Glen Cove City Council approves $2.7M in bonds for infrastructure

Glen Cove City Hall in 2010. Credit: T.C. McCarthy
The Glen Cove City Council has unanimously approved issuing bonds and bond anticipation notes for $2.7 million in street and building improvements, equipment and other expenses.
“It helps us to really strengthen our infrastructure, supply [city departments] with the proper equipment and tools they need to get the job done, and at the same time be fiscally smart,” Mayor Reginald Spinello said of Tuesday’s vote on the bonding.
Nearly half of the money is for street, parks and firehouse improvements. Other funding is to go to tree plantings and removals, computers, bulletproof vests, and police, sanitation and street-sweeper vehicles.
Resident and frequent mayoral critic Grace Slezak asked at Tuesday’s meeting if the city could avoid making the improvements in 2016 and “let it go a year.”
Spinello said many improvements have been repeatedly put off already and become more costly the longer the city delays them.
“Glen Cove for many years has neglected its infrastructure, and we’re trying to put money back into it,” he said.
City departments requested about three times as much money as what was approved, Spinello said.
City Comptroller Sal Lombardi said some of the equipment and vehicle replacements are long overdue. Some city trucks are out of service on repairs more frequently than they are on the streets, he said.
The $2.72 million in bonds are in addition to more than $2.8 million the council voted to issue in March, mostly to pay for a pump station and purification system for a new water well.