Long Beach mulls marijuana reversal
Daily Point
Puff puff pass?
Among the intricacies of the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act that passed the State Legislature last year was a pathway for municipalities to opt out of cannabis sales — as well as some routes for those same municipalities to reverse themselves and opt back in.
Enter Long Beach.
The jurisdiction in Nassau County opted out by unanimous 5-0 votes of the city council on Dec. 21. After that, pro-pot-sales residents had 45 days to gather signatures to revisit the issue by ballot referendum. If they gathered enough signatures — 10% of the locality’s turnout in the last gubernatorial election, or around 1,200 signatures for Long Beach — overturning the opt-out would go on a general election ballot, likely in November.
Some Long Beach residents and supporters upset about the council’s vote decided to give signature gathering a shot in recent weeks, including Anne Flomenhaft, a Nassau County Democratic Socialists of America member whose day job is at a nonprofit that trains first- and second-generation Americans to run for office.
Flomenhaft told The Point that it made sense for Long Beach to have weed dispensaries, given the existing bar scene, the need for revenue and good jobs, and "righting those wrongs" of the long war on drugs. She said the county DSA "mobilized our list" to help get signatures.
But by the time the pot supporters digested the relevant provisions of municipal home rule law and mobilized, they faced challenges to get the batch of signatures, including stormy weather, cold temperatures and the omicron surge.
Flomenhaft said the signature-gatherers didn’t hit the automatic threshold, but submitted almost 700 to the city clerk on the Friday deadline, with the hope that it would encourage city leaders to try another route to allowing pot sales.
There is indeed another pathway: The local government body that passed the opt-out can "reverse that decision on their own even if there isn't a referendum," said Justin Flagg, an aide to State Sen. Liz Krueger, who sponsored the weed legislation.
In Long Beach that would entail the council doing a "simple repeal of the December legislation, along with enacting corresponding legislation on opting in," said Long Beach City Manager Donna M. Gayden in a statement.
That doesn’t appear to be on the horizon, however. Gayden’s statement said that the city clerk’s office is reviewing the submitted petitions, in consultation with corporation counsel. And before getting to a simple repeal, "this Council would want to see more detailed rules and regulations put forward by the State prior to considering any opt in."
— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
Talking Point
Wading in the SALT waters of CD3
Before announcing for governor, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) made SALT his political mantra.
Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the chamber approved a $1.75 trillion spending package that would have temporarily increased the GOP-imposed limit on the long-encoded state and local deduction from $10,000 to $80,000 through 2030.
The Senate looked to modify that so as not to give the richest taxpayers a break, and to exempt lower-income people from the limit. But nothing has passed.
Now the boundaries of Suozzi’s CD3 have been redrawn into a five-county Long Island Sound-surrounding domain that reaches all the way to wealthy enclaves in Westchester. That raises the question of how his would-be successors for his party’s nomination would prioritize the unfinished issue.
For Long Island, and much of the district’s new terrain, SALT remains a mom-and-apple-pie issue. Strategies for getting a change enacted, and the wider issue of taxes and local funding, have yet to be discussed in the young campaign.
Robert Zimmerman, a longtime Democratic National Committee member from Great Neck running in the primary, says he favors a "full restoration" of SALT, and would make it a top priority.
Democrat Melanie D’Arrigo, of Port Washington, emailed her position to the Point: "I support raising the SALT Cap. A full repeal overwhelmingly benefits the top sliver of the 1%. Raising the cap so it benefits middle-class families without benefiting billionaires is necessary for New York and other high cost of living states."
Democrat Josh Lafazan of Syosset said in a statement through his campaign strategist Max Kramer that "removing the cap on SALT" along with health care and fighting climate change, are "Democratic values" he supports.
Democrat Jon Kaiman, the former North Hempstead supervisor, said SALT "needs to be restored," and spoke of having worked, as an aide to Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, to help blunt the effects on a state level of losing full deductibility a few years ago.
The latest candidate in the mix, State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester in Albany, addresses the issue generically on her campaign website, mingling it with other economic issues.
"We must make the child tax credit permanent, raise the SALT cap to help middle class and first-time homeowners, and we need to build enough housing to keep rent costs and home prices affordable," Biaggi states.
These SALT stances have some grains of practical difference, at least so far.
— Dan Janison @Danjanison
Pencil Point
Puzzled patriot
Credit: Pensacola News Journal/Andy Marlette
For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons
Final Point
Troubled bridges over water, and roads
Last week’s collapse of the Forbes Avenue bridge in Frick Park in Pittsburgh was a chance for advocates, from President Joe Biden on, to highlight the nation’s older infrastructure, and the need for upgrades and improvements.
But on Long Island, only a handful of bridges are considered "structurally deficient," according to an updated report released late last month by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
ARTBA’s analysis highlights five problematic bridges in Nassau and Suffolk counties. But the definition of "bridges" is a loose one — including railroad bridges, highway and road overpasses and those that pass over bodies of water.
The troubled bridges include Barstow Road bridge over the Long Island Rail Road in Great Neck Plaza, Park Road over Connetquot Brook in Connetquot State Park, Lincoln Avenue bridge over Route 27 in Bohemia, William Floyd Parkway Bridge over Narrow Bay in Mastic Beach and Seawane Drive Bridge over Auerbach Channel in Hewlett.
According to ARTBA, the Nassau and Suffolk analysis, which comes from 2021 Federal Highway Administration data, marks an improvement from 2017, when 11 bridges were designated as structurally deficient.
"I think the state has done a very good job on the Long Island market," said Marc Herbst, who heads the Long Island Contractors’ Association. "They have made progress."
Herbst said that for some of the Island’s bridges, questions over jurisdiction may impact how quickly fixes are made, especially for those that might involve both state and locally owned property, or land owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
And Herbst noted that the Island has some problems with its bridges that go beyond structural disrepair, including drawbridges where the structure is sound but the mechanism might be faulty due to saltwater or other issues and a lack of redundancy in places like the Robert Moses Causeway, which can be concerning when major accidents and other problems occur., but would require more significant solutions, like a parallel span.
— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall
