News: Nassau County Still In Financial Crisis

(Long Island, N.Y.)Reports show that things are looking bad for Nassau County Executive, Edward P. Mangano, in regards to keeping the 2011 budget out of the hands of NIFA. Mangano has until Thursday, Jan. 20, to prove that the budget is balanced and without a $26 million (1%) increase in deficit. Latest news on the story has updated that success for Nassau’s current legislature is becoming more unlikely.

Mangano entered the county position amidst controversy, winning the ballot by 386 votes in an election year when less that 30% of the electorate turned out, beating the incumbent, Thomas R. Suozzi. Nassau County has an estimated two million residents, and is one of the four richest counties in the country. Many say that this means that a shortage in revenue is not the source of the county’s financial difficulties.

The question concerning the involvement of NIFA, a state-run safety net organization made in 2000 based on the NYC Financial Control Board, is double-sided. While many are welcoming a possible shift in power, putting the finances of the county into the hands of the state, many question what good the state can do amidst its own financial sagas. How sensitive will NIFA, based out of Albany, be to the needs of Long Islanders?

Some of the designs of NIFA include putting a wage-freeze on employees of the public sector and re-opening labor contracts. NIFA is equipped to give legal authority, free of political limitations, in acting speedily with the intentions of the budget no matter how unfavorable. NIFA doesn’t have the political figurehead of Mangano for the public to direct its frustrations. It offers bond-purchasers and money-lenders a greater sense of security that their loans will be repaid.

Nonetheless, Nassau faces a heap of troubles which are new to a county history that dates back longer than a century. House values are decreasing, along with retirement savings, and more big cuts and layoffs gloom into the future. The county’s credit is suffering, making it more difficult and expensive to fund county operations, which reflects back on Albany and adds to state problems.

Mangano has talked of sewing NIFA before fully fleshing out plans to reduce spending. A decade ago, the county experienced a $100 million bailout from Albany. Since then, the state has run dry. Mangano seemed like the solution to Nassau County’s troubles, being a forty-eight year old, self-made property lawyer who worked as a janitor during his high school years in order to pay for college.

Of course, Mangano can easily apply the excuse that the county was in terrible shape when he entered office, and in doing so, avert all blame. But, then again, so can Suozzi. Like his predecessor, Mangano ran on an anti-tax platform; but he has planned the 2011 budget with an anticipated increase in sales tax.

Some solutions many have proposed include cutting the expenses of the Nassau County Police Department. Police salaries have averaged over $125,000 a year with pensions reaching up to $100,000. Many feel that county employees have long been over-paid and under-worked. Cutting county workers and teacher salaries have been suggested to boost revenue. Some have suggested grouping together school districts with less than 2,500 students to cut individual expenses.

Really, the issues involved with the Nassau County 2011 budget date back ages. Many officials have promised an end to certain tax increases, only to realize it’s the most efficient way to balance a budget when spending habits aren’t curbed. It’s not so easy to cut the kind of services people are used to having and have grown dependent on. Everyone wants the services; it’s just that no one wants to pay for them.

News: Former CBS Newsman Dies on LI

(Long Island, N.Y.) The former CBS Newsman, Richard Threlkeld, was killed Friday morning in a car accident on Long Island. The seventy-four-year-old had worked for CBS for more than twenty-five years, reporting on both the evening and Sunday morning news. He also reported for ABC news before returning to CBS.

The accident occurred between eight and eighth-thirty in Amagansett. Threlkeld had been traveling north on Cross Highway when his Mini Cooper collided with a propane truck. The driver of the truck was a fifty-four-year-old man from Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

According to the East Hampton Town Police, who responded to the scene, Threlkeld was rushed to Southampton Hospital where he was pronounced dead. They had been asking for any witnesses to the crash, which is still under investigation. Threlkeld was a resident of East Hampton.

Threlkeld was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and later studied journalism at Northwestern University. After a lengthy and memorable reporting career in broadcast news, he retired in 1998. According to reports, he is known for being the most experienced journalist in combat broadcast.

He was a pioneer journalist of the Persian Gulf War, and reported live from the front during ground combat operations. He also reported from the Kuwait-Iraq border and from Kuwait City immediately after it had been liberated.

Threlkeld was a reporter, anchor, and bureau chief during coverage of the Vietnam War. In 1975 he was the last reporter to be evacuated when the Vietnamese cities were taken by Communist forces. He was also among those who covered the United States occupation of Panama and Grenada.

