Bethpage mosque controversy seeps into local elections

Daily Point

Oyster Bay Town officials scheduled to testify in trial

As early voting in local elections gets underway this weekend, Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino, Nassau County Legis. Rose Marie Walker and Oyster Bay Town Councilman Louis Imbroto are candidates who may be preparing for a different sort of campaign.

A trial that will decide the legal fight over a Bethpage mosque’s expansion efforts is scheduled to begin next Monday in federal court in Central Islip. Both sides have waived a jury.

And Saladino, Walker and Imbroto, all incumbents on this year’s ballot, are on the witness list.

Attorneys for Masjid Al-Baqi and the mosque’s owners, Muslims on Long Island Inc., have previously said they expect to call Walker to testify regarding the review of MOLI’s application and to the reasons behind the town planning advisory board’s denial of that application.

That denial cited the supposed testimony of a grandmother who said she was “unable to fit down the residential streets with the overflow parking from the place of worship” while dropping her grandchildren off at day care. No such testimony existed in records of the planning board hearings. But town officials then said that Walker was the grandmother — and had conveyed that opinion in separate conversations.

Oyster Bay’s attorneys also have Walker on their witness list, saying she’d testify to “genuine and serious facts and concerns regarding lack of sufficient parking, safety of pedestrians and others, and traffic safety risks and conditions.”

Saladino, meanwhile, is listed as a potential witness for the mosque’s case.

“Plaintiffs will call Mr. Saladino to testify concerning the Town’s decision to enter into and then break off a settlement agreement reached with Plaintiffs in August 2025.”

But Oyster Bay’s outside counsel filed a motion to prevent Saladino from testifying, saying the settlement itself wasn’t relevant to the case and that such testimony could violate legislative privilege and immunity. The court has yet to rule on that motion.

Imbroto, meanwhile, is expected to testify for the town about his knowledge of the mosque’s existing buildings and conversations he allegedly had with members of the mosque in which they supposedly said they didn’t really need a building as big as the one they were proposing. According to the witness list, Imbroto will also testify regarding “the complete and total lack of discrimination or animus attributable to the Town or [planning board].”

Other town employees and members of the town planning advisory board are on the witness list.

In a pretrial conference held last week, the attorneys and Judge Sanket J. Bulsara discussed the town’s vote earlier this month to amend a parking ordinance that’s at the heart of the trial — an amendment that extended its parking formula to apply not only to religious institutions, but to theaters, libraries and other institutions.

Bulsara expressed concern about the town’s move.

“Intervening facts can be dangerous things for both sides,” he said of the idea of changing the law while the case was pending. “It can lead to more discovery. It can lead to opening the record or reopening the record ... It can lead to upending the case. It can lead to all kinds of things that increase costs and turn a case on its head.”

In a follow-up order, Bulsara ruled that the change allows for further discovery, writing: “The Town cannot simultaneously use the changed ordinance as a sword and shield themselves from discovery,” and noting that it reveals a “more than abstract question about whether the Plaintiffs can claim the purpose of the change was solely for litigation advantage or not and whether the Town will revert back to the prior ordinance following the litigation.”

Bulsara’s reminder that the change could increase the cost of the trial could mean something for Oyster Bay taxpayers, who are already on the hook for millions of dollars for the case’s litigation. Sources told The Point that the mosque’s side could end up with more than $10 million in legal fees. According to a Newsday report, Oyster Bay has been billed $387,000 by outside counsel alone, a total that does not include the work town attorneys have done.

“Although the attorneys for the mosque are churning legal fees in an effort to exhaust the town, we demand that any expansion meet current zoning laws that were designed to allow for reasonable development while not putting the safety of residents in jeopardy,” Oyster Bay spokesman Brian Nevin said in a statement.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

A steal!

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Final Point

Date to be set for Blakeman deposition in militia lawsuit

While Oyster Bay officials may be on the witness stand in federal court before Election Day, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has dodged a similar ordeal in a lawsuit brought in state court over his controversial creation in March 2024 of a special unit of armed sheriff's deputies that he can press into service during emergencies. The lawsuit by county legislators Scott Davis and Debra Mulé, both Democrats, argues that the deputies' program, whose details are shrouded in secrecy, is a waste of money and is illegal since it was not authorized by the Nassau Legislature and the state.

Blakeman was to have given a sworn deposition on Oct. 28 and while that proceeding is not open to the public, a transcript of the questions and the county executive's answers would have been entered into the public record soon afterward. But Blakeman's attorneys then filed a new claim that the Democrats' lawsuits violated Blakeman’s First Amendment speech rights. That legal maneuver effectively derailed the deposition schedule. Since then, Nassau state Supreme Court Justice Gary M. Carlton denied Blakeman’s First Amendment claims. A new date for Blakeman's deposition will be discussed at a pretrial conference next week.

What would Blakeman have been asked about? It’s likely to be documents turned over by the county that say the deputies have police powers, including the use of deadly force. Plaintiff's attorney Josh Kellner said training materials turned over were "incredibly scattershot instructions on the deputies' responsibilities" and that shooting training included "less than a day on the range" used by the Nassau County Police Department.

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com

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