An overwhelming majority of local property owners has voted to reject a proposal to form a Business Improvement District (BID) in Farmingdale, according to a report made public by the Farmingdale Village Board Tuesday night. As a result, the board has indicated that the entity will not be established.

The creation of the BID, which was first proposed last year by the Farmingdale Chamber of Commerce's BID Steering Committee, was contingent on approval by property owners within it. The proposed BID was to encompass both sides of Main Street from Melville Road to Fulton Street and Conklin Street from Secatogue Avenue to the intersection of Fulton and Conklin. Its annual budget would have been derived from charging property owners within it an extra fee, or tax, based on property assessment. The first year budget was planned to be approximately $62,000, and would have been spent primarily on marketing and advertising Farmingdale's downtown retail district. Maintenance, sanitation, and administration costs were also included in the proposed budget.

According to state law authorizing BIDs, the voting process regarding the establishment of the entity works in the following way:

Property owners have 30 days to file objections to the creation of the BID following a public hearing held by the local municipality. The measure fails if a) at least 51 percent of the properties' owners file objections, or b) the assessed valuations of the properties owned by those filing objections are at least 51 percent of the sum of the assessed valuations of all properties in the district. Those who support the measure need not vote; silence is their sign of approval.

According to the village board's report, the proposed Farmingdale BID failed according to both formulas, although failure according to even one would have warranted rejection. The owners associated with 100 of the 153 properties in the district submitted objections, yielding a result of 65 percent against the measure according to the first formula. The second formula yielded the following: The assessed valuations of properties owned by those objecting totalled $2.2 million, which is 67 percent of the sum of the assessed valuations of all properties in the district ($3.3 million).

If the property owners had approved the BID, the village as a local municipality could have passed a resolution authorizing the creation of the BID. That resolution would have become a local law upon approval of the BID by the state comptroller's office. However, because the property owners rejected the measure, the village board indicated that they would not pass such a resolution.

Also at the meeting, Barbara Cohen, a consultant hired by the chamber to organize the BID, requested that she review the objection forms before the results of the vote were finalized. In doing so, she cited what she felt were errors in the calculation done by the village board in preparing the report. (According to state law, the report was to be made public at the first board meeting following the end of the voting period. This meeting was the first one following Aug. 31, the end of the voting period. However, as a courtesy, the village had given Cohen an advance copy of the report a few weeks ago.) The village board denied the request, noting that allowing her to view the objections would be a violation of voter privacy rights.

The denial of the request followed a verbal argument at the meeting.

"We can't reveal the names of who voted for what," Mayor Joseph Trudden said upon the request.

Cohen countered: "Well, it does get to the heart of the completeness of the report in that - the owner of record for a particular property - that's one of the verifications. We don't have any desire to take those things with us or anything like that. I would certainly come to the village hall to do that. I know from discussions with John [Giordano, village clerk-treasurer] and what he has faxed to me, there are certainly things that come up that are certainly a question to me, in terms of validity."

Village Trustee Marialyce Denauski then noted that it is against state law to reveal the names on the objections, which were tabulated by each member of the board. "I was one of them, and I sat on your committee for 18 months," she said.

In describing what she felt were some discrepancies, Cohen noted that the total of the properties in the report was not correct because it included two properties not included in the BID Steering Committee's original district plan. However, Village Clerk-Treasurer John Giordano later said that the properties did count because they were contained in the map of the district. Cohen also complained about five other properties that were not valid according to the rules pertaining to the calculation. However, Giordano noted that those properties had been omitted from the calculation after being pointed out by Cohen. He added that another cited discrepancy, two incorrect assessed valuations, had also been corrected.

Cohen continued to insist that she be allowed to review the objections, although to no avail. Expressing the board's denial of the request, Mayor Trudden said, "Barbara, before the vote was taken, we said the people would have their right to privacy, and we're going to maintain their privacy. It's not going to be revealed."

In a brief telephone interview after the meeting, Giordano noted that the village plans to meet with the Chamber of Commerce soon to discuss ways to improve downtown Farmingdale. "I think what we all have to do is look ahead to see what is going to be done to improve the village. And, the mayor does have a plan," he said. For example, he added that the municipality plans to market the village using grant money and the free consulting services of Hofstra University, made possible by Nassau County's Operation Downtown program.