Increased Fee Proposal Temporarily Stopped

The county administration's attempt to covertly muscle through an ordinance to assess increased fees (camouflage tax) on every ball player in Nassau was stopped this past Monday, September 20th , when the county legislature agreed to table the measure. It will next be addressed along with the entire 2011 county budget in the near future after full investigation and public comment.

The justifications tendered by the county were filled with misconceptions, misrepresentations, exaggerations and outright falsifications. Thanks go to each league that testified Monday, each league, team and player that sent letters, emails and made phone calls to the legislators. Ultimately that is what cut this bill off at the pass.

The battle is not over. Whatever is motivating the county and park administrations to attack the ball players who are county residents and taxpayers is known only to them and the almighty. Inviting private leagues into becoming public leagues is fine, destroying private leagues is not! The latest tactics being used include:

"For profit" leagues should pay more to use county fields.
All 38 private leagues using county fields in 2010 are technically "for profit" even if their sponsoring entity is not. A church may be a 501(C) 3 but a ball team providing recreation and fellowship is not. Not should it be. Even the largest independent leagues only pay a living wage to their "owners", virtually all of which are involved for the love of the game. No George Steinbrenners here, Nassau. No ticket sales, no concessions stands, parking fees, TV contracts or product endorsements, just the minimum player fees to provide scheduling, referees or umpires, web sites and office support.

Non-residents should play more to play on county fields.
What non-residents? While the rules mandate at least 80% of the players must be residents, the actual number is in the upper nineties. It is much more likely that a Nassau resident would be playing on a company team in NYC where he works than a city resident would be playing out here.

The proposed bill would allow eliminating field fees for Little Leagues.
The Parks commissioner has always had the authority to "waive any fees which he believes would be in the public interest." If they want to eliminate Little League fees, do it! We have no objection.

Every league, team and player that opposes these unjustified increases should call his county legislator and request being notified the next time this measure is up for discussion and public comment. When that occurs they should make every effort to make their opposition known via letters, emails, phone calls and by testifying before the legislative committees and the full legislature itself. Tell the county that Nassau taxpayers deserve better!

Increased Park Fees AKA Hidden Taxation

Monday, September 13th, the County Administration advanced their agenda of increasing most park fees by misstatements and misrepresentations and glaring omissions. Through a last minute addition to the agenda of the legislative DPW / Parks committee, they received a preliminary approval of the increases that now will go before the full legislature next Monday, September 20th at 10AM. Our thanks to those few citizens that managed to show up at the 1:30 PM meeting and waited over 3 hours to be heard.

Next Monday, PARCnassau expects to be there to testify against taxing our already overtaxed citizenry thru fees and pretending this is for our own good. The bogeyman this time around are the private ball leagues, most of whom have been around providing organized sports for Nassau taxpayers (and voters) for over twenty years.They not only provide the extra services ballplayers wanted and still want but allowed the top teams to compete regionally and nationally if they wished.

The County admits abandoning their own leagues in 2002 leaving only private leagues for ball players to join. Now if the county leagues belly up in the future there will be no leagues for our friends and neighbors. The county administration states they are "taking back" their ball fields. Its is apparent the Parks Department never shared the fact that they never lost them. Private leagues never controlled the county fields. They were always offered for game registration by the county who permitted the teams, scheduled the games and resolved any conflicts and collected a fee based on the cost of that service. For years that was one employee without a computer.

When the County stated they were starting county leagues, we were delighted, believing they would address under-served markets such as women's sports, disabled sports and senior sports. Unfortunately this was not the case. Instead they are pushing out private leagues or worse buying out certain private leagues and hiring their owners high paying county jobs to run them on behalf of the county. Hello?? Is anyone paying attention?

The method is to increase the fees for private leagues forcing them to pass on that cost to their players while reducing player fees for "new"county leagues to lure the players to switch. That is stacking the deck! What they should be doing is offering the same costs and benefits to the ball players and allow market forces to prevail. This has not been the history of County Government. They are bullying us and only we the people stop them.

Next Monday, it is time for every private league owner, manager, player to make it to the hearing at before the full legislature. Bring your families and friends. Invite everyone who cares about fairness in government.
Is the time and date inconvenient for most of us? Yes! Will you have to wait for no apparent reason? Yes!
Is good, representative government worth it? Yes! Yes!

Increasing park fees is camouflage taxation.

Bruce Piel
Chairman
Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau
246 Twin Lane East
Wantagh, NY 11793
(516) 783-8378

http://parcnassau.blogspot.com/

Aquatic Center, Marina & Ball fields

Aquatic Center dispossess early swimmners.

The Aquatic Center at Eisenhower Park has closed as per schedule for cleaning from August 17 until September 6th. Members can use the other county pools during that period. There is one problem. Swimmers that use the center from 6:00am to 10:00am each day have nowhere to go during those times. At one time the county would open Cantiague Pool early to accommodate them, but not this year. The reason they state is insufficient life guards. Where are the life guards that are assigned to the Aquatic Center? It would seem that a little planning could have provided one county pool to open early for those who exercise before going to work or other activities.

Wantagh Marina loses its juice. Boaters in the Dark.

