New village hall approved for Island Park

The Island Park village board has approved plans, and $1.5 million in bonds, to build a new village hall, two years after its administrative offices were destroyed by Superstorm Sandy.

The village has been operating out of trailers next to the former village hall, which has been boarded up since Sandy struck in October 2012. Michael McGinty, elected mayor in March, has his office in one of the trailers.

McGinty said that a new village hall was long overdue, and that’s why the village would build one that would house a police substation, and have solar panels on the roof, an emergency generator, a conference room and space for records storage. The new building would also serve as an emergency operations center, McGinty said.

“The new Village Hall will be a focal point of the entire village,” McGinty said. “We always talk about ‘Destination Island Park,’ and this will help make Island Park a destination.”

McGinty said that the previous hall is being demolished and that the new hall would be built in its footprint. He estimated that the structure would take a year to complete, at a cost of about $200 per square foot. He said that the bond measures would not increase taxes for residents, because the village plans to pay for them by reducing spending.

The announcement to build the new hall was made during a public meeting of the village board on Oct. 13. Glenn Ingoglia, president of the Island Park Chamber of Commerce who ran against McGinty last March, agreed that the village needed a new hall but said that the proposed structure would be too large and too expensive.

“We do need a new village hall, but I don’t think we have to spend that much,” Ingoglia said. “I think it’s too big a building.”

He said that he isn’t convinced that the new building would not lead to higher taxes. “I know the mayor has said he’s not going to raise taxes, but he hasn’t outlined how he is going to avoid that,” he said. “Bonds are debt, and we are borrowing money we have to pay back with interest. ”

McGinty said that the village is required to pay just 1 percent interest on the bonds and doesn’t have to begin payments for 18 months.