Group reviews 25-year plan for LI's future

If Long Island wants to preserve its quality of life, residents and governments need to act now to address threats to the region's lifestyle, including a multilayered government and high tax burden, members of the Long Island Regional Planning Council warned Tuesday.

"We just can't keep talking about our challenges on Long Island," council chairman John D. Cameron Jr. said as the group reviewed a 25-year plan for the Island's future at Molloy College's Suffolk Center at Republic Airport in Farmingdale. "If we don't deal with these challenges now, it's game over." He added that without substantial changes, "The quality of life my generation knew on Long Island is not going to be here for my children and your children. It will be shame on us."

The Long Island 2035 Plan, prepared for the council by a team of consultants led by ARUP and Partners of New York, calls for creating higher-salaried jobs, better protecting the environment and building a "meaningful" transit system. The $750,000 report, released Tuesday, also drew attention to educational systems that may be an asset in affluent communities but not in less-affluent areas and tax levels more than twice the national average.

"How do we get the public to own these recommendations?" Jeffrey Kraut, a member of the planning council asked his colleagues. As a start, the council has sought meetings with legislative leaders in Nassau and Suffolk counties as well as Long Island's state delegation in Albany to discuss the report.

Cameron said the council would host public meetings about the plan and address its recommendations in the four areas it targeted: tax and governance, the economy, the environment and infrastructure, and equity. Council members also want to discuss the report with the county legislatures and at town board meetings.

"We feel it's essential, working with our county legislators, the state legislative delegation, as well as the towns and villages, those we believe are the people we have to work with to enact some of this stuff," Michael White, the council's executive director, said in an interview.

A copy of the report is to be available on the council's website, lirpc.org, Wednesday. A computer disk containing the report and supporting documents can also be requested on the site.