Long Island Briefs

HEMPSTEAD: Village debt rating up

A Wall Street agency has upgraded Hempstead Village's debt rating by one notch, citing improved tax collection, reduced debt load and a strong surplus as reasons for the increase.

The credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor's assigned an A rating, four grades below its top score.

Hempstead Village Mayor Wayne Hall said the new rating will likely boost the municipality's chances of getting lower interest rates.

The village's credit outlook has improved steadily since 2006, when Moody's put some $40 million of Hempstead's bond debt on a "watch list" for possible downgrading to below investment grade.

"It's significant because it took us five years to get here from one step above junk bond [status]," Hall said.

The village expects to issue $6.75 million in bonds by this summer to pay for improvements to roads and sewers, buy a new fire truck and garbage trucks, and make other upgrades. - LAURA RIVERA

SAG HARBOR: Artist's Haiti fundraiser

Sag Harbor artist Jonathan Nash Glynn has created a nonprofit organization called Wings Over Haiti that is raising money in the East End communities for earthquake relief in Haiti.

The organization is holding its first fundraiser Thursday at 7 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, a Jazz Jamfest with local musicians.

Several more fundraisers are scheduled in coming weeks in Montauk and in East Hampton. For more information, go so wingsoverhaiti.org.

- DEBBIE TUMA

ISLIP: Rescuers to be honored

Town of Islip officials will honor members of New York Task Force 1, the elite search and rescue team of New York police officers and firefighters who rescued six people in Haiti after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, at a benefit concert Thursday in West Islip.

The town-sponsored concert will be held at 7 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School at 1170 Montauk Hwy. Proceeds will support UNICEF's relief efforts in Haiti, the town said. - JENNIFER MALONEY