The buzz at last Wednesday's Village Officials Association (VOA) meeting was about the final report issued by former governor Eliot Spitzer's special commission on local government. If its recommendations were to be passed by the legislature, it would make sweeping changes in the delivery of services from local to county or regional providers, lower the threshold for dissolving villages and special districts, and give the Commissioner of Education absolute power to force consolidation of school districts. One local official called the report "the foundation for a hostile takeover of local governments."

VOA President Leonard Samansky said, "While the report claims that 'with consolidation great savings would follow' there is no substantiation of such claims." He went on to add that one of the commission's own expert consultants, Donald Boyd, from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, who wrote a scholarly 35-page analysis of governmental mergers warned that "literature reviews have suggested that costs of merged governments are not necessarily lower than the costs of individual governments and can be higher." He writes "many studies found higher costs after consolidation due to 'leveling up' of salaries." These conclusions from Mr. Boyd's paper were not included in the commission's final report.

Mayor Samansky told the group that the Nassau County Village Officials Association President Warren Tackenberg had called the commission's work "suspect." Mr. Tackenberg noted that the commission had " failed to comply with the state's Open Meeting law and it barred observers from its deliberations and it ignored its own consultant's advice."

One of the recommendations of the commission that the mayors do support is the repeal of the Wicks Law, a series of laws that require municipalities to award separate contracts to electrical, plumbing, and HVAC contractors for public works contracts of over $50,000. NYC alone estimates that it would save $3.7 billion over its ten-year capital plan with a full repeal of the Wicks laws.

Another recommendation that drew harsh criticism from local officials was one that would require all police, fire and emergency medical services dispatching to be done on a county level. Andy DeMartin, who has dispatched ambulance and fire calls for the Vigilants with 17 years experience said, "Do you know how many times I call the county dispatchers for assistance and get a busy signal?" Mr. DeMartin said that while county-wide emergency dispatching might work upstate, the notion of one centralized dispatch center in a densely populated area would require massive infusions of capital expenditures. He said that the maximum number of calls a dispatcher can coordinate at one time are between 10-15. According to him, the county's new site for dispatching does not have the space to accommodate the number of dispatchers that would be necessary to handle the 1.3 million population in Nassau County.

Robert Lincoln, a park district commissioner, informed the group that Governor Paterson is recommending that special district commissioners not only lose per diem pay, but also lose liability insurance benefits. He said, "If ever there was a time to band together, it is now...this (commission report) is not about good government...it's a ruse...it's about taking our local money." An organization of special districts has been formed to defend the role and functionality of special district services.

Ed Causin, representing Great Neck Estates said, "Do we have the right to choose? To live the way we want, to pay for what we want? It seems this commission is trying to hurt us for political gain...We don't love high taxes, but we don't want to cut our services."

In other business, it was announced that Nassau County has still not provided 3 of the villages with emergency radios that they are obligated to provide. Those villages are Kensington, Kings Point and Great Neck. Mayor Samansky said that he has made repeated calls to the county's Office of Emergency Management about the matter and that they have not returned his phone calls.

During the last part of the meeting, Robert Bernstein, coordinator for emergency management for the VOA distributed village asset inventory reports for final editing by the villages. This listing of assets, mostly specialized equipment, will be available to the mayors and trustees so that in times of emergency they may borrow items from other villages. Intermunicipal agreements, which have been hammered out among the villages, cover any liability issues and pave the way for shared services and equipment. It was ironic that the culmination of these efforts would be finalized on an evening when the discussion centered on the state's efforts to overhaul local government. Mayor Samansky said, "We should serve as a model for better, more efficient services."