Residents suing town to roll back raises

A group of Town of Hempstead residents gathered in front of Town Hall in Hempstead on Tuesday to protest recent pay raises for Town Supervisor Kate Murray, Town Clerk Mark Bonilla and Town Board trustees.

The group, called Roll Back the Raises, served the town with a legal notice on Jan. 29, claiming that raises approved on Dec. 15 were illegal because public notice required by law to be published before the vote did not appear until Dec. 23, according to Henry Boitel, an attorney for the organization.

"That is completely and utterly wrong," said Charles Kovit, an attorney for the Town. According to Kovit, the town published a public notice prior to the vote.

The pay increases that caused the group's ire include those for town supervisor, from $140,000 to $150,000; for clerk, from $95,500 to $106,500; and for board members, from $61,500 to $66,000.

"The raises are considered illegal because state law is very specific in requiring that the public be given notice of their right to call for a referendum to oppose the kind of self-dealing by which public officials are known to give their own salaries," Boitel said.

Roll Back the Raises recently began circulating a petition to put a referendum on the ballot in the November election that, if approved, would allow voters to decide whether town officials should get raises. Roll Back the Raises would need 25,000 signatures for the referendum to appear on the ballot. At Tuesday’s press conference, Roll Back the Raises spokesman Derek Donnelly of Merrick estimated that the group had collected around 10,000.

In a statement provided by a Town of Hempstead spokesman, town officials responded, "The Town of Hempstead followed the applicable laws in its notification of the public regarding a town board hearing on salary adjustments for elected officials. Notice was published in Newsday, and residents were afforded the opportunity to be heard on the salary increases."

Robert Young, a chief organizer of Roll Back the Raises, a one-time Town Board candidate and a Democratic Party committeeman, said, "It is egregious that the town would give themselves raises in a time of economic hardship for so many residents." While a number of Roll Back the Raises organizers are Democrats, Young said the group’s effort is a bipartisan one. And while the town government is Republican-controlled, Young noted that one board member, Dorothy Goosby, is a Democrat, from the 1st District.

In a previous interview with the Herald, town spokeswoman Susan Trenkle-Pokalsky said the town government "reduced spending 3 percent in the 2010 budget and is actually collecting $1 million less in taxes. To suggest that taxpayers are suffering because of this is not accurate, and the suggestion that this government is not frugal is erroneous."

If the raises were rescinded, it is unclear what would become of the officials' pay that they had already received, Trenkle-Pokalsky said.

Young said he encourages residents to attend public Town Board meetings to express their opinions. "If Kate Murray is listening," Young said, "she'll roll back the raises because we're not going away."