Annual Budget Hearing

On Wednesday, April 12, at 8 p.m. in the Village Hall Courtroom the board will be holding its annual budget hearing. I'm pleased to announce that the state of our finances is strong and stable and it is the determination of this board to see that our village is fiscally well managed. There is no surer way to undermine a community than to debauch the integrity of its financial structure. Memories are still fresh of Nassau County seemingly sailing on smooth seas until a precipitous tumult, long in the making, resulted in it becoming financially shipwrecked.

That's how volatile economies can be, if not managed properly - like a cloud formation hovering above, seemingly static yet full of storm. While it is true that economics is an inexact science, there is, at its core, nothing mysterious about its inner workings. The first rule in managing economies of scale is that what is good practice for the individual is also true for the collective individuals who make up the community. Its converse is no less true, what is harmful for one, will also be folly for the aggregate.

Be assured that as this administration prepares its first budget we've been scrupulously conscientious in accounting for every expenditure, trimming the leavings wherever there was excess foliage, investing intelligently in our future and establishing a fund balance to protect our village against changeable events that are ever present in the vicissitudes of human affairs.

A fund balance is a surplus, a savings account, a rainy day fund that we can count on in pending and even unforeseen situations and which is, pursuant to the New York State Comptroller's Office guidelines, a sound and fundamental accounting principle for municipal government. But one need not appeal to a higher authority when common sense will suffice. It has been my own personal experience in dealing with finances, as I'm sure its been yours, that when you have a surplus of funds you control circumstances, but without a surplus you find yourself in the unenviable position of having circumstances control you.

The upshot is by embarking upon a policy of investing, saving and cost cutting, this administration is striking a judicious balance on the receipts and disbursements of public monies in service of the safety, welfare and happiness of the people of Floral Park. No government should do any less.

Reading at the Schools

Last month I had the honor of addressing students from John Lewis Childs School as part of the "Parents As Reading Partners Program" in which I read a book about the privileges and responsibilities about voting that seemed to inspire in the students a sense of civic mindedness that belied their tender age.

Later, at Bellerose Elementary School, I read to a class of third graders the critically acclaimed Kapok Tree which they, but not I, were familiar with. I was struck by the lushness of the language, the plumage of its prose (at their age I was consumed by the pedestrian verbiage of Curious George's latest adventure) and the rich, expansively evocative images the book painted.

Good books inseminate the imagination; it is the natural fertilizer for creative inspiration. When one reads a good book you are not only having a conversation with that author but you are having the best conversation he ever had. That is why reading books of value is so important in enriching our lives and enlightening our minds. John Adams was right when he said that education makes a greater difference between man and man than nature does between man and brute.

It is encouraging to know that in a world that bedevils our children with a maze of technological mind traps that our schools and homes can serve as an oasis to refresh and liberate the mind. It is much needed. One of history's interesting ironies is that the surviving diaries and letters of our little schooled ancestors in the 18th and 19th centuries reveal an almost unconscious grace and craftsmanship in the deployment of English rhetoric.

It is indeed an unhappy paradox that in an age celebrated for universal education we seem nearly bereft of that critical facility. With these inspiring reading programs at our schools and libraries partnering with parents we can remedy that and touch a generation anew, not so much teaching the joy of reading to our young but better yet helping them discover it in themselves.

Chief John Szymanski: 50 Years in FPFD

Last week I attended with Deputy Mayor Kevin Greene, Trustees Tom Tweedy and Jim Rhatigan the 50th anniversary party of Chief John Szymanski as a member of the Floral Park Fire Department. Fifty years is a long time in the span of any human life and such unflagging devotion deserves to be honored by a commemorative event. My presence at this occasion, however, was more than a public acknowledgment, more than the discharging of an official duty for it bespoke of a personal tie reaching back nearly as far as the memory of life itself.

As a child I lived across the street from John Szymanski. I remember my elation, as if it were only yesterday, when he became chief of our fire department and the pride I felt that he lived so close, that he knew my name - that he would take the time and talk with me. That was many years ago and now he is no longer the chief and I'm now the mayor. Yet whenever I'm with him I still feel the same pride and the same sense of awe as if I was still that wide-eyed little boy who lived across the way.

I wish every child or adult for that matter could have a John Szymanski in his or her lives. He turns 94 years young this month and yes, I still on occasion stop in and have a chat. His sparkle has never withered and one needs to converse but a short while to sense the inner grace and dignity of the man, his selflessness, his love of community, his deep and unwavering faith in God that shines through whenever we have the pleasure of his company or touched by the grandeur of his humanity.