Mineola Mayor’s Message: Village Cleanup, Eagle Scouts and Jericho Repaving

The following are the opening remarks of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss made during the public meeting of the Mineola Village Board on April 17, 2013:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It’s good to see some decent weather out there for once. The board attended the Mineola Athletic Association’s annual opening day parade. I want to congratulate all of the recipients of the various mayor’s trophies awards. Without their hard work and dedication of all the adults involved, there would not be a program. Thank you all for your efforts. I also want to thank our DPW superintendent Tom Rini and the staff for getting the fields ready for the season.

Last week I had the honor of swearing in the newly elected and re-elected officers of the Mineola Volunteer Fire Department. Congratulations to all, especially chief of department Jeff Clark, who takes over the reins. Thank you for protecting our families, our homes and our businesses.

Trustee Durham, Walsh and I attended the Nassau County Village Official’s’ Association meeting where representative from PSE&G spoke about how they’ll be working with LIPA in the coming year to try and make things a little bit better. The information was encouraging, but seeing is actually believing.

Four young men, Jon D’Annunzio, Matt Kohl, Chris Gavin and Kevin Mulder from our own scout Troop 45 received the rank of Eagle Scout last Friday evening. Congratulations to you all, it’s an extraordinary achievement. Congratulations also to Janet Wohlars who was added to the Town of North Hempstead’s May Newburger Women’s Roll of Honor. I’ve known Janet for many years and this award is certainly well-deserved.

Last Saturday trustee Cusato and I attended an event at the library hosted by the Mineola Historical Society. The historical society has dozens – hundreds – of photos of areas, buildings and homes of Mineola from decades ago and we’re seeking help in identifying them. It was very interesting to see and listen. I believe they will be having another presentation and I encourage all of you to attend and help them work on figuring out our past.

I also attended the Kiwanis and the chamber of commerce meetings and gave each a quick talk. Those are two of the many community-based organizations that help our village the way we want it to be.

I have initiated an effort to help clean Mineola. Several times over the last two years we have contacted the businesses in our village advising them of their duty to keep the front of their stores and businesses clean of trash and reminded them of when they can and can’t put out garbage. I have discussed this with the chamber of commerce and are in agreement and are doing everything they can to help get the word out. Most businesses have complied and are no longer putting their trash out on Friday and Saturday nights until Monday morning’s pickup, but others need an additional incentive and that has come to them in the way of a summons.

Folks, I have staff from our building department now working weekends and will continue to do so to identify those who are putting trash out and leaving it there all weekend long. Not only is this unsightly, it causes a host of other problems and it’s not how we wanted our village to look. Hopefully this plan will reduce the amount of litter on our main roads and help keep Mineola the way we want it to be.

Finally, the road resurfacing project on Jericho Turnpike has obviously begun. The state  contractors are working as quickly as they can, they are still on track for a mid to end-of-May completion date. Hopefully the weather will not hinder them and prolong the project. We are all well aware of the challenges this project has given us and I ask that you all drive more carefully and pay added attention to the cones and the constant lane changes. We only have a few more weeks of this left and then we will have a new road. A week after that, we’ll have already forgotten about the headaches we’re currently going through. Please be patient with what’s going on there.

As it sits now, Thursday and Friday nights they are set to pave from Beebe to Willis, so the paving’s going to start so that means that they’ll be halfway done. So hopefully the weather will work and maybe they’ll even finish ahead of schedule for us.

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