No 'room' for Santos

Daily Point

Santos can’t get a meeting … room

Within the last month, Rep. George Santos has attempted to schedule public gatherings or town hall events at town-owned sites in Hempstead and Oyster Bay, multiple sources have told The Point.

In both cases, the towns turned Santos down.

Sources tell The Point that Santos sought a public meeting room space in the Town of Hempstead, which contains just a small piece of this district, about a month ago — and that his request was rejected.

One source told The Point that when asked whether such a request should be granted to a member of the House, the source responded, “Let him sue us if he feels we must let him in here.”

“His conduct during the election and since he’s been a congressman has been disgraceful,” the source said. “We don’t want to encourage that conduct nor bring that kind of controversy into our facilities.”

In Oyster Bay, Santos sought use of the Hicksville community center. It happened that the center was booked on the initial date Santos picked, but sources told The Point the town had no plans to make any effort to reschedule or provide Santos with alternative dates.

In both towns, sources said, officials continue to go to Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a former Hempstead Town board member, with constituent concerns and needs, such as passport delays or scheduling White House tours. The one exception, one source noted, is that West Point recruits are required to go through their home congressman. So, those requests continue to go to Santos.

“In that case, he’s their only option,” the source said.

The continued avoidance of Santos comes as political players jockey for position for the CD3 seat. But whether Santos will vacate his seat early, leading to a special election, or serve out his term remains up in the air.

Either way, whoever takes his spot might have better luck booking a town community center or meeting room than Santos.

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

Pencil Point

The 'bite' house

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Reference Point

Moses' Lloyd Neck project was no walk in the park

Newsday’s editorials rarely begin with a quote. But the piece that appeared on July 27, 1960, opened with this:

“You always step on somebody’s toes when you start a project. But if you’re going to stop every time there is opposition, you’ll never get anywhere.”

If you are thinking to yourself that those words sound like they could have been uttered by Robert Moses, you’ve qualified for an advanced degree in Long Island history. The “great parks-parkway builder,” as Newsday’s board called him in a piece titled “Let’s Have That Park!”, made the comment in response to local opposition to his plan to convert the Marshall Field Estate in Lloyd Neck to a state park. The Fields' heirs preferred that option over proposals favored by other property owners in Lloyd Harbor to subdivide the land for building homes.

Newsday’s board sided colorfully with Moses.

“The question that strikes us is: How stupid and shortsighted can people be?” the board wrote. “A state park is a sightly, beautiful project in which the utmost care is used to preserve the scenic surroundings and to insure the peace and quiet of all private neighbors.”

Development on Long Island has always taken place along that fault line between the competing needs for housing and quiet natural places. In this case, the board chose nature. “A private housing development,” it claimed, “will impose an intolerable demand upon the schools, will result in far worse traffic problems on the surface roads, and in the long run will shoot up taxes unbearably.”

To buttress its argument, the board recounted the establishment some 30 years earlier of Heckscher State Park, once the 19th century estates of George C. Taylor and J. Neal Blum. Wealthy local residents “put up a ferocious battle,” as the board put it, against Moses’ plan to make the East Islip spot a park, a fight that did not end until Gov. Al Smith got involved to help close the deal.

“The park has since become one of the great and cherished assets of the South Shore,” the board wrote.

Heckscher is part of a rich Long Island history of property that once belonged to wealthy owners becoming public parks or facilities. Sands Point Preserve, Old Westbury Gardens, the Nassau County Museum of Art, Planting Fields Arboretum, Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium, and Bayard Cutting Arboretum are among public Long Island treasures whose private owners had names like Phipps, Frick, Vanderbilt, Guggenheim and Coe.

In Lloyd Harbor, Moses got his way as he so often did. The state acquired the estate in 1961. And today, the woodlands, meadows, shoreline, gardens, trails and bridle paths of Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve are enjoyed by hundreds of thousands every year — nearly 688,000 visitors in 2022 alone.

In retrospect, Newsday’s board back in 1960 was prescient.

“Ten years from now,” the board wrote, “it will be interesting to note how accustomed to the park will be those who now object so loudly and foolishly to it.”

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com, Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com