Mayor Mary Ann Holzkamp opened the Glen Cove City Council meeting of March 25 with a moment of silence for our troops presently fighting in the Middle East. She also reminded the residents at the meeting of the letter writing campaign the city has begun for Glen Cove residents to correspond with members of our armed forces, as was reported in the Record Pilot last week. For further information on corresponding with a serviceman or woman, contact the mayor's office at 676-3505, or if you know someone overseas who might like some mail from home (and who wouldn't?) mail the name and address or the e-mail to Mayor's Office, City Hall, 9 Glen Street, Glen Cove, NY 11542. The e-mail address to send this information is sarahb910@aol.com.

A public hearing was opened to discuss the 2002-2003 Community Block Grant, and Rosemary Olsen, executive director of Glen Cove CDA, gave an overview of organizations that would benefit from the grant, including the Youth Board for a summer employment program and the Boys and Girls Club for a van to enable teens to take advantage of opportunities they could not get to without transportation. The BID will be hiring a retail consultant to work on attracting more high quality retailers to the downtown. The Senior Center, La Fuerza Unida, Girl Scouts and GCCCASA will also be beneficiaries of the block grant. The resolution was later passed by the council.

Another public hearing addressed a tax exemption for volunteer firefighters and volunteer ambulance workers. The proposal has come down from Albany, with the decision to be left to each municipality. After the hearing, the resolution was passed to authorize the allowable partial exemption for these volunteers on the city part of taxes only, contingent upon stipulations regarding length of time served in volunteerism.

During public comments, Tip Henderson, head of the Republican Party, wished to "continue the dialogue begun at the last city council meeting regarding the Waterfront Revitalization Plan." Mr. Henderson said the Republicans are very happy to see the waterfront being cleaned up as quickly as possible and developed, but questioned how best to do that. He reiterated what he had said at the last meeting, that the idea of residential units at the waterfront was never part of the original "Glen Cove Creek Revitalization Plan" that aimed to make the waterfront a tourist attraction with public access, a museum, aquarium, marine culture and history, a hotel/conference center but with no residential component. Mr. Henderson pointed out that that was what former mayor Thomas Suozzi had insisted. The developers the mayor has selected for the development, Glen Isle Developers, have said they feel a residential component is necessary for the success of the waterfront. The question Mr. Henderson asked was, "What is wrong with that plan that we spent so many years and so much money on? Why are we now selling out to a developer?" The mayor responded by reiterating that the plan has not changed except for the possibility of residential components. "You bring up the residential component and make it sound as if we are selling out to the developer. Nothing could be further than the truth. We are still talking and working at developing the plan, and we are looking at the residential part of the plan; it may work, it may not." The mayor then made it clear that a plan has not even been presented, and when it is, Mr. Henderson and the rest of the community will have many hours to talk, to debate, to criticize, but until then, she will not go back and forth discussing a plan we do not have. She also stated she was happy to hear that the Republicans want to help with the cleanup, but on the other hand, "I guess you are totally against residential. That's your stand, that you are totally against residential?"

"No," Mr. Henderson quickly replied, "and I'll make my position very clear. My position is that we have spent years developing a plan for our waterfront, which sits here in the "Glen Cove Creek Revitalization Plan." Mayor Holzkamp replied that no plans with the developer are written in stone and she does not want to jeopardize the developer or any plans until we have something on paper to present to Glen Cove. Mr. Henderson insisted that what he wants the mayor to do is honor the plan that so much time was spent on: the plan that did not include residential units. He expressed that the mayor is no longer following Tom Suozzi's original plan and "the public should know that and as we go down the road, it will be very easy to lose that vision. If the developer runs into 'surprises,' he will want to ensure himself with respect to them, and so is talking residential. Now is the only time I have to tell people that this plan should be scrutinized." Stating that the negotiation agreement came about very quickly, he feels the city should wait and think about the path they are going down because "it is going to lead to the destruction of the vision, and I don't think that's good for us."

Mayor Holzkamp's final comment was to again state that "we will discuss this plan when we have a plan to discuss" and said she was not going to continue bantering that would be detrimental to getting anything done.

Glenn Howard stood and remarked that for the past three meetings, he has heard the same comments three times in a row. His opinion on the developers is that for them to have survived as long as they have, doing what they do for a very long time, they must know what they are doing. After ideas go back and forth between the city and the developers, said Mr. Howard, "We'll get down to the nitty gritty, at which point I would hope that people will come to meetings and give their input. He also stated that ideas can and do change. "Ideas change, concepts change and needs change. If you lock yourself into any set plan before you are ready to implement it, you can cut yourself off from anything that might be better."