This morning our speaker was Pamela Greene. Ms. Greene is an Islip Town Councilwoman and she is running for the position of Supervisor, formerly held by Pete McGowan.

 

Pamela began by giving us a “vision” of her idea of planned development of Veterans Highway in the vicinity of MacArthur Airport.. Her concept is high end, high value structures and stores, rather than the tacky strip development (my words) we often see on Long Island. As she put it, a “miracle mile”

 

She then went on to the topic of affordable housing. Ms. Greene shared with us her own personal story of affordable housing. When she was 28 years old their was an opportunity for her to make application for one of these “affordable housing” units and she was awarded an opportunity to buy one of these units. Subsequently she was asked by the builder to testify at the Brookhaven Town Board on this topic. She told the board to alay their fears. “I am the kind of person that will benefit by affordable housing.” Perhaps because of her own experience she is a proponent of affordable units. The Town of Islip has a good record of pursuing housing in this range, and has provided 3,000 units. She promises to be an advocate in her new position of Supervisor, if she attains it.

 

There is a parcel of land in Bay Shore that is being considered for conominioms. Ms. Greene is enthusiastic about the prospects of have the density that the vuillage needs to support the local business community and the units will be also in walking distance of the railroad.

 

According to Greene, Hofstra University did an analysis of Long Island Towns Islip and Hofstra rated it the highest in terms of “business friendly”. Islip Economic Development has helped the business community invest $700 million in Islip. Islip has benefited by the concept of “Economic Deveopment Zones”. The concept was first articulated by the then governor, Mario Coumo when Pamela was new to public service and impressed with the idea and praised Coumo. Since then she has been an enthusiastic proponent of business devlopment.

 

Ms. Greene talked about taxes and stated that taxes in Islip have actually been reduced by 17% over the years that she had been able to observe them . She promised to keep the focus on development that lends itself to lower taxes.

 

When asked about Pete McGowan she had little to say, other than it was a tragic demise of Mr. McGowan