Yesterday a boater noticed his shore power was only 60 volts instead of 120. He checked with other boaters in the area and found the problem was everywhere. He notified the park administration an they notified DPW. This problem, we are told, is usually caused by an "open neutral". DPW told the park administration that they would be shutting down all the power today to make a repair

No effort was made to notify all the boaters! The reduced voltage can damage boat electrical systems, cause refrigerators to run inefficiently, etc. Today's shutdown will allow perishables in those refrigerators to spoil and batteries to run down. The electrical shutdown also shuts down the park telephone system so no one can call in to find out the problem. This is the third year in a row with electrical problems in the park.

Since virtually everyone has a cell phone, we had asked the park administration to use them and notify at least the 2 boating organizations in the marina and they would in turn notify their members who could then notify their boat neighbors. This would minimize the damage. Better yet a list of boaters and their contact numbers should be kept in Eisenhower or DPW and when this power outage begins, each boater can be called and be made aware. Not letting people know causes unnecessary financial hardship in these uncertain times and the county fails in its fiduciary responsibility.

Update on the County Ball field issue

We were informed today by the Parks Department that they found a provision in the 2007 agreement between the County and Friends of Nassau Recreation that allows the County Comptroller to audit their books. In any case, effective immediately, ALL revenues collected by parks will henceforth be sent to the County Treasurer and not to the Friends Group.

Nassau Parks become the playground bully

On June 21st, PARCnassau sent out an update titled Play Ball 2011 citing our concerns that the Nassau County Department of Park & Recreation was embarking on a "progrom" to drive private ball leagues from county parks. Subsequent events are showing that is exactly what is happening.

First the county refused to allow private leagues to register for ball fields for their fall schedules, snowflake leagues this year and spring and summer leagues in 2011. Without knowing whether or not they have fields prevents the private leagues from registering players, effectively shutting them down. Two excuses were being given. First, that the county didn't know which fields they needed for their own (new) leagues and secondly they were rehabilitating the fields.Both excuses do not hold water. First they should only hold a number of fields that they could reasonable use in this start up program and secondly they are only rehab-ing 3 fields at Eisenhower leaving more than enough fields county wide to accomodate the private leagues.

Further, the Parks department is unilaterally raising the permit fees by 50% to 66% per hour for the private leagues. This is being done without legislative approval as required by law. The "scam" is they are calling the permitting of private leagues part of a "pilot program" and not subject to legislative approval.This is not true and shows a decided lack of respect for our county legislature. Meanwhile the new fees can destroy the private leagues and must be reversed.

Two of the larger private leagues were "lured" into joining the county program by hiring the league presidents as highly paid directors working for Parks. One such individual surrendered his teams that played on county fields but kept those that used Town of Oyster Bay fields. Best of all worlds?

Another wrinkle is any player who signs up for the county run leagues must pay 20% of the sign up fees to the county treasurer and 80% of the fees to Friends of Nassau County Recreation. Sound like a slush fund for Parks? We think so. This Friends group was founded in 1982 by civic minded individuals to raise money through donations from private companies and individuals to fund recreation programs that the county could not afford. It fell into disuse in the '90s and the parks department took it "in house". Monies collected by Friends of Nassau County Recreation are not subject to legislative or other government oversight. This is unacceptable! We believe that all money paid to the county should go to the County Treasurer for full accountability.

Private leagues and their players are livid and justifiably so. They are now speaking out against this unfair and unjustified dispossession from county ball fields.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Play Ball 2011

Nassau County Leagues return in 2011



Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums has confirmed their intent to recreate county sponsored and run leagues for baseball, softball and lacrosse. These leagues had been allowed to dissolve during the 8 years of the past administration. While we applaud this initiative of the current county administration we are concerned about some of the rhetoric accompanying this news. Statements that “we are taking back our ball fields”, “the private leagues will be working for the county” and “the private leagues will be gone” go beyond just offering Nassau county sportsmen and women an alternative to private leagues.



Nassau County must realize that it was the private leagues that filled the gap and provided park users continuous structured sports when the county failed to. The county should not become the school yard bully and chase off the private leagues. Rather they should provide a lower cost alternative to the pricier leagues and allow market forces to determine where a ballplayer signs up.



PARCnassau has spoken to some of the private leagues that would be affected. We found that some leagues that were begun by local athletic supply companies will gladly step aside from running sports to allow them to continue to equip sports. Those companies only organized leagues to keep their client base for their primary function, retail sales. Others are concerned that that they will be “shut out” of county ball fields, especially prime locations such as Mitchell Field and Eisenhower Park.



It is important that the parks department while giving public leagues priority in scheduling insure that the private leagues are offered the maximum remaining time possible and not shut them out either in perception or in reality. Give county residents intelligent choices. Offer more women’s sports, senior sports, disabled sports, etc. That will fill our parks and ball fields the right way and so will encouraging economical private leagues.



The county must also state their intentions concerning Flag Football, Soccer, Rugby, Cricket and all other sports using county athletic fields and administered by private leagues. All sports are too important to the health and well being of our taxpayers and deserve no less than the full, fair support of our county officials.