Survived by his wife of twenty-eight years, two children, and two grandchildren, Threlkeld will be known for his reporting on the Patty Hearst kidnapping and trial. His coverage of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and execution of Gary Gilmore is also memorable. Threlkeld was a reporter for the Barry Goldwater/Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton presidential campaigns.

News: MTA Hearing For Christmas Blizzard

(Long Island, N.Y.)Part Two of the New York City Council hearings took place today at 10am to discuss the MTA‘s unsatisfactory response to the blizzard that left parts of the city covered in more than two feet of snow. The previous hearing, held on Monday, questioned Bloomberg’s commissioners on their decision not to declare a state of emergency in NYC at the time of the blizzard. Unlike the first hearing, today’s was open for commuters to discuss the troubles they faced throughout the city during the storm and its aftermath.

MTA chief, Jay Walder, admitted to mistakes made in dealing with the storm during the holiday weekend, such as waiting until drifts piled before assuming a more timely response. The MTA has been accused of having overtime costs prevent them from responding quickly and efficiently. Today’s meeting was handled by James Vacca, the democratic City Council Transportation Committee Chair out of the Bronx, who grilled the MTA for the following reasons:

With subways stranded, more than 1,000 buses were stuck in the city during the blizzard. Buses were continually sent out after hundreds were left in the streets, unable to travel through the heavy snowfall. Older city buses are only equipped to handle a mere two inches of snow, which is less than ten times the amount New Yorkers had to face during the storm. Newer, electric buses are not built to handle snow because their wheels are smaller and they only have a one gear setting.

Some MTA passengers waited over nineteen hours – all night – on a freezing train. Some were stuck on an A train in Queens, where the snowfall was at its heaviest, for seven hours. MTA workers reasoned that it may have been safer to remain inside. Nonetheless, fifteen-minute commutes lasted as long as an hour and a half during the blizzard. Commuters did not get refunds for MTA services on their Metro Cards, even in the cases of service interruptions, in addition to a $0.25 fare increase.

Perhaps the reason for such a slow response to one of the worst blizzards ever to hit the city is the decision not to put the MTA on Red Alert despite conditions that were clearly enough for Red Alert status. At the time of the blizzard, the city was on Blue Alert at a Level One, and was later changed to Level Four. But, as Vacca points out, this decision was something that came “too little too late” during such a major storm.

To put into perspective the magnitude of the failings of the MTA system: New Yorkers leave subway stations and buses over 7.5 million times a day; during the blizzard, there were over 8.5 million users of MTA services. It’s no wonder reports say the MTA faces lawsuits from some of these passengers.

Prior to this morning’s hearing, the MTA labor union conducted a meeting to discuss problems workers faced during the Christmas blizzard. As one worker points out, some couldn’t get to work with trains suspended. Some had to use vacation or personal days despite attempting to be in on the day of the storm. Some were in just as bad predicaments as passengers, claiming to have spent hours trying to get there.

The MTA has set up a new plan for emergency situations in time for the second blizzard that hit New York last Wednesday. Some of these revisions include declaring a High Alert when snow conditions are five inches or greater. High Alert will allow trains to be stored underground overnight, and snow clearing equipment will be moved into position prior to the next storm. Customer advocates will come to passengers who are stuck on trains and subways, ensuring that their needs are adequately addressed to MTA authorities. Aboveground subways will be suspended.

Nonetheless, Vacca is skeptical, claiming that the MTA has a history of not following through on changes they claim to enforce. Adding to the disappointment is the $11.2 billion capital construction project that will interrupt train service this weekend on sixteen subway lines. A separate rehabilitation project will be conducted on the F and G lines and will continue into the spring of 2012.

Nassau County “Taxpayer Relief” Controversy

(Long Island, N.Y.)On Jan. 20th, 2011 New York State’s Nassau County Interim Finance Authority (NIFA) will assess the $2.6 billion budget proposed by Nassau County Executive, Edward Mangano. The budget must be balanced and the county debt must not increase more than 1% from $343 million to be maintained by the current county legislature. If Mangano’s budget fails inspection, New York State could be running Nassau County in 2011.

