MTA paid $1.7M for Mineola soccer field, other projects to win Third Track support, records show

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is paying $1.7 million for a Mineola soccer field face-lift as part of $16 million in projects aimed at minimizing local opposition to the recently completed 10-mile LIRR Third Track through Nassau County, according to records obtained by Newsday.

The expansion and transformation of Wilson Park's Field No. 1 is among several expenditures paid for from a Community Benefits Fund that seemingly had little connection to the Third Track project. Funds also were used for a pickleball court, and to repave a parking lot on a different railroad branch than the one where the Third Track was built.

Newsday obtained the information through public records requests about the Third Track, formally known as the Long Island Rail Road Main Expansion Project. The megaproject's $2.5 billion budget set aside $20 million for a fund that, according to published MTA materials, was meant to "offset project-related impacts" in neighboring communities.

While some of the community projects the MTA paid for don't directly relate to the railroad's expansion, transit agency officials and advocates said the fund benefited both communities and commuters and helped keep the Third Track — an infrastructure initiative that had stalled for years — on time and on budget.

Mineola Mayor Paul Pereira, who previously criticized the MTA's construction in his village, defended the Wilson Park upgrades as being within “the guidelines provided for us” by the MTA. He acknowledged that the funding made the Third Track project more palatable to village residents and officials.

“Of course, if you offer people money, they are going to be more receptive,” Pereira said.

In a statement, MTA external relations chief John McCarthy noted that the fund “gave each municipality jurisdiction on what local needs and projects to prioritize.”

“We’re proud of our partnership with the Village of Mineola and glad to see remaining funds go toward enhancing the local neighborhood,” McCarthy said.

Private developers have long used similar funds to garner community support for projects in residential areas, experts said, and the strategy increasingly has been used in recent years for public projects, too.

But Ken Girardin, director of research for the Empire Center for Public Policy, an Albany-based conservative think tank, called it “disconcerting” that the MTA felt the need to pay for projects “completely disconnected” from the Third Track in order to clear away potential obstacles.

“In theory, getting a Third Track should have been the benefit,” Girardin said.

In October, Newsday reported the first $11 million in projects funded as of December 2022 included a $223,000 renovation of the Floral Park Recreation Center with a new pickleball court and $1.6 million reconstruction of the Nassau Boulevard LIRR station in Garden City, which is about a mile from the Third Track on the Hempstead Branch, and a new $9,000 "Welcome to Garden City Park" sign.

An updated list of approved Community Benefits Fund projects, current as of October, contains another $4.8 million of spending along several communities abutting the Third Track, which stretches from Floral Park to Hicksville. 

Garden City gets $305,000

The new Community Benefits Fund projects include $305,000 in landscaping work in Garden City, $212,000 for Westbury to buy a wheel loader, snowplow and watering truck, and $496,000 for the creation of a small business improvement program in North Hempstead.

The biggest expenditure on the updated list: $1.7 million awarded to the village of Mineola to “improve and install new turf at Wilson Park Field,” located about 1,200 feet from the Third Track, and a mile from the Mineola LIRR station. In addition to the new turf, the effort includes the expansion of the existing field, relocation of utilities, and the installation of new fencing, bleachers, lighting and wind screens, according to Mineola officials.

Last April, the village approved paying The Landtek Group, of Hicksville, $1,696,776.41 out of its general fund for the project, with the goal of getting reimbursed out of the Third Track budget. The MTA initially approved $1.5 million for the project, but allowed the village to move funds from other community benefit projects when the cost ran higher than expected, MTA officials said.

Other Community Benefits Fund projects approved in Mineola appeared more closely tied to the Third Track project, including upgrades to lighting, signage and parking meters in and around the Mineola LIRR station. Pereira said he wouldn't have been able to spend all the village's Third Track money around the train station, because many of the streets surrounding it are owned by Nassau County.

In an interview, Pereira defended the decision to spend more than half of the village's $2.8 million Third Track allotment on the turf project, noting that many village residents that commute on the LIRR also use the field.

“We have a need to have our fields be updated, and I thought that this was a good opportunity,” Pereira said. “We pitched it to them, and they saw it as a community benefit.”

The Third Track, and the Community Benefits Fund, was paid for out of the MTA's Capital Program, which is funded through government appropriations, tax and toll revenues, and MTA-supported bonds. The MTA also occasionally commits money from its operating budget — which includes LIRR fare revenue — to its capital budget.

MTA officials defended the fund as part of a broader strategy to win support for the Third Track — and avoid potential litigation. 

