Last Tuesday, Nassau BOCES held a referendum requesting the approval to purchase a building - 71 Clinton Road in Garden City. This referendum was unsuccessful. During the days immediately preceding the vote and on voting day it appeared that some voters had received misinformation about the purpose and cost of the referendum. I offer the following to clarify and correct misinformation that may be of concern to county residents.

Nassau BOCES will be moving to the 71 Clinton Road building this May. We will be renting the building and we're able to rent the building without voter approval. However, in an attempt to save money for the 56 public school districts of Nassau County - by reducing the costs of the facilities charges that Nassau BOCES must pass on to the districts - we sought approval to purchase rather than rent the building. If the referendum had been successful, we would have been able to pass on savings of $7 million over the next 10 years, with even larger savings projected in the years after.

When Nassau BOCES purchases a building it is taken off the local tax rolls as are other school district-owned properties. The total property tax loss to the Garden City area is estimated to be $347,898. This figure includes village tax, school tax and county and town general taxes. In an ad, the Property Owners' Association of Garden City Estates had given a figure of $861,000 for village and school taxes alone. And in an article in the same edition of the paper, Richard Schrafel was quoted as saying the loss in village taxes would be about $350,000, not the actual figure of $97,584.

The 71 Clinton Road building will replace the Nassau BOCES Salisbury Center in Westbury - a building that BOCES has occupied for the last 28 years but must vacate by June 30, 2002 because the school district that owns it requires the space for its own use. After an exhaustive search of properties in Nassau County, Nassau BOCES identified 71 Clinton Road as the building that would best serve the agency's needs, as well as the needs of the Nassau County school districts.

Nassau BOCES is a partnership of those 56 districts. The building will serve the agency as an administrative office building with meeting and conference facilities for Nassau educators and community groups. Nassau BOCES looks forward to joining the Garden City community and I am sure residents will find us to be good neighbors.

George Farber board president, BOCES