Mineola Drafts Flood Mitigation Agreement with North Hempstead

Following a lengthy and sometimes confrontational relationship, the Village of Mineola has drafted an intermunicipal entry and access agreement for the regarding the .

“We are awaiting data from the engineers servicing the town,” Mineola village attorney John Spellman said at the ’s March 7 meeting, “so that we understand exactly which area the town is going to use and we can set the terms of use and examine the impacts on the neighborhood.”

The town had asked the village’s permission for its engineers to go on a parcel of land near Bruce Terrace for examination and lay out their third of the project, saying multiple times it needed an agreement to be in writing first before it could conduct any surveys.

“This is what we’ve been asking them to do pretty much all along is identify the land and mark our property,” Mineola said.

“Several of the trustees told them they could do it, you’ve told them they could do it, but they still want this document,” Spellman said.

The village had previously accused the town of on their portion of the multi-municipal agreement which also involves Nassau County as well as blaming Mineola for causing the delay. Both sides have recently with the town moving forward on its portion of the project. Mineola’s third of the construction did not depend on North Hempstead completing its portion of the project.

On February 29 trustees Paul Cusato and George Durham attended another Carle Place Civic Association meeting to discuss the Bruce Terrace flooding issue. Joining them was Nassau , R-New Hyde Park, as well as representatives from the town.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’re all basically on the same page and I think we’re all moving forward on this project,” Cusato said.

“Everything’s progressing well with the project, especially from the Mineola portion,” Durham added, noting that Nicolello mentioned that NIFA needed to approve the county’s portion since it is a multi-jurisdictional project but did not foresee it to be a problem.