Curtis update: The man, and the horse, are still running

Daily Point

Will Saturday’s third race at Aqueduct foreshadow the mayoralty’s outcome?

On Saturday, when early voting gets underway, a horse called "Run Curtis Run" is scheduled to do just that in the New York Turf Sprint Championship at Aqueduct Racetrack.

The name is a hat tip to Curtis Sliwa, who’s the Republican New York City mayoral candidate. Even as a dark horse in the polls, Sliwa is considered likely to do well in neighborhoods near the track such as Ozone Park and South Ozone Park.

The horse’s co-owner is Michael Dubb, a Long Island developer, and founder and chief executive of the Beechwood Organization, which has built thousands of homes. He’s also a successful horse owner who’s been a member of the New York Racing Association board since 2008.

Reached for comment on Wednesday, Dubb explained the name goes four years back to when the famous red-bereted founder of the Guardian Angels group got 28% against Democrat Eric Adams, the current mayor, who is now out of the running.

"I’ve been a supporter of the Guardian Angels for years," Dubb explained. "This horse has been around long enough that the name is from the last time Curtis ran," which was in 2021. "This horse is a little like Curtis who has been around forever."

Will Dubb be backing Sliwa in the election? "No," he said.

Why not?

"I think that’s obvious," he said. Dubb declined to elaborate. But it’s a safe bet he’s referring to Sliwa’s chances of defeating the front-runner, Assemb. Zohran Mamdani. The democratic socialist may be the favorite of the oddsmakers, but he is not known to be galvanizing enthusiasm among the region’s top housing developers.

Ex-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who lost the June Democratic primary to Mamdani, is running now as an independent and has pushed — to no avail — for Sliwa to declare himself a late scratch. Sliwa refuses and remains the choice of the city and state GOP’s leadership. (Having a Republican president is proving no help in the homestretch.)

A new poll from AARP and Gotham Polling shows Mamdani continues to hold a strong lead with 43.2% against 28.9% for Cuomo, and 19.4% for Sliwa.

Odds for that Saturday race at Aqueduct are awaited, so we don’t know if they’ll be any better than those facing the horse’s namesake.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Built in where?

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Final Point

Mosque settlement, take two

The second effort at a settlement between the Town of Oyster Bay and the owners of a Bethpage mosque seems likely to stick, The Point was told, especially after the town board voted Tuesday 6-1 in favor of the agreement to end the controversy.

There seems to be something in the deal for everyone.

Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said during Tuesday’s town board meeting that the agreement contained "what the community has asked for ... a much higher level of safety."

The settlement came just days before the start of early voting. Saladino, town board member Louis Imbroto and county Legis. Rose Marie Walker are all up for reelection and were all expected to testify if the mosque case went to trial.

Town officials can celebrate traffic- and parking-related improvements, including an added caution light, enhanced crosswalk and a mosque-paid-for crossing guard for 18 months. The deal also details a promised reduction in the size of the above-ground building to 9,995 square feet, which in turn, the agreement says, allows for additional parking spaces on the property, and an occupancy cap at 295 people, down from 464. The settlement also includes an agreement to avoid "non-simultaneous use during peak prayer times" — meaning that classes or other events can’t go on in the building during the busiest services.

But those changes don’t appear to be significant when compared with the initial mosque proposal, as described on Masjid Al-Baqi’s website. The proposed mosque, according to that description, was to include two floors and a basement, with 5,300 square feet per floor — putting the initial above-ground total at 10,600. On its site, the mosque noted that its busiest service on Fridays usually includes up to 225 people — below the new occupancy cap — and that service takes place long before after-school programs.

Town and mosque officials had initially agreed to a settlement in August, which included a crossing guard and the payment of $3.95 million in legal fees, but Oyster Bay officials backed out of the deal less than two weeks later, citing additional traffic and safety concerns. The unraveling of that deal came amid anti-mosque and, at times, anti-Muslim backlash from town residents.

This time, sources said, Saladino spoke with community stakeholders to explain why the deal was a good one.

The new settlement leaves to arbitration the amount of legal fees the town will reimburse to Muslims on Long Island Inc.

The Point previously reported that lawyer fees the organization racked up to pursue the mosque’s right to build could be more than $10 million if the case went to trial. The Point was told that the mounting legal cost, which the town likely could have been fully responsible for if it lost at trial, was a "significant factor" in the effort to reach a settlement.

Sources said that even as a trial loomed, negotiations regarding a settlement were ongoing. Part of the delay was due to the need for Nassau County’s involvement and approval, related to expanding parking on the site and the caution yellow light to be placed on Stewart Avenue, a county road. Once the county provided its OK, the final settlement was able to move forward.

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

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