Good evening.           Tonight, I am privileged to have my third opportunity to offer my thoughts on the state of our Village.  I want to concentrate on the changes Rockville Centre is undergoing and how we can respond to them, both as a municipality and as individuals.           It should be clear to everyone that local government, no less than our fellow residents and local businesses, must share in meeting the challenges of a weakened economy. Our situation is essentially the same as last year: revenues are down from all sources and our expenses are increasing.  Though we are all looking for hopeful signs of economic recovery, the news from Washington, D.C.,  Albany and Nassau County is mixed at best.  As a Village we must be realistic because there are no quick answers to the financial situation we are in.   These circumstances require us to be very careful in all of the decisions we make on behalf of our fellow residents. We are in a transition to a new and more prudent way of conducting business.

          The Village budget, passed last spring and that will be in effect until May 31, was responsible and austere.

We reduced the tax rate increase to below 6 percent by eliminating  additional full time positions, by imposing additional belt-tightening on Village departments and by postponing certain other expenses.

          There were no one-shot revenue enhancements and, for the first time in many years, we did not use any surplus funds to balance the budget.

This year, in preparation for the next budget, the Board of Trustees and I, as well as all the Village department heads and the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee will look to achieving the same ends: a responsible, restrained budget, one that supports the excellent municipal services that make Rockville Centre such a desirable place to live and work. We must maintain our infrastructure and our municipal departments because they sustain our strong property values and the character of our Village.

But to do all that, we must increase the tax rate. There is no way around our responsibility to pay for our services and to invest in our community – now and for the future.

          Even with the need for austerity, Rockville Centre moved ahead on several fronts last year:

•        We improved our infrastructure by repaving three-quarters of a mile of roadway, including the installation of some new water mains and the upgrading of electrical equipment below the ground.

•        We finished the maintenance, rehabilitation and repainting  of the water tank and tower on Maple Avenue.

However, these improvements are costly. The road repairs came to $1.6 million, mostly paid for by bonds that we will pay back over the next 15 years. The water tower repairs came to $2 million, that’s nearly twice what it cost to construct the entire Sunrise Highway water tower 20 years ago. This, too, was paid for with bonds.  The repayment of a portion of these bonds becomes part of our property tax obligation.

For next year we have approved a $6.5 million bond issue that will finance even more roadway work, water main replacement and electrical upgrades, as well as improvements in the Parks and Recreation Department, the Public Works Department and the Fire Department.

Thanks to the Village’s above average wealth and income levels, our historically solid financial management, our low debt burden and our rapid repayment of debt, both bond rating agencies, Moody's and Standard and Poor’s, reaffirmed our very high credit ratings this year.

These ratings keep credit available to the Village at reasonable rates of interest, when we finance capital improvement projects.   But our current admirable ratings can only be maintained by restraining expenses and building our reserves. Our Village is 116 years old, so for both the short and long term we will need to keep going to the bond market as we care for our aging infrastructure.  The ratings agencies and underwriters expect to see our budgets remain well controlled and that our reserves indicate that we have sufficient resiliency to respond to unforeseeable events and circumstances

In other operational areas last year, we were able to economize while improving our services:

•        Last Fall, the Department of Public Works made free firewood available to residents. The wood comes from downed trees cleared from Village streets and from routine pruning, reducing the cost of disposing of accumulated debris and providing a benefit to residents.

•        The Village began a new sanitation contract in late August that could save us more than three hundred thousand dollars a year in disposal fees. Under the new contract the basic disposal fee was reduced by 25 percent, transportation costs were significantly reduced, the recycling program was expanded and curbside pick-up of leaves was made easier, eliminating the expense of special leaf bags. 

But to fully take advantage of this new contract, we need the cooperation

and participation of all of our residents.

Most of us are using the blue bins every week for glass, cans and plastics. But not everyone is yet separating and saving cardboard and paper products for the curbside pick-ups on Wednesdays.

