When I ran for mayor I made it quite clear that until I had more facts I could not say whether I was in favor of or opposed to the sewer deal. Even though the city has failed to supply any substantive information after all this time, I believe this is a deal that the city needs to do. I base my opinion on the information supplied by the county at the Dec. 5 meeting, along with its report and the continued financial demise of our city. The main issues which the city should focus on are the valuation of the sewers and the downstream benefits the city would inherit. Let's put aside all political differences... this is about what's best for Glen Cove and its residents. This has the potential to be a great deal for the city.

We are broke. In fact, during my campaign I mentioned many times that the city is in worse financial shape than most people realized. When 2007 comes to a close and the final accounting is completed, I estimate that the city will have an additional unfunded deficit of approximately $3 million. That will bring the accumulated deficit to about $16 million.

We need to start putting our house in order. We cannot wait for the waterfront or any other project to come along and rescue us. The county has thrown us a bone...let's be smart and take it.

Regarding the waterfront... did you realize that the IDA and CDA combined owe the city about $6 million? They are eating into our cash flow each year. These entities are not generating any kind of revenue to pay for bonds, and the city foots the bill because we are responsible for the debts of the CDA (we are not responsible for IDA debt).

The simple fact is that this sewer deal is a lot more important to the city than to the county. The county came to the Dec. 5 meeting well prepared. They had a valuation of about $30 million (which I believe is too low). The city on the other hand was ill prepared and presented very little useful information for the residents of our city. The fact that we did not have a valuation prepared at the time of this meeting amazed me. Regardless of the city's preparedness, this is a deal that needs to get done. Hopefully, the city can get a much better price for the sewer system, which would make this deal even sweeter for us.

I also see an ancillary benefit to the city. With the decrease in our debt service, I suggest the city use the opportunity to review its workforce and bring some of the work which is being done by outside contractors back in-house. We have been giving too much work to outside contractors (millions of dollars) and not allowing our public works department the opportunity to provide the additional services which at one time they supplied to our city.

The county has done us a favor. Make no mistake about it - this sewer deal was not the current mayor or his administration's brainchild. As I mentioned earlier, we need to start putting our house in order. The county has thrown us a bone ... let's be smart and take it!

Reginald Spinello