Ocean Beach residents question plan to boost police spending
Mayor James Mallott listens during the Ocean Beach village board's meeting on Saturday, April 12, 2014. Credit: Ed Betz
Ocean Beach's proposed budget includes a tax hike and raises for village officials, but police spending drew the most concern during a public hearing Saturday.
The Fire Island village's $7.75 million fiscal 2014 budget includes a 7.8 percent property tax increase and significant raises for Mayor James Mallott and the four trustees.
If the budget is approved, Mallott would be paid $48,000 a year, up from about $36,000. Trustees would make $12,000 annually, up from $500.
The tax increase would come on top of a 13.5 percent increase last year, needed to help the community recover from superstorm Sandy.
Residents, however, seemed more critical about police spending increasing nearly $30,000 in 2014-15, to $867,411.
"I haven't seen any attempt to cut appropriations in the 18 years I've been here," said resident Andrew Was. "We have more police per capita here than in the city."
Board member Thomas Nolter disputed that. "All I can tell you is . . . I've called the police multiple times and they've always showed up," he said.
Mallott said the police department -- with a chief and three full-time officers -- recently unionized and added more dispatchers. He added that the village, the unofficial capital of Fire Island with almost 600 homes, 30 commercial buildings and a sizable year-round population, needs protection, especially while their Sandy-damaged homes are still being repaired or rebuilt.
"More people want to live here," Nolter said. "There are only 4,000 taxable pieces of property on Fire Island and 600 of them are here."
Without the village police force, Mallott said, residents would have to wait hours for a Suffolk County police officer to come from the mainland in an emergency.
"They're not coming for a noise complaint," he said.
One resident lodged an objection to some of the pay raises.
Judith Steinman said administrators deserve more pay but raises for trustees are "uncalled-for."
The board voted to continue the hearing at its next meeting on April 26.
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Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
