Get the politics out of the Hub

Development at Nassau County’s Hub is back to square one after voters resoundingly said “no” last week to public funding for a new arena and a minor league ballpark.

So we’re no closer now to worthy development at the site than we were two weeks ago — or a decade ago. Most residents, business owners and community leaders want something job-producing and attractive built on the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum site. If not magnificent, at least something we can be proud of.

Instead, we’ve endured a decade of talk and no action following two failed plans. The Hub remains a wasteland, with a four-decades-old hockey arena and a parking lot big enough to be seen by high-flying aircraft.

A few years ago, the Lighthouse project, the brainchild of New York Islanders owner Charles Wang, a mixed-use development that included a renovated Coliseum, housing, a hotel, office space, stores and a sports complex, had the strong support of then County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat. It met its demise at the hands of the Republican Hempstead Town Board, for sound environmental and neighborhood-scale reasons. It was too grand, many said.

The most recent plan also came from Wang, and this time it had the support of Republican County Executive Edward Mangano and Republican legislators, but was fiercely opposed by county Democrats and others who thought they weren’t going to profit from the new-arena-and-ball-field project. And voters made it clear that they had no intention of investing so much in a project that would yield so little. It wasn’t grand enough, many said.

So what have we learned?

Obviously, the county’s current system of large-scale development doesn’t work. What developer would willingly enter this politically charged, bureaucratically tormented process, which leads to community distrust of everyone involved?

We’ve learned that any system imbued with political advantage for one side or another — indeed, any system that encourages side-taking — is doomed to produce exactly what we have now: controversy, distrust and, ultimately, nothing. We need a lot less politics and a lot more good government leadership.