In lieu of the fact that Nov. 3rd is an off-off-year Election Day, voters of North Hempstead have plenty of reason to go to the polls and vote like it’s 2016, a Presidential election year.
We live in a town where a major anchor store in a major commercial center – Waldbaum’s in Great Neck Plaza – can go out of business and leave an enormous gaping commercial space that nobody wants to fill. It’s easy to blame the economy in general or landlords, but where is the town on this issue? Nowhere, it seems.
The Waldbaum’s on 40 Great Neck Road did not receive a single bid at its first or second round of auctions.
Yet Judi Bosworth won’t speak to this paper about it? (See “A&P stores’ cupboards go bare after auctions, sales,” October 15, 2015, Great Neck News).
Anna Kaplan, who is up for re-election this year in the town district that abuts the Waldbaums shopping center, has been equally silent on this and almost all other economic issues harming North Hempstead.
Waldbaum’s is an anchor business, and solid anchors keep local economies stable.
That said, Waldbaum’s doesn’t even appear to be on the town’s radar.
Despite this horrific oversight, these Town Council incumbents and their supervisor are asking to be re-elected?
For what?
Whether or not the town can do anything to avert this disaster, which would be a “punch in the stomach” to Great Neck Plaza, as stated by a member of our local Business Improvement District in this paper on October 5, 2015, the least the town can do is to try. At the absolute minimum.
As of this date, the town has not done a thing, not bothering to lift a single pinky, to wit. And for that lack of effort to, for example, merely hold an informal hearing or round-table with local economic leaders to investigate what the town could even do, if anything, to prevent a substantial economic blow to North Hempstead, the voters should hold town officials such as Judi Bosworth and Anna Kaplan responsible on Tuesday November 3rd — and vote them out.
If there is not a single business enterprise, old or new,that believes it could open and run a profitable business in what should be an ultra prime commercial space in the Town of North Hempstead, then the Town of North Hempstead needs new leadership immediately.
Jonathan Stein
Great Neck Plaza
