This past November, Town of North Hempstead voters approved the Environmental Legacy Fund (ELF), a $15 million bond referendum to purchase open space for the purposes of enhancing parklands, protecting environmentally fragile areas and historical sites and keeping the town's rural-like areas intact.

The town is asking its residents for suggestions on how the money should be used. Any North Hempstead resident can nominate a possible site for purchase or preservation by the town. Funds would come from ELF.

Applications to nominate a site are available from Mineola Village Hall, 155 Washington Ave. and must be submitted to the town by April 2. Once submitted, a town committee comprised of 17 members will review the applications and decide which properties are worth pursuing.

Sites could be vacant, underutilized, or candidates for redevelopment which if made part of the Town's open space system would add to the quality or enhancement of neighborhoods, provide opportunities for needed new recreational facilities, protect environmentally fragile lands and historic sites, and provide new or strengthen existing open space linkages in the form of greenways (trailways, walking paths, community gardens and vest pocket parks),blueways (wetlands, streams, waterbodies, shorelines) and scenic corridors.

Properties for acquisition should be of suitable character having features which may include but not be limited to:

* Natural areas of important environmental significance

* Rare or unique natural features

* Lands which provide space for necessary recreational facilities

* Land adjacent to existing parks if they serve to enhance natural or man-made amenities of the park or provide necessary expansion areas for programs or facilities

* Vistas

* Historic or cultural resources

* Waterfronts and shorelines

* Open space corridors

* Woodlands

* Special ground water protection areas, drinking water supply aquifers and recharge areas

Of the $15 million the town has to spend, $8 million will be spent on Open Space Acquisition, $4 million will be spent on the restoration and protection of environmentally sensitive areas and $3 million will be spent on the improvement and enhancement of coastal areas and waterways.

For more information on ELF, visit the town's web site at www.northhempstead.com.