Local Cronyism, Patronage Alive and Well

This story might get you as riled up as it has gotten me. It's about the Atlantic Beach Bridge.

The bridge, a six-lane drawbridge, connects the Five Towns and Far Rockaway with Atlantic Beach, a small strip of land with a stretch of beautiful Atlantic Ocean beaches. This bridge also has a storied local history of patronage and cronyism. The bridge authority is presently seeking a controversial fare hike. Some preemptive responses to the question of why this issue is one that would be at all interesting to anyone reading this blog:

This issue actually affects many Orthodox members of the Five Towns on a daily basis. For the many local residents who have enrolled their children in HALB, the bridge is a regular crossing point to get their children to school. In addition, for many local residents (including this one), Atlantic Beach is a popular destination for sumer days when many of us join the local beach clubs that line the ocean side of the strip, and thus cross the bridge often numerous times on a given day. Additonally, I don't think I need to explain to anyone how the culture of cronyism, patronage, and no-bid contracts affects taxpaying citizens. Simply: we are being ripped off.

So this is the story:

The Atlantic Bridge is run by the Atlantic Beach Bridge Authority. The Authority's only job is to maintain this bridge. This bridge is the only toll bridge on Long Island. Following are the findings of an audit performed on the Authority by then NY Comptroller H. Carl McCall in 1999:

• The report, which covered the 1997 calendar year, found that the authority failed to seek competitive bids for engineering work and other service, improperly reimbursed commissioners for travel expenses, and made excessively high payouts to managers who had retired.

• In 1997, 71 percent of the authority's budget was spent on personnel, while only 12 percent was spent on bridge maintenance.
  

• The precarious financial state of the authority necessitated another toll hike to meet its legal obligations to pay construction bonds. Losses at the authority deepened from $32,995 in 1994 to $472,380 in 1996.
  

• Motorists who paid cash wound up paying a disproportionately greater share of total toll revenues than did non-cash commuters crossing the Atlantic Beach Bridge. The 32 percent of motorists who paid the $1.25 cash toll contributed to 62 percent of the authority's revenue. In contrast, commuters (mostly local residents) who paid the $75 unlimited annual fee made up 68 percent of crossings, but only 38 percent of total revenue.

So basically, the bridge was found to be using the tolls collected mostly to pay personnel, who were mostly in patronage jobs, and for paying out too much money for no-bid contracts. In other words:

Since the founding of the Nassau County Bridge Authority, the commission charged with construction and toll collection on the Atlantic Beach Bridge, there has been a long history of patronage. Peter ("Uncle Pete") DeSibio, the former chairman and Inwood executive leader who died in 1993, was known to hand out jobs to his friends, relatives and political cronies. Even when the construction bonds were paid off in 1975 (when the authority was to have been dissolved), the authority lived on due to DeSibio's influence. Today, most of the $3.5 million annual budget for the Nassau County Bridge Authority is spent on its 92 full-time and part-time staff, much of it on toll collection.

Which means that I have been paying tolls to support this guy's friends and family. As if that isn't bad enough? The Authority now wants to raise tolls. Even worse? Though there has been much opposition expressed to the fare hike, the community meeting to discuss the topic has been scheduled on November 14 at 1 PM - smack in the middle of a workday for the vast majority of those who would be affected by the proposed hike - commuters. I find it extremely transparent that the Authority is choosing a time that as few of those who are in the position to be up in arms about the fare hike, and thus may protest at the meeting and derail the proposal, will actually be able to be present. Frankly, I think they have some nerve to add this insult of a blatant attempt at squelching dissent to the injury of taking our money.

Some local political figures question the existence of the Authority altogether:

Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) said he believes the bridge tolls should be eliminated and the span taken over by the county, which also runs the Long Beach and Bayville bridges. Toback explained that the main reason for charging tolls is to cover the cost of elevating the bridge to allow cargo ships access to an oil tank terminal in Oceanside. This provides economic benefit to the entire county, Toback said, and thus the cost should be shared by all residents rather than just those in the Five Towns and Long Beach. He estimated that for the county to take over the bridge, it would need to invest $4 million of its $2.8 billion budget, which could be accomplished without raising taxes.

"There is no reason people in the Five Towns, Atlantic Beach or Long Beach should have to pay to drive on a road in Nassau County," said Toback. "It's an expense that should be spread out over a general population."

Toback said that making the bridge toll-free would also benefit Lawrence Public Schools, which transport students living in Atlantic Beach to district schools, as well as yeshiva students traveling from the Five Towns to the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach Elementary School. He said he would urge the bridge authority to hold a second public hearing on the future of the tolls somewhere in the Five Towns during evening hours, when more residents can attend.

I think as many local citizens as possible should show up at this week's meeting, in addition to lobbying for an evening meeting. The public hearing may have been scheduled at a time that would ensure as few as possible irate bridge users be present, but that shouldn't stop those of us affected by this blatant abuse of our hard-earned money from vocally protesting.

Another facet of this that I think should be mentioned is the fact that most of this corruption is a product of the well-known local Republican patronage machine which has long been widely rumored to control the Bridge Authority jobs. The local Democratic political opposition to this outrage is a start, and they should continue to press the mantle of reform, much as they have done with the corruption that has plagued our local sanitation district. I would also love to see our newly-elected reform-minded governor, Elliot Spitzer, tackle the issue of these mini-feifdoms which essentially function to cost local taxpayers more money.