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MARK TANNENBAUM

December 22, 2013

On Thursday, December 12th I attended my second Island Park Chamber of Commerce meeting. I was in attendance for two reasons. One, I wanted to get an explanation from the chamber membership as to why I was blackballed from being a member considering I have a professional business practice in Island Park (Harbor Isle). The second was that I received an invitation from over 25 Island Park businesses to attend the meeting to see how Glenn Ingoglia, the President of the chamber runs the meeting and the chamber.

It was pretty shocking to see how Mr. Ingoglia acts as a dictator not permitting anyone but himself or maybe his cohorts to speak and refusing to answer any questions. The membership clearly has no say in what happens both during meetings or in this chamber. Mr. Ingoglia, President of the Island Park Voice Party, a political organization, clearly demonstrated that the Island Park Chamber is his own personal political organization and the businesses of Island Park have no say. Being an Executive Vice President of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and running their meetings I know how a meeting should be run and I found this meeting to be a disgrace to chambers everywhere.

In attendance at this meeting was Howard Schwach, a reporter for the local paper, the Herald. Mr. Schwach wrote an article describing what he saw take place at the meeting. Business after business being told they could not vote or were not a member. Mr. Ingoglia wrote a letter on December 18th rebutting the article and dismissing and denying what took place. If anything, Mr. Schwach’s article was rather soft when he described how the meeting was handled and what took place. In fact, I would say that Mr. Ingoglia’s response letter was quite incongruent with the facts as he sought to justify his own inappropriate handling of the meeting and the elections for the Chamber’s officers.

The article could have elaborated further how member after member was denied membership and not permitted to vote. But interesting enough Michael Posillico, whose rental development was turned down unanimously by the Town of Hempstead Council, was permitted to vote. In fact just last week Mr. Posillico was seen with Mr. Ingoglia and Michael Scully reapplying for the same project that was all ready turned down. I still wonder why an outsider like Mr. Posillico was given the privilege to vote in the chamber election while legitimate businesses in the community were not permitted to vote. It would seem proper that the President of the Chamber be working to have Mr. Posillico immediately clean up that environmental dump that he has owned some 14 years, instead of trying to help him get rental units built that won’t pay school taxes in the community for 20 to 30 years.

As for Mr. Ingoglia’s comments and Mr. Schwach’s portrayal of me they are distorted and incomplete. First of all, this issue is not about me but rather about Mr. Ingoglia, the President of the Voice Party and his handling of the Island Park Chamber as his own political club. He talks about the Herald making this political but it is rather Mr. Ingoglia as President of the Voice Party that makes it political.

As for me, for some reason Mr. Schwach constantly focuses on my being Executive Vice President of the Long Beach Chamber. My leadership role in the Long Beach Chamber does not have anything to do with this matter. I am involved in this matter because I am one of the Island Park businesses and also a resident who is unhappy with the politics in the Island Park Chamber and I believe the business community should have a real Chamber of Commerce not a political organization. As for some (3 individual’s) of Mr. Ingoglia’s supporters in the crowd chanting, “Go back to Long Beach, you’re a disgrace,” and “Leave, leave”, that is true, but an incomplete portion of the story. When I picked up my coat and said “I will leave”, the majority of the crowd chanted for me to stay. Had I not been wanted I would definitely have gone.

Mr. Ingoglia’s actions are deplorable. Whoever heard of a chamber not accepting members? Mr. Ingoglia refused almost 30 members from joining the chamber during the month of November and December. But he did permit his Voice Party, a political organization, to join. Then to justify his refusal of membership, he amended the By-laws: keeping those businesses from joining or paying their dues. Mr. Ingoglia made up his own rules by making an amendment, change, resolution, however he wants to term it, and not taking it to the membership to vote on. The only way By-laws can be changed is by a vote of the membership.

A group of 25 plus businesses organized in order to elect a new slate of officers that would represent the interests of the business community, not the Voice Party and Mr. Ingoglia’s run for Mayor. That slate would have won by a large margin that night if all the businesses present were permitted to vote.

Even though the opposing slate lost the election the business community won because Glenn Ingoglia has been exposed for the tyrant he is. He demonstrated that only what he says and does counts. The business community of Island Park has no say or representation in the Chamber. Only now that he is ‘safely’ in control of the Chamber, is he looking for businesses to join it. In hindsight, I realize that I am glad that they did not except my membership as I would be embarrassed to be a member of such an organization.

It is time for the business community to take action. To join the Chamber and give it your money and support while Glenn Ingoglia and Michael Scully do what they want endorses what they have been doing. It is time to start your own organization, one that represents ALL of the businesses AND the community.

From: Contentious Island Park chamber election

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