          We can easily save an additional $100,000 to $200,000 a year which would significantly help our budget and lower any tax rate increase.

          In 2010 we will continue to make these appeals to save all cardboard and paper product packaging for Wednesday morning curbside pick-up along with old newspapers, all glossy catalogues and magazines and even junk mail and office waste.

          If you are unsure about our recycling programs, visit the Village website for a full explanation of what to recycle and when to do it.

          Citizen participation is an essential part of municipal government. Too often we may think of local government as our servant, rather than as a partner. Compounding the issue is what has been called “just-in-time” thinking that leads us to believe that government can magically fix any disruption in our daily routine.

          Village government, through our dedicated managers, employees and volunteers, does provide essential services: electricity, water, sewers and drainage, ambulance service, police and fire protection, sanitation pick up and clean streets.

          But few of us notice all the information Village government makes available about how to use these services efficiently and cooperatively: not just our recycling programs, but holiday sanitation schedules (unfortunately, even when we called every home in the Village, some still had the wrong days), how to remove snow from sidewalks and driveways (please don’t throw it in the street) and, more importantly,  how to make the right call in medical emergencies (see the insert in the February issue of This Month in Rockville Centre).

          Government services are no substitute for individual preparedness, responsibility and engagement. Even as government prepares itself for foreseeable but potentially dangerous circumstances, so, too, should our residents:

          None of us can control weather events such as snow, hurricanes, heat waves or unusually heavy rainstorms or keep them from happening.  And though our excellent police force does everything in its power, crimes will still occur. There are hazards and dangers in the world that individuals need to anticipate and prepare themselves to cope with. Individuals need some resiliency in dealing with the world no less than governments.

          The resilience of the American people was the subject of an article in the Journal of Foreign Affairs which pointed out the need for greater self-reliance and resourcefulness in facing both natural disasters and the increased likelihood of domestic terrorism.

          The Village is fully engaged in training its employees in the National Incident Command System, a program of the National Incident Management System established by the Department of Homeland Security.

          At the individual level, residents should also prepare themselves and their families for emergencies. The American Red Cross recommends creating a family emergency contact plan, making a three-day emergency kit as well as having a “go-bag” when evacuation is necessary. Direct links to all the information for following these recommendations is available on the Village’s website or on the American Red Cross website.

          Residents who feel a call to a greater commitment to the welfare of their neighbors should consider volunteering for either the Rockville Centre Fire Department or the Rockville Centre Auxiliary Police. Both of these organizations provide invaluable service, both will train volunteers, both need your help and both provide a sense of engagement and accomplishment you will find nowhere else.  Nassau County also provides training for Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), which will be offered in Rockville Centre this spring, and information is available on the Nassau County website for this program.

Civic participation is more than just voting. We need you to participate in the life of our community in as many ways as you can: volunteering for local organizations, attending our annual special events, following Village government, patronizing Village businesses, taking advantage of our many recreational, civic and cultural opportunities, staying current with the information provided in our newsletter, on our website and on our cable channel.

          Other models for citizen engagement include FOSSI, the Friends of Senior Services, Inc., which year after year has supported the department and the Sandel Center with such projects as acquiring buses and building the garden park and which this year raised funds that helped complete a much needed 470-square-foot expansion to the Center, at no cost to Village taxpayers.

          Such community participation was cited as one of the reasons that the Sandel Center’s accreditation was renewed in 2009 by the National Institute of Senior Centers, a division of the National Council on Aging. The Sandel Center was the first senior facility on Long Island to win accreditation and the Department of Senior Services has done an outstanding job maintaining that status with its many community outreach programs that link our senior population to service professionals in government and higher education.

Another model and another opportunity to contribute to the community are our citizen committees that advise the Board of Trustees. I am especially proud of the creation of the Rockville Centre Conservancy last year, an evolution of the former Environmental and Beautification Committee. 

