An advertisement concerning the former town highway garage property, and appearing in the Feb. 12 edition of the Manhasset Press, contains a number of statements which are false. To summarize, it alleges that the town sold land dedicated as parkland by the Nassau County Board of Supervisors. The facts are as follows:

1) The former highway garage property recently sold by the town had been, until the sale, in town ownership continuously since 1685 when it was acquired under the so-called Dongen Patent. The town's ownership was confirmed by an instrument recorded in the Nassau County records on 2/7/1901 in Liber 16 cp 386.

2) The town's ownership of parcels 11 and 14 appears clearly on the current Nassau County Land and Tax Map.

3) Nassau County would have no authority to dedicate, as parkland, that which it did not own and never has owned.

4) The Board of Supervisors' resolution of May 22, 1961, to which the advertisement refers, approved an acquisition map for land to be condemned for the Manhasset Valley Park.

5) The aforesaid map, which is available in the Nassau County Department of Public Works, does not include Block 350, lots 11 and 14. Rather, it refers to parcels to the east of what is not Maple Street.

Therefore, the advertisement's statement: "This 1961 excerpt is referring to the exact property sold by the Town of North Hempstead..." is false. The 1961 action of the County Board of Supervisors did not refer to Block 350, lots 11 and 14. As the supervisor has stated, that land is not, and never has been, a park. That makes the advertisement's statement that the supervisor circumvented the law by selling land dedicated as parkland also false.

Howard Miller

North Hempstead Town Attorney