With the unemployment rate at 7% in Nassau County, and the deficit at its largest in county history, Long Islanders are asking who’s to blame for the near bankruptcy. Extreme problems with finances date back to the Gulotta administration when the county practiced the policy of borrowing money to compensate for county revenues not increasing at the same rate as county expenditures. The Suozzi administration that came later inherited the habit despite campaign promises, and increased spending without raising the property tax. This practice gave taxpayers the illusion of financial calm while the county’s debt hit ultimate highs on the brink of bankruptcy.

Mangano inherited the state of the County in a similar way that President Obama was left with the economic problems of the nation amidst recession. Both needed to do something about healthcare expenses, as well as providing a feasible cure to a preexisting, outrageous deficit. Mangano began to fight the deficit by repealing the Home Energy Tax. He then created $148 million in department cuts, and gave retirement incentives to county employees. In his Tax Payer Relief Act, he proposed creating public-private partnerships to help solve the problem of the Sewer District, which adds $28 million to the debt. Not-for-profit agencies, such as churches, benefit from the original policy that awards them free service.

The heart of the issue has to do with the County Guarantee Policy that has been in practice in Nassau County for decades. Nassau County is the only county in America to have a County Guarantee, which offers taxpayers full property tax refunds for over-assessments made by the county. Even though the county only collects 20% of the property tax (65% goes to the school district) they pay back the entire amount. This is a problem because commercial taxpayers petition the county for refunds with zero-liability on a regular basis, causing over a billion dollars in debt with $150 million dollar a year interest.

Mangano’s plan is to eliminate County Guarantee in the Common Sense Act, making the county only responsible for the amount they have wrongfully collected. The end result would be no property tax increase for 2011 from Nassau County. While this is fair, the flip side is that the school districts would then be responsible for paying the rest of the refund, and in ways, assume the burden of the billion-dollar-debt. There is also the question of whether the county would have much incentive to fight the petitions for refunds or simply pass them onto schools. Mangano also expressed the desire to transport the burden of making tax assessments from the county to the towns.

The bigger question is what will happen in 2013 when County Guarantee is to be abolished. It’s supposed to save taxpayers money and end borrowing, but many suggest that the schools will raise taxes in response to increased expenses, which isn’t quite the “minimal impact” the Mangano administration suggested. The school districts would have to set up reserve funds to have “back up” money when the time comes to pay refunds. Nonetheless, the borrowed money and debt from the broken tax assessment has amounted to nearly $1.6 billion, as property tax increases at high rates annually.

Future problems for Mangano’s budget come from the inability to accurately factor the increasing unemployment and foreclosure rates. Nassau County gets much of its revenue from sales tax which is bad news in a recession. There was a $20 million increase in NYSHIP Health Insurance and severe increases in pension rates. Some have suggested proposing an income tax in Nassau County, but that may only cause Long Islanders to move to different suburbs of the city. Perhaps if Nassau County officials found an inexpensive way to assess taxes correctly, they’d eliminate the root of the problem.

NYC Blizzard Hearing: Commissioners gather to discuss the Post-Christmas Blizzard

(Long Island, N.Y.)On Monday, Jan. 10th, Mayor Bloomberg’s team of Commissioners gathered for a hearing to discuss the fiasco of the “Post-Christmas Blizzard.” The storm, one of the largest to ever hit the city, cost $38 million in expenditures, two deaths, and dozens of cancelled flights and train rides. Many were left stranded at stations, with their holiday-weekend plans interrupted. Over 150 ambulances were trapped, and it took a week before city sanitation workers regained their normal garbage routes.

In some parts of the city, the twenty inches of snow was left unplowed for over three days. While the mayor was out-of-town, no one with authority decided to declare a state of emergency. A large part of this hearing was devoted to uncovering who’s to blame for this blatant lack of action.

At the Jan. 10th hearing, more than fifty NYC City Council members questioned Bloomberg’s co. from 11am to 3:40pm. Those in the hot seat included: Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Bruno, Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano, and Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty. The Department of Transportation commissioner Janette Sadek-Khan was also questioned for the decision not to call a state of emergency despite intense winds and snowfall accumulating two to three inches per hour. During this meeting, a back-and-forth shift in blame was placed from Bloomberg’s team to city sanitation workers.

Originally, Bloomberg blamed the disaster on the unusual speed of the snowfall. Had Bloomberg declared a state of emergency, cars would have been ordered to be removed from the streets to expedite plowing. Bloomberg claims to have suggested car removal prior to the storm, but the amount of cars still left on the streets made plowing nearly impossible.