This new organization is a not-for-profit corporation which was formed to assist and advise the Board of Trustees and the Parks and Recreation Department. The Conservancy is made up of residents who want to promote the development, preservation, restoration and maintenance of our parks and recreation facilities, the open space in our community and historic sites in the Village.

I also want to commend the youth and adult volunteers under the leadership of Beth Hammerman who have formed and are incorporating the RVC Youth Council as an independent organization.  This group is dedicated to strengthening family bonds and offering attractive and fun activities for our young people as an alternative to destructive and dangerous behaviors.

          These are all examples of citizen participation that provide a level of community resiliency and support of Village operations.  In fact they do even more – they enrich the lives of all in our community.

A different kind of resiliency can be seen in the way that the Village trains and nurtures its employees for the inevitable turnover in personnel. The Village faced major changes this year in the Police Department and in the Village Administration:

•        Our Deputy Clerk / Treasurer, Carol Kramer, retired last year after working in Village Hall for almost 38 years. She was responsible for the Village’s payroll and personnel and dealing with Civil Service issues. She supervised the cashier’s office and oversaw Village elections, among many other duties.

          She was replaced by Monica Farrell Derr who knows the Village well, having served as the administrative assistant to the Village Administrator and as the secretary to the Board of Trustees since 2002; she had worked as well with the Village Engineer / Deputy Village Administrator and (briefly) as secretary to the mayor since coming to Rockville Centre in 1996.

•        Our Village Engineer and Deputy Village Administrator Steve Kritsas, who worked for the Village for 23 years, also retired. He was a professional engineer who came to us in 1986 by way of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the City of New York. He supervised a workforce of 105, oversaw all the Village’s construction projects and was responsible for the Village’s electric and water utilities, its sanitation and public works departments.

He was replaced by Paul Pallas who had been the superintendent of the Rockville Centre Electric Department for 14 years. He is also a professional engineer and has 27 years of electric and gas utility experience. He is an especially knowledgeable administrator who serves as president of the Board of Directors of the New York Association of Public Power and is on the Board of Directors of the American Public Power Association, which represents more than 2,000 community-owned electric utilities in the United States.

•        In the Police Department three senior officers, including the commissioner, retired and four more patrol officers also concluded long careers in Rockville Centre.

          The department will miss Commissioner Jack McKeon and his executive officer Inspector Richard Fantry who both began their police careers in Rockville Centre on the same day in February 1973. McKeon was the longest serving commissioner in Village history and guided the department during an era of historic reductions in criminal activity and was a leader in thoroughly professionalizing the department, which earned accreditation and reaccreditation from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, one of only two departments in the region to be so certified.

          Earlier this month we swore in new commissioner Charles A. Gennario, formerly a senior lieutenant in the department and a retired Marine lieutenant colonel, who has been on the Rockville Centre police force since 1986.

          Commissioner Gennario in turn swore in his new executive officer, Inspector Glenn Quinn, who also has more than 24 years of service in the department; Sgt. Chris Romance and Sgt. Jim Vafeades were promoted to lieutenant; and Officers Ralph DiCosimo and Rick Brussell were promoted to sergeant.

In all these cases we have promoted from within the department, from within the Village family, choosing those whose professional careers were shaped and guided by a highly professional and successful command structure.  We are secure in our selection of these individuals because they also competed for their positions against others from outside the Village and, as the saying goes, “the cream rose to the top.”

          Despite the economic difficulties we are all living through, Rockville Centre remains a vigorous and vibrant community:

         • Molloy College is expanding.  Its new programs and students

will invigorate the Village’s educational and cultural life.

• AvalonBay is remediating the old Darby Drug property, the

Planning Board has approved the developer’s site plan and a building permit is expected soon.

• New restaurants continue to locate in our downtown and some

existing ones have enlarged their capacity and services.

• PC Richard has expanded its operation and new retailers are

locating here.

• A new party and paper goods retailer will soon open and another

new bank is slated to open this year.

• The very popular Farmers’ Market has completed a successful

year of operation in Parking Field #12 and will be back for another season of Sundays in 2010.