Oyster Bay library vote canceled

A vote scheduled for Tuesday to allow 2,300 residents in parts of five Oyster Bay villages to determine whether to be part of a local library system has been canceled.

"It has been postponed even though we did get enough signatures" on petitions, said Suzanne Koch, director of Oyster Bay-East Norwich Public Library. "The Town of Oyster Bay felt there wasn't enough time to procure and distribute absentee ballots. There were also some questions regarding the language on the ballot that wouldn't have been resolved in time" for a late-October vote.

"At this point, it's sort of in limbo," Koch said. "We hope that it can be revived within the next 18 to 24 months."

The legislation allowing for the vote, sponsored last year by Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset), expires this month. New legislation would have to be passed for any future vote, Marcellino spokeswoman Kathy Wilson said.

Signatures on petitions will still be valid if last year's bill is reauthorized, said Kirk Ives, Marcellino's chief of staff.

Residents of Matinecock, Muttontown, Brookville, Upper Brookville and Old Brookville who live in the part of the Locust Valley School District that formerly was Brookville School District No. 3 would have voted on whether to create a library funding district.

If the district was approved, voters later would have decided on joining one of three nearby libraries: Oyster Bay-East Norwich, Locust Valley or Gold Coast in Glen Head. The three libraries had gathered 140 signatures in Muttontown, Matinecock, Brookville, Upper Brookville and Old Brookville by last month.

If voters had approved the funding district, their tax levy would have been the same as that for residents already served by the chosen library.

State law requires residents who don't pay into a library district be able to get limited-access cards through local systems. The number of Nassau residents not in a library district is now about 5,000, according to library officials.

At most branches, the nondistrict card simply allows basic borrowing, but not in-demand new arrivals and digital media, home access to Web databases and early program registration.