Hempstead Village hires community development consultant

The cash-strapped Hempstead Village Community Development Agency has hired a longtime community development expert as its consultant after the resignation last month of the former commissioner.

The agency's five-member board unanimously approved the appointment of Patti Bourne during a special meeting earlier this month to temporarily help the agency after Claude Gooding resigned May 24 after almost eight years, Mayor Wayne J. Hall Sr. said.

"I thought it was better that we go in a different direction, so he left," said Hall, who is chairman of the agency and requested Gooding's resignation. "This is my new term and I wanted to start anew."

Gooding said he has no hard feelings and that Bourne is his friend.

"The mayor wants to go in a different direction and I agreed to step down," Gooding said. "I have my doctorate and I will be providing consulting services in the field of planning and management."

Bourne, of Glen Cove, will work 10 to 15 hours a week and will earn $100 per hour to help get the agency in order and help find a new commissioner, Hall said.

Bourne is Long Beach's full-time economic development director, a position she started in May. She will continue working part-time as executive vice president of planning for the Kimmel Housing Development Foundation in Westbury, a nonprofit affordable housing agency she's been with since 2010.

Bourne was executive director of the Nassau County Planning Commission from 2002 to 2009 and director of the community development agencies in Babylon Town from 1997 to 2002 and in Glen Cove from 1994 to 1997.