Cuomo created $20M fund

Long sought by the MTA to increase capacity along the LIRR’s bottlenecked Main Line in Nassau County, the Third Track had, for decades had been stymied by local opposition, including in Mineola. In 2016, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo reintroduced the effort with the promise of winning local support, including through the creation of a $20 million fund.

According to project documents, the money could “support local initiatives intended to ensure community safety and quality of life throughout the project’s construction phase.”

Asked about the turf expenditure following a Feb. 28 MTA Board meeting, transit authority chairman Janno Lieber noted that the various municipalities along the Third Track’s path all had “jurisdiction and issues that could have held the project up.”

“We figured out how to work with them through a very successful, ongoing, community outreach process. And we finished the project on time, and $100 million under budget,” Lieber said. “That is the definition of success on a megaproject.”

Although Pereira long has praised Third Track project officials for seeking his village’s input from the outset, the mayor was critical of the project right through when Gov. Kathy Hochul held a ceremony in Westbury on Oct. 3, 2022, declaring the Third Track complete.

In a statement issued two days later, Pereira said he was “disappointed," given that Mineola residents "still had to put up with the mess and inconvenience" of ongoing construction in the village. "No community on the main line has been inconvenienced more and for longer than the Village of Mineola,” he said.

At the time he made those remarks, Mineola had not submitted applications for projects to be funded through the Third Track. The MTA did approve $50,000 to cover Third Track-related engineering costs in the village, if necessary.

A year later, after having the $2.8 million in projects approved, Pereira stood beside MTA officials at an event celebrating the Third Track and related upgrades at the Mineola train station.

'Get more bees with honey'

Pereira said the Community Benefits Fund did not influence the village’s ultimate support of the project, which he said benefited commuters in the village by expanding LIRR service, but acknowledged that, “You’re going to get more bees with honey.”

Private developers “trying to do anything they can” to win support for a project in a residential area have frequently used community benefit funds, said Ben Dierker, executive director for the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure — an Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit think tank.

The strategy increasingly has been used in recent years in publicly funded projects, too, as with the state's $4 billion reconstruction of the Tappan Zee/Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, which included a $20 million Community Benefits Program. The MTA has also set aside money in its congestion pricing plan for community projects in the Bronx, which is expected to deal with an increase in air pollution.

“If the benefits are real, but there are stubborn communities or maybe there’s misinformation — people don’t understand the benefits — having things that do sweeten the pot to get you over the finish line, I think, are effective,” Dierker said.

“It’s ultimately allowing that good infrastructure project that’s going to connect people, create commerce, do the types of things that infrastructure is meant to do," Dierker added. "Even if somebody wanted to characterize it as unseemly, they’d have to confront that aspect of it.”

Commuter Council supports fund

LIRR Commuter Council chairman Gerard Bringmann said he supported the Community Benefits Fund as a means of removing potential obstacles in the way of an important project. He pointed to lawsuits that are threatening to delay the implementation of the MTA’s congestion pricing plan.

“I think it was worth it,” Bringmann said of the $20 million fund, which was less than 1% of the Third Track’s $2.5 billion budget. “It probably could have gotten done anyway, but you would have spent that money on legal fees and fighting."

Bill Urianek, a Mineola resident for more than 70 years and the former president of the village’s civic association, said he once had concerns about the Third Track, but now sees it as “a plus” for his community. He also supported using project funds for needed upgrades in his community, including the new turf that will, over time, reduce maintenance costs.

“I went through there the other day. It looks wonderful,” Urianek, 94, said of the new turf. “It’s absolutely top of the line.”

But John Michno, of Mineola, a frequent LIRR critic, said he thinks more of the funding should be going to the village's downtown area, near its train station, and not to a ballfield a mile away. "It has nothing to do with it," Michno said. "That's why I have a problem with it. It's not near the tracks."

Westbury Mayor Peter Cavallaro said the funds his village received — which total approximately $2.1 million— were related to the Third Track. Some of the equipment purchased by the village is needed to maintain a new parking garage and pedestrian plaza that have been erected near the Westbury train station, Cavallaro said.

“Every one of our projects has something to do with the Third Track project and the improvements that were made,” Cavallaro said.

The Town of North Hempstead is using $496,000 in Third Track funding for small business improvements, including fixing sidewalks on Nassau Boulevard in Garden City Park and installing flower plots on Jericho Turnpike, according to Councilman Dennis Walsh.

“We never had the opportunity to do any of this until now,” Walsh said.

With Anastasia Valeeva