Such a lapse in policy has made many New Yorkers compare the mismanagement of the blizzard to that of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. It’s suggested that the recent budget cuts played an important role in the lack of service by giving workers less incentive to act immediately. Reports surfaced that over 800 workers called in sick during the ordeal. The deputy mayor insisted that budget cuts did not delay the emergency response.

Communication was clearly the biggest issue of the disaster. Though Bloomberg’s commissioners once again blamed the snow, saying it came earlier than anticipated, they admitted that people on the streets had better information. The consensus among commissioners is that they should have acted quicker, and hired private contractors and locals when city workers weren’t enough.

With the mayor and deputy mayor out-of-town for the holiday, Public Safety Chair, Peter Vallone Jr. demanded to know why the command center wasn’t opened immediately to gather information about the storm. After being questioned about the no-call in regards to a state of emergency, the deputy mayor repeatedly explained that it wasn’t possible to determine who didn’t since there wasn’t an order. A state of emergency may have asked people to keep out of work on Monday, Dec. 27th to keep less clutter on the unplowed streets.

Another issue raised in the Jan.10th meeting concerned the disparity between the cleanup in Manhattan and the outer boroughs. City Council members claimed that bike lanes in Manhattan were cleaned before streets in south Brooklyn and southeastern Queens. Brooklyn, which has twice as many residents as Manhattan, was said to be the scene of dozens of abandoned plows because of the lack of staff.

One city council member dubbed southeast Queens “The Lower 9th Ward of NYC.” This area was hit the hardest and was the most neglected along with south Brooklyn. Sanitation Commissioner Doherty claimed that it was easier to clean the streets in Manhattan because there was less snow to plow. Nonetheless, City Council members called the investigation of the sanitation department and the demotion of sanitation officials a scapegoat for the negligence of the mayor’s commissioners.

An issue was raised concerning the sanitation vehicles which were changed to Toyota Prius in an effort to go green. These cars weren’t large enough to navigate the roads and got stuck as snow accumulated on the streets. Reports said that workers were sent to assist on specific tasks, rather than taking assignments closer to their homes. Workers were paid $12/hour for snow labor during twelve-fourteen hour days for weeks. The 15,000 bus tops and 100,000 crosswalks in Manhattan were given first priority in plowing.

The biggest inconsistency from Bloomberg’s commissioners concerned the “lack of information” they were said to have received about the magnitude of the storm. They claimed to receive information about the state of the ground, enough to halt the distribution of salt because it was deemed ineffective. Yet, if the information had been readily received in the case of the salt, it would have been possible to quickly establish a state of emergency. As one city council member points out, the “we didn’t know” excuse doesn’t pan out when all it takes is a log onto Facebook. Though the Jan. 10th meeting was private, the public can speak at the hearings being held throughout the city from Jan 18th-24th.

In response to the fiasco, the mayor’s commissioners created a fifteen-point list of solutions. Some of these include requiring ambulance workers to live within city limits, equipping sanitation trucks with GPS devices, training workers on two-way communications, and providing live monitors on the streets for quicker updates. The mayor’s commissioners proposed hiring personnel to run communications, but as city council members pointed out, this seemed unnecessary and would only create another barrier of red tape to prevent a quicker emergency response.

Long Island Blizzard: Round 2

The National Weather Service issued a near twenty-four hour Winter Storm Warning from 7 p.m. Tuesday to 6 p.m. yesterday for Long Island and NYC. This blizzard, the second to hit Long Island in weeks, caused less damaged than the first. The difference between these storms, according to Suffolk County Executive, Steve Levy: the winds.

In this “secondary” blizzard, wind speeds were roughly 10mph, less than a third of the speed of those to bombard the Island in December. As Levy explained, the 35 mph winds of the Dec. 26 “Post-Christmas Blizzard” blew plowed snow onto the roads, virtually negating the clearing process. Though some parts of Suffolk received up to eighteen inches in this week’s blizzard, the plows were successful this time around. In this storm, there were 350 workers and nearly 200 plows used to combat the elements, which is comparatively fewer than last month’s blizzard.

