The 400 percent increase in Oyster Bay’s parking permit fee may be a “joke,” but I thought the funniest part of “The Rizzo Report” was when Town Councilman Anthony Macagnone assured Lisa Reinhardt that the repairs to the 1,400-car Hicksville parking garage will “get done really quick (with contracts) that will save the town money. And we’re going to get the best people to get it done.”
How can we believe that, when the town originally got the (apparently) worst people to build it in the first place (considering that it began crumbling and leaking soon after it was opened for business)? And it seems that the subsequent, inadequate (!) repairs were also done by the “worst people.”
Personally, I got an additional laugh out of Macagnone’s statement that “We’re looking at all avenues right now” (regarding the possibility of parking meters). I know what he meant, but it’s a fact that for every “Avenue” in the Town of Oyster Bay, there’s another “Street,” “Road,” “Drive,” “Place,” “Lane,” or “Drive”—which means that they won’t be looking at all possible alternative solutions to our parking problems.
—Richard Siegelman
