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The Moment is At Hand for the Future of the Islanders |
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The word is everywhere now that the future of the NY Islanders staying on Long Island will be determined in the next six months.
This from their release...
"This Thursday Night, The Lighthouse Development Group is holding a Community Outreach Education session for Islanders fans at 7 p.m. at the Long Island Marriott in Uniondale. This meeting will be open to the public and allow for questions about the project to be asked directly to Lighthouse staff and consultants. Lighthouse principals Charles B. Wang and Scott Rechler will be available to discuss the project. Government leaders are also invited to this event, bringing together the stakeholders who will be impacted by the success of the project.
Don’t miss this special opportunity to learn more about the Lighthouse at Long Island.
For more information please visit www.lighthouseli.com, lighthouseliblog.blogspot.com, or call (516) 414-5800."
Tom Liodice, wrote the following guest blog on http://lighthouseliblog.blogspot.com/ about an event thrown by Chris Botta that sums up the importance.
"On Tuesday night, about 140-or so Islanders fans gathered at Gabrielle's in Montreal for "Point Blank Night II" hosted by islanderspointblank.com's Chris Botta. Fans were not only there to take in a little Islanders hockey, enjoy some free wine and appetizers, but also to find out what was going on with what was new in the Lighthouse Project.
Botta invited Michael Picker, President of the Lighthouse Development Group, to be his first intermission guest, and Picker immediately got right into updating fans on the newest developments, talking about a Community Education Outreach meeting that was just scheduled for March 26 at 7 p.m. at the Marriott.
"Since we’ve submitted all the paperwork that the Town needs to review our project, we have to go into more details like traffic, air quality etc.," Picker said. "We are going to do that at the next session, which what we call the CEO conference -- Community Education Outreach -- at the Marriott hotel on the 26th."
Picker immediately stressed the importance of this event, and noted that pretty much everyone and anyone involved with this project will be there.
"It is vital that you guys come there, bring friends, ask questions, learn; because the media will be there, the Town will be there, Charles (Wang) and Scott (Rechler) will be there, Tom Suozzi is going to be there," Picker added. "We’re going to invite Kate Murray, we’d be glad to have her. She needs to see the passion of the people that are in this room of how important that this [the Lighthouse] is to you, she needs to know it."
Another topic that was of interest, especially in the comments section of Islanders Point Blank was the issue of the recent federal stimulus package and whether or not the Lighthouse is part of the plan.
"We’ve put in for about $700 million of the $3.74 billion project,"
Picker said. "We’re not saying we’re going to get it or not, basically our governmental representatives told us, ‘You’ll never get it unless you ask.’ We’ve put in different things for traffic and energy and different initiatives in our program. We’re looking for it."
After a few minutes, Picker took questions from the fans in attendance who had their own concerns. One fan wanted to know what the Lighthouse's biggest opposition was.
The answer was simple.
Time.
"The opposition really is time," Picker noted. "We've done almost 180 community outreach meetings. There’s really no opposition as far as people who have interest levels. They want to make sure they have affordable housing, etc. They want to move it along."
Simply put, Islanders fans, the Lighthouse needs your support. Call your representatives, write, email, do whatever you can."
I also implore you all to check out BD Gallof's work right now at http://islandersindependent.com/ BD is very much on top of the situation as well.
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