Though the costs for December’s blizzard haven’t been assessed, it was estimated that $750k was spent on snow removal in the town of Huntington alone. In the December blizzard of 2009, Suffolk County spent well over $1 million while Nassau spent $900k. Even though nothing has been calculated to date, it’s safe to say that the costs for this week’s blizzard are projected to be a fraction of those amounts.

The East-End received considerably more snow than Nassau County and Western Long Island. Nonetheless, the heavy drifts and snowfall were enough for Levy to call a State of Emergency in Suffolk County at 5 am yesterday morning. It lasted for twelve hours, giving Levy the ability to close roads if needed. Though roads were kept clear for public usage, 63 crashes were reported in Suffolk, and nearly 50 cars were found disabled on roadways.

There was good and bad in the aftermath of this week’s blizzard; flights and trains were cancelled and delayed, but power outages were kept minimal throughout the Island. This time around, there weren’t any stories of commuters getting stranded on platforms. In NYC, progress was clearly made in the towing department; only thirty cars were taken from city roads and not a single ambulance was prevented from reaching those in need of service.

In an effort to lean on the side of safety, most schools were closed in Suffolk County. Earlier today, Levy held a press conference to discuss weather conditions and the progress made against the storm. Levy, the seventh executive of Suffolk County, has gained considerable attention in 2010 from the media for leaving the Democratic Party and running as a Republican in order to receive the nomination for governor.

While Long Island’s response to this week’s blizzard was quite exemplary, the ongoing controversy in NYC has many New Yorkers anxious over how the mayor will react to yesterday’s storm. The hearing that took place on Monday, Jan. 10th has kept the public eye on Mayor Bloomberg’s team of commissioners, including the head of OEM, Joseph Bruno. The Office of Emergency Management, under the direct authority of the mayor, called for a “weather emergency” for the first time in NYC.

The policy of a weather emergency is less imperative than a snow emergency, but it is effective in demonstrating public warning. The last snow emergency to be declared in NYC was in 2005.

It’s safe to say that many NYC drivers took the direction of the mayor and kept off the roads, allowing the plows to complete the clearing process smoothly. It’s unclear how much progress made since last week’s disaster resulted from the points of the hearing or from the reduction of severity in this week’s storm.

Long Island Blizzard: Round 2

(Long Island, N.Y.)The National Weather Service issued a near twenty-four hour Winter Storm Warning from 7 p.m. Tuesday to 6 p.m. yesterday for Long Island and NYC. This blizzard, the second to hit Long Island in weeks, caused less damaged than the first. The difference between these storms, according to Suffolk County Executive, Steve Levy: the winds.

In this “secondary” blizzard, wind speeds were roughly 10mph, less than a third of the speed of those to bombard the Island in December. As Levy explained, the 35 mph winds of the Dec. 26 “Post-Christmas Blizzard” blew plowed snow onto the roads, virtually negating the clearing process. Though some parts of Suffolk received up to eighteen inches in this week’s blizzard, the plows were successful this time around. In this storm, there were 350 workers and nearly 200 plows used to combat the elements, which is comparatively fewer than last month’s blizzard.

Though the costs for December’s blizzard haven’t been assessed, it was estimated that $750k was spent on snow removal in the town of Huntington alone. In the December blizzard of 2009, Suffolk County spent well over $1 million while Nassau spent $900k. Even though nothing has been calculated to date, it’s safe to say that the costs for this week’s blizzard are projected to be a fraction of those amounts.

The East-End received considerably more snow than Nassau County and Western Long Island. Nonetheless, the heavy drifts and snowfall were enough for Levy to call a State of Emergency in Suffolk County at 5 am yesterday morning. It lasted for twelve hours, giving Levy the ability to close roads if needed. Though roads were kept clear for public usage, 63 crashes were reported in Suffolk, and nearly 50 cars were found disabled on roadways.

There was good and bad in the aftermath of this week’s blizzard; flights and trains were cancelled and delayed, but power outages were kept minimal throughout the Island. This time around, there weren’t any stories of commuters getting stranded on platforms. In NYC, progress was clearly made in the towing department; only thirty cars were taken from city roads and not a single ambulance was prevented from reaching those in need of service.

In an effort to lean on the side of safety, most schools were closed in Suffolk County. Earlier today, Levy held a press conference to discuss weather conditions and the progress made against the storm. Levy, the seventh executive of Suffolk County, has gained considerable attention in 2010 from the media for leaving the Democratic Party and running as a Republican in order to receive the nomination for governor.

