Reform bill -- or poison pill?

When the State Senate last week passed bill S-1824 and sent it on to the Assembly, chief sponsor Jack Martins (R-Mineola) hailed it as a way to bolster a 2-year-old reform law. "This bill," he stated, "strengthens the Citizen Empowerment Act and makes it clearer for our taxpayers."

That 2009 act, signed by then-Gov. David A. Paterson and championed by then-Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, prescribes a process for citizens to vote out of existence special districts, villages, or other local-government entities that they find extraneous.

But some Long Islanders who supported the act as written call S-1824 -- sponsored in the Assembly as A-1274 by Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck) -- a "poison pill" meant to stymie consolidations and protect fiefdoms.

Lawyer Paul Sabatino represents Suffolk residents who seek to abolish the Gordon Heights Fire District. He slams the bill's requirement that all petition signatures needed to force a dissolution vote be collected within a 60-day period. In Gordon Heights, using pre-2009 law, residents needed six months to get the petition process done, he said -- "and that was in a narrowly defined geographic region with impassioned people."

Activist Rosalie Hanson of Medford rhetorically asks: "What is the problem . . . [this] proposal is seeking to solve?"

Martins and Schimel see problems with an open-ended petition period, for one. Schimel cites, in part, the right in ballot processes to challenge a petition's validity. A petition process could hypothetically go on for years. If so, would it really speak for public opinion? "If the community feels strongly enough, 60 days should be an adequate period," says Martins spokesman Joseph Rizza.

Sponsors argue that a vote to dissolve an entity -- which requires signatures from 10 percent of those registered, or 5,000, whichever is less -- should be followed by a vote on merger details. Their bill would require this second referendum.

State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials executive director Peter Baynes said nine of 10 upstate efforts to merge villages have been voted down so far. Baynes backs amending the act; so do associations representing towns and fire districts.

That's no surprise to Laura Mallay of South Hempstead, executive director of Residents for Efficient Special Districts, who says, "These special taxing districts are strong voting blocs for elected officials."

The bill is before the Assembly Local Governments Committee.