would gladly pay $58 a year, give or take, to see an active, vibrant stadium and indoor sports arena with restaurants, hotels, etc. It beats spending much more to drive to an overcrowded city and pay $58 just to park. Funny thing, though, that we paid all this tax money to educate our kids (the few who are sticking around), and now they want answers we haven’t gotten. Like who pays for the roadway lanes needed to be reconfigured around the new facilities, along the Southern State, the Meadowbrook, Hempstead Turnpike, Old Country Road, Stewart Avenue, Uniondale Avenue, along with new larger-capacity storm sewers, waste-water treatment, increased police and sanitation forces, increased traffic engineering for roadway and traffic light control during events. The list of little nuance detail jobs goes on and on.

But aside from who-pays-for-this questions, job creation looks very promising. The cynics say the jobs will be temporary, then it’s built, and the jobs end, referring to the most vocal construction workers, but other jobs will last, and those are the ones we need analysis, projections and answers about. That’s why most people want the project to move forward but may vote against it. Rushing to vote in the middle of the summer instead of waiting until more information is available is a mistake. Telling us that answers will be forthcoming is not convincing to smart, Nassau County school-educated people who really don’t want to spend up to 10 times what that $58 represents.

I deal, every day, with building owners and homeowners on tight budgets trying to accomplish as much as they can. Construction projects, no matter how tightly budgeted and estimated they are, have cost overruns. I applaud the county comptroller for taking a stand, asking tough questions and telling the public that this project will not be accepted without more specifics. I won’t urge readers to vote for or against this project. But like any other project I’m involved with, I have to ask if this is our only shot at this, without answers to some important questions. Is this a take-it-or-leave-it situation? Projects that were too costly sometimes sit in my files and on my computers for years until the time is right. When the economy dropped in the early ’90s, numerous projects were filed away, only to be reactivated after Sept. 11, 2001, nearly a decade later. As the saying goes, life isn’t a dress rehearsal. This project needs thought, projections and answers. We need this project. We will get this project, or something like it, when a majority of people know how to pay for it.