Residents concerned about possibly compromising Garden City's uniqueness asked pressing questions of County Executive Tom Suozzi's HUB proposal during a public hearing April 5. Although he wanted residents to leave the meeting with an open mind, many instead left frustrated, getting few definitive answers from staff and Suozzi himself, who arrived late and left halfway through the meeting.

Noted Garden City dignitaries, including newly elected Mayor Gerard Lundquist, Village Administrator Robert Schoelle, Jr., Village Clerk Brian Ridgway, Deputy Mayor Peter Bee and several village trustees, including newcomers Nick Episcopia and Thomas Lamberti, among others, attended the latest in a series of meetings Suozzi had held in public. Frustrated by answers that only reiterated the proposal is at a "conceptual" stage, many residents left unsure of the proposal's effects on nearby communities.

With no growth in revenues, too much growth in expenses and the fact that young people are fleeing Nassau County because they can't afford to live in a place they spent years growing up, Suozzi said he fears the county could become post-suburban. "We want to be a 'new suburbia,'" Suozzi said. "This keeps all the good stuff we know about this place. We want to preserve everything that attracted us here in the first place."

He hopes to connect major components included in the HUB - the center of Nassau County - like the Nassau Coliseum, Roosevelt Field Mall, Hofstra University, EAB Plaza, Mitchel Field, Nassau Community College and more, with a full countywide transit system, pedestrian walkways, bicycle paths and green ways. "All of these different, important assets that exist are totally unconnected from each other. Each are like an island onto itself," he said. "We need to connect them."

Nassau County's center has an enormous amount of commercial square footage. With that comes traffic. "If we do nothing, traffic conditions in Nassau County will only continue to get worse," Margarita Gagliardi, HUB project manager from the consulting team, said. "We need to look at ways to mitigate the gridlock that currently exists." She also noted that lack of north-south connectivity to or through the HUB must be addressed. "We also want people to really think about alternatives to the automobile." As it currently exists, five train lines enter the HUB, including Westbury, Carle Place, Mineola, Garden City and Hempstead. Residents, however, are skeptical about incorporating a light rail system.

Garden City Deputy Mayor Peter Bee, who spoke as a Garden City citizen, frankly stated, "All of us in Garden City know, as well as everybody else, that traffic and taxes have gotten worse. True, we need to look at ways to address those issues ... We have to be careful that our cure is not worse than the ills we face. The concepts that are being advanced ... appear to many residents of Garden City to thrust a sword through the heart of Garden City. I can assure you that Garden City will not fall on that sword," he said to rousing applause.

"Garden City is a residential community, which needs and is supported by a business community. But that is not to say that we want to become integrated into an urban mass transit system. These concepts don't appear, at first, to support the suburban, Main Street, downtown concepts, which have worked on Long Island. They appear instead to support the urban mass transit concepts and I don't think Garden City is ready to trade in what are becoming congested avenues if we were to become part of a mass transit system."

Suozzi stated he could not build anything in Garden City unless the Village of Garden City gives him the green light. Deputy Mayor Bee, however, finds this statement somewhat disingenuous. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) owns the right-of-ways on St. James Street North and South. "This clearly asserts that [the MTA] does have the right to do whatever it wants notwithstanding Garden City's village ordinances," he noted. "Is the county prepared to request that the MTA not do what the Village of Garden City doesn't want to be done? Is the county prepared to say it will not accept rights of way from the MTA, which have already been used in ways that Garden City doesn't want? That would be more consistent with the position that the county is saying it cannot do and won't do what Garden City doesn't want done."

The HUB proposal has been studied for approximately one-and-a-half-years. Suozzi resurrected a 1998 grant, originally obtained by then Senator Alfonse D'Amato, to begin exploring the idea. That money, however, was never spent, he said. The county executive has since used that money, and received even more through grants obtained by local elected officials like Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, Congressman Peter King and Senator Charles Schumer.

Further, he has even more earmarked in the federal budget, which has not yet made its way to the president's desk, to perform an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which will identify the positives and negatives a community would face. This latest step in the HUB study's phase is expected to begin this fall and take another year from now.

A 15-year- Garden City resident, who criticized the EIS performance with regard to freight running through Garden City, admitted she's jaded. "What will assumptions be in the EIS? We must make sure the study is done the right way," she said.

Although Bob Brickman, Nassau's HUB project manager, said the county has had no discussion with the MTA to acquire the rights-of-way property on St. James Street and Gagliardi assured an open process throughout the environmental impact study, residents remain skeptical and fear for their property values.

Patricia Bourne, director of Nassau County's Planning Commission, ensured residents the proposal is not intended to create an urban system in any way nor is it the county's desire to negatively impact property values.