The Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees unanimously approved a third change to the new village hall, which is under construction, at its Tuesday, March 17 meeting.
The board approved the payment of $3,500 to Bohler Engineering NY PLLC to amend building plans and install the building’s boiler in the basement as opposed to on the first floor.
This is the least expensive amendment to the building plans so far. The board has already approved $30,250 for the replacement of a damaged dry well and $3,750 to revise the designs for external lighting in the hall.
The board also continued to face backlash from residents over its issuance of around 400 summonses for snow-related violations this winter, with another 7 residents voicing their complaints.
Deputy Mayor Barton Sobel told residents that the board of trustees is not in a position to make judgments on fines.
“We’re not the court. I keep telling you guys, we’re not the court,” he said.
The village code requires residents to shovel their sidewalks within 24 hours of the cessation of snow.
Mayor Pedram Bral asked inspectors to delay issuing tickets for an additional 24 hours, but many residents, including Sobel and Trustee Eli Kashi, were still given fees for unshoveled snow.
Bral said he decided to dismiss tickets for not shoveling around fire hydrants because the village code had more lenient guidelines than the state, but he said he plans to enforce the state law in the future.
Several residents said snow plows pushed snow onto their sidewalks after they had already shoveled them. Bral said he understood, but again, it is not the board’s role to make a judgment.
“I completely sympathize with you, and if I were in your shoes, I’d be pissed off also,” he said. “But the inspector’s job is to enforce the code. That’s it.”
Bral and Sobel recommended that residents take their case to the village court, but residents said they heard that if they contest the ticket, they may face a fine of up to $5,000.
Bral said this was the maximum fine the judge could impose, and he assured people they would not have to pay that much.
“If the judge says you have to pay $5,000, I’m going to have a huge problem with him,” he said.
The board also unanimously approved a request from the Nassau County Police Department to install a license plate reader at the cross-section of Steamboat Road and Gilbert Road.
“I would say they need to place them in a few other places as well,” said Bral.
Kashi said he has been in touch with the police department, and they plan to add more.
“I asked them to put them in a few places, especially on Middle Neck Road, so they said they would start with this,” he said
Kashi said the police commissioner recommended this location first because it was near Shaare Shalom Mashadi Jewish Center, which he said had some “incidents” near the building lately. With the rise of antisemitism in the country, Kashi said the police department is looking to be proactive to protect temples in the community.
The board also heard from resident Guofeng Lu, who petitioned the board to lower fees brought by the Building Department for building a patio without a permit.
Lu said he applied for a permit in 2020 and started working on the project before getting approval. He said two employees, who are no longer working for the village, were aware of the project and did not push him to get a permit. Lu submitted email exchanges with building department employees as evidence to the board.
Five years later, he said the building department contacted him because the files showed an incomplete permit.
“It was marked incomplete because the supplemental documents I submitted through email in 2020 were missing in the files,” said Lu.
Lu said he paid a $500 civil penalty in court, but then he received an additional fee from the building department for over $3,500, which he believed was unfair.
The board tabled the issue until their next meeting so they could have village counsel present.
Department of Public Works Superintendent James Neubert also gave a report on the DPW. Neubert said he compiled a list of 80 garbage cans in the village to be replaced with grant funds from Nassau County.
Neubert also said he planned to hold a special garbage pickup on April 1 from 7 a.m to 3 p.m. in municipal lot three behind Ace Hardware.
The board approved the reappointment of Jay Johneas as the village representative to the board of directors of the Water Authority of Great Neck North. It also approved the American Legion’s 100th Annual Memorial Day Parade for Monday, May 25, on Middle Neck Road.
The board will hold its next meeting on Tuesday, April 14, where it will hold a public hearing on the village budget for the upcoming year.
