Port Washington Police Athletic League sues sewer district as standoff over Sunset Park continues

The future of the Port Washington Police Athletic League is uncertain after the league refused to sign a new license agreement with the Port Washington Water Pollution Control District, which owns the facilities where the youth sports league has played its games for decades.

The sewer district demanded that PAL “vacate the baseball field, the basketball court and the buildings at Sunset Park” if it did not sign the agreement by Dec. 8.

Now, PAL is suing the district for “abuse of discretion” and calling on the district to “restore and maintain” the league’s “access to and use of the Sunset Park recreational facilities,” according to a lawsuit filed in Nassau Supreme Court on Monday.

“Respondents conditioned [PAL’s] continued use of Sunset Park on shifting, standardless ‘compliance’ demands that were irrational and not within PWPAL's unilateral ability to satisfy,” Matthew Feinman, the league's Carle Place-based attorney, wrote in the court papers.

Tensions between the league and the district became inflamed last year amid the public infighting between Brandon Kurz, then a sewer district commissioner, and Arduino Marinelli and Melanie Cassens, the district’s two other commissioners. Marinelli and Cassens accused Kurz, then the executive director of PAL, of harboring a conflict of interest.

The district passed a resolution Sept. 9 outlining the new license agreement with PAL that included several terms Feinman characterized in the lawsuit as "leverage-driven demands": PAL would need to expand its board from three members to five within six months; PAL would need to provide quarterly reports detailing participants and detailed revenues, audit rights and expenses; and PAL officials would need to "refrain" from disparaging sewer district officials in the public sphere.

District officials were "attempting to condition continued access on acceptance of new, unilateral terms without producing any record-based rationale," Feinman stated in the lawsuit.

Steven Leventhal, the sewer district's Roslyn-based attorney, declined to comment on the merits of the lawsuit but said in an interview the Sept. 9 resolution "speaks for itself."

PAL has played youth sports games at Sunset Park for at least 70 years, according to the lawsuit.

"Disruption to [PAL's] access will immediately derail scheduled youth seasons, registrations, staffing, and logistics in a way that cannot be repaired after the fact," the lawsuit states. "Respondents have not proceeded through a transparent, rule-bound process. Instead, Respondents have advanced shifting and standardless compliance demands."

Marinelli and Cassens did not respond to a request for comment. 

The lawsuit represents the latest chapter in the struggle between the two organizations. 

Kurz stepped down from his role as executive director in July, he previously told Newsday, and assumed the role on a volunteer basis. He said Marinelli and Cassens accused him of the conflict of interest to distract from his claim that the district was actively looking to transfer the park to the Town of North Hempstead.

Marinelli previously told Newsday the district has discussed transferring the park to the town in 2023, but not since. Kevin Higgins, a town spokesperson, previously told Newsday the town had no interest in the park. 

Stu Lieblein, president of PAL, said in an interview he believed the license agreement was "not done in good faith" and represented "political retaliation" for Cassens and Marinelli against Kurz. 

Kurz lost reelection last month to Joseph D'Alonzo, president of Cow Bay Contracting. D'Alonzo received 947 votes to Kurz's 303, according to district officials.

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.