While Long Island’s response to this week’s blizzard was quite exemplary, the ongoing controversy in NYC has many New Yorkers anxious over how the mayor will react to yesterday’s storm. The hearing that took place on Monday, Jan. 10th has kept the public eye on Mayor Bloomberg’s team of commissioners, including the head of OEM, Joseph Bruno. The Office of Emergency Management, under the direct authority of the mayor, called for a “weather emergency” for the first time in NYC.

The policy of a weather emergency is less imperative than a snow emergency, but it is effective in demonstrating public warning. The last snow emergency to be declared in NYC was in 2005.

It’s safe to say that many NYC drivers took the direction of the mayor and kept off the roads, allowing the plows to complete the clearing process smoothly. It’s unclear how much progress made since last week’s disaster resulted from the points of the hearing or from the reduction of severity in this week’s storm.

Long Island Blizzard Of 2011: Are We Ready?

(Long Island, N.Y.)The National Weather Service in Upton issued a Winter Storm Watch for the night of Tuesday, January 11th into Wednesday afternoon. At least ten to fifteen inches are expected to hit southeastern New York, leaving Long Islanders with less than a quarter-of-a-mile visibility. This will be the second blizzard to hit Long Island in less than a month; the first had an eye of a storm equivalent to a Category Two Hurricane. The dent left two weeks ago from the twenty-inch snowfall has Long Islanders questioning their level of preparedness.

What is now known as the “Post-Christmas Blizzard” struck Long Island & NYC in the wee hours of Dec. 26, 2010, and had one of the worst responses to a storm since Feb. 9, 1969. In NYC, the extreme impact of the storm and unsatisfactory action taken by officials has led to a series of hearings that target the inadequacies in emergency response. The first of these hearings, held 11 a.m. on Jan.10th, raised the case of a twenty-two year old college senior who gave birth to a dead infant, waiting nine hours for medical attention after calling 911.

The woman, out of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, attempted to walk to a hospital during the blizzard. Expired and unable to continue, she sought haven in the lobby of a building where she delivered an unconscious infant. Fire Commissioner, Salvatore Cassano, declined to discuss specifics when asked about the ongoing case. Cassano is one of several commissioners appointed by Mayor Bloomberg. Cassano admitted to City Council members at the Jan.10th hearing that the woman’s original plea to 911 workers had a “level five” (out of eight) priority. It was changed to a level one, high priority, only after a call came stating that the infant was unresponsive. Cassano explained that when given more information about a case, the priority level raises immediately.

The newborn wasn’t the only casualty from the blizzard. At least two other deaths were reported in NYC, as ambulances couldn’t reach destinations on unplowed streets. A fire was reported in Elmhurst, where the hospital’s emergency entrances are located on “secondary streets.” These streets are given less priority in plowing than primary streets and roadways. In other parts of the city, one resident had to wait 24 hours before workers came to remove the body of a deceased parent.

The direct reason for such a catastrophic lapse in emergency response can be blamed on the backlogging of 911 calls. More than 250,000 calls were received in the city at “high storm” hours. Over 1300 calls were backlogged, making Dec. 26th the busiest day since the 9/11 Terrorist Attack. Most reports said that the 311 calls were unsatisfactory in serving people updated information about the progress made against the blizzard. The road conditions made it impossible for 911 workers to be relieved during high volume call times. None of the plowing was accomplished in a timely fashion, according to residents and City Council Members. The roads must first be cleared of vehicles before plowing begins, and before salt can be distributed to prevent the further accumulation of snow.

Subsequent losses came in the form of power shortages around the island. The Long Island Power Authority estimated that 8, 412 Nassau County homes and 6,212 homes in Suffolk lost power during “the Post-Christmas Blizzard.” The highest of these losses occurred in Hempstead where over 1,000 residences were affected. During this time, an estimated 6,000 pounds of salt was distributed in Suffolk County alone.

Those questioned at the hearing, including the Deputy Mayor, Stephen Goldsmith, agreed that steps will be taken to learn from these mistakes. The current system of emergency response is considerably outdated, having been standardized in 1995. A new system of efficiency is said to be installed by the fall of 2011. Nonetheless, the real question facing Long Islanders now is how much of the inefficiency stemmed from the barriers of red tape and the lag of a holiday weekend, and how much of these issues are still going to affect us during tonight’s expected blizzard.