LIA development confab doesn't please all

In the approximately seven months since Kevin Law took over as president of the Long Island Association, the region's largest businesses and civic organization, he has focused on consensus. He got  leaders of the Island's five largest educational and research institutions to sit down and talk. He also got  heads of the largest business groups to meet.

But when he tried the same thing with the local Industrial Development Agencies, not everyone saw fit to participate. Law held a meeting last week with the Nassau, Suffolk, Babylon, Islip, and Brookhaven IDAs, which facilitate economic development. The Hempstead IDA declined to attend. Hempstead IDA executive director Fred Parola was unhappy with the idea of the meeting.

"I just thought it was totally inappropriate for Mr. Law" to hold the meeting, Parola said. The IDAs had held meetings in the past under the auspices of what was then called the Long Island Partnership, which has since dissolved. "That was a total waste of time," Parola said of those sessions. The IDAs are already holding meetings, Parola said, adding the LIA can add little. "I think the IDA [leaders] are adults, and we can handle things on our own."

Law said he wasn't trying to resurrect the failed Long Island Partnership. "I was trying to put together a coalition of regional importance. Hempstead wasn't impressed."

Jim Morgo, chairman of Suffolk's IDA, was. "It was incredibly productive," Morgo said of the meeting. "We have to do it again."