Bulletin issued monthly in the
interest of residents of the
Village of Freeport
ROBERT L. DOXSEE, Mayor
Trustees
Leonard D. B. Smith - Cord Viebrock
Seward J. Baker - Willaim F. Glacken
For information concerning village fa-cilities,
residents are invited to phone
Village Clerk - Edmund T. Cheshire at
FReeport 8-4000.
CALENDAR
Board of Trustees - 2nd Monday.
Boaf'd of Appeals - 3rd Wednesday
Sewer Commission- On Call
Planning Board - On Call
Plumbing Board - 3rd Monday.
Civil Defense - Last Thursday,
Each one of these services develops its organization to provide the
service and protection necessary in the event of an emergency; some of these
services have already functioned effectively in storms and other minor troub-les.
Shelters have been provided throughout the Village and the organization
has developed along prescribed lines; although, in some instances with only
skeleton forces.
One of the recentdefense activities, taken by the Freeport Civil -
Defense is the"Ground Observer Corp. of the Aircraft Warning Service. This
is a unit which has been previously functioning on a limited scale under the di
rection of the Air Services but has now been combined with the Civil Defense
Organization and efforts are being made to provide twenty-four hour air obser
ver operation.
• There is need, for additional volunteers in almost all the prescribed
services and the public is urged to volunteer in any one of the services listed
A simple processing operation is carried on in Police Headquarters every -
Wednesday evening between 7 and 9 o'clock for the purpose of enlisting volun
teers in the Civil Defense effort.
RUBBISH REMOVAL .
To facilitate the removal of rubbish, residents who have a quanti-ty
of materials, such as limbs, shrubs/grass cuttings and hedge cuttings ready
' for disposal,placed in containers or tied up in compact bundlee, are request
ed to call FReeport 8-4000, Ext. 14,between the hours of 9a.m. and 3p.m. ,
any day except Saturday or Sunday, and ask for Fred Greaves. Be sure to-give
your street number, when requesting cooperation. The pick-up of such
accumulations will be made Fridays of each week. Items such as tree trunks
old oil tanks,hot water boiler s,heavy articles of furniture and the like, are the
responsibility of the property owners and must be disposed of as they cannot
be handled by the Village. . '
' . VILLAGE TAXES ' .
Freeport property owners are showing a marked improvement in
promptness in the payment of current Village taxes. • .
The Tax Office reports that as of June 1952 approximately $541,000
has been collected during the "penalty free period. "'This'represents approxi-mately
61% of all 1952 taxes, of which only 50% were due and payable in June .
The above collections include water arrears and special assessment delinquent
charges. About 21% of second half of .1952 taxes have already been paid.
FREEPORT
Your
Home Town
The
Friendly Village
L-Vol.
1 - No. 3-4 July - August 1952
- VILLAGE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
The Village of Freeport is getting ready to celebrate the sixtieth-anniversary
of its incorporation-.aneventwhich took place onOctober22,1892.
A citizens' committee has been formed and the Village will participate o f—
ficially in the ceremonies. Details will be announced later. Marty items of
interest have been found as result of research in the Village's back files by
John F.DeLorme , former Village Trustee, who has been retained by the Vil-lage
Board to go through papers of past years with the idea of clearing the
files of the large accumulation of such materials as is of no value and class
ifying those which are of permanent record. Mr. DeLorme, inhis research
of the Village affairs.has this to report on the subject of the original incor-poration:
An election was held on October 18,1892, and 346 voters cast their
ballots on the question of incorporation, 214 voted in favor and 132 voted a-,
gainst the idea. Four days later, on October22, 1892 the Supervisor of the
Town of Hempstead and the Town Clerk filed a certificate ( to the effect that
they had supervised the election) in the office of County Clerk, in Jamaica
for at that time Freeport was in the County of Queens.
Then followed the usual campaign for election to office. ..... the
election taking place onNovember29,1892 from 12p'clock'Noon to 4o'clock-
"~"iri~-the~ afternoon,and the voting took place in theFireTruck Company house
on Church Street. The election was for a Village President, a Trustee fora
two year term and two Trustees for a one year term.
The first meeting of the Freeport Village Board was held on Dec-ember6,1892,
with Mr.Carman Cornelius, Village President,presiding. The
Board appointed a Village Clerk and fixed his salary at $40. 00 per year. La-ter
they increased the salary to$12. 50 per month, and by 1900,"it had risen
' to $25.00 per' month. . . .
-Within a few weeks after the Village Board was elected, it had con-sulted
an engineer Charles A. Lockwood... about a water plant. Indeed .
within two years after its incorporation, the Village Board:had sold approx-imate
ly $43, 000 in bonds for a water system for Freeport and about $5, 000
. for fire apparatus. . ' . . . . - • •,. :
These.were the first steps of the new Village toward the bi^ com-munity
it has since become. . -
VILLAGE ORDINANCES
The local affairs of the Village are governed by laws on the local
level which are designated as ordinances. All ordinances of the Village are
adopted by the Board of Trustees, but only after a public hearing has been held
and all persons interested have had an opportunity to express their opinions.
At the present time the Village is engaged in a re-adoption of its entire system
of ordinances into a unified code for purposes of clearer understanding and to
eliminate the number of conflicts that have developed during the years. This
new code will be adopted as a result of several hearings that have been held
and will be published some time within the next several months.
FIRES on VACANT LOTS
The Fire Department has been called out frequently during the past
month to extinguish fires on vacant lots. These fires are usually caused by
accumulation of dry grass, weeds, brush, paper cartons and other materials
of an inflamable nature. To prevent damage to adjacent property. Village Or-dinance
No. 166 requires the owners of property to keep their vacant land free
of such materials. The Village Clerk requests cooperation of all residents,
to have the provisions of .the ordinance complied with. This will notonly elim
inate the fire hazard but add to the attractiveness of the Village, and very sub-stantially
to the value of the property.
VILLAGE BOARD MEETINGS
Public meetings of the Village Board of Trustees during the month
of JUNE, JULY, AUGUST and September, are held only on the second Mon -
day of these months. To insure that matters requiring attention are surely
placed on the calendar, the same should be in the hands of the Village Clerk
not later than 4:00 P. M. on the Friday preceding the meeting.
POLICE CHIEFS CONVENTION
Chief Peter Elar and Ptl. Joseph Romeika attended the Convention
of New York State Police Chiefs held in Utica, N. Y. .from July 22nd to 25th
1952. The purpose of participating in this convention is to become informed
of the latest and most modern trends for police departments. Discussions in
elude better methods for the prevention of crime and juvenile delinquency, and
advances made in lessening of traffic congestion and accidents; the<application
of which as concerns Freeport, makes a Police Department abreast of curreit
methods and results in a minimum of crime and traffic hazards.
KNOW YOUR ZONING BOARD of APPEALS
The Zoning Board of Appeals in the Village of Freeport is an inte-gral
part of our Village government, entrusted with the safe guarding of op -
erations of the zoning ordinance.
This Board is comprised of business and professional men selected
by the Village Board of Trustees. We would like to present to the residents
of Freeport - F. Gordon Edwards, Chairman, presently who holds anexecu-tive
position with the New York Telephone Company as engineer in charge of
.underground cables; George Maislen, attorney; Walter Miranda .Regional Man
ager of the Kitchen Maid Sales Corp.; Randolph Eareckson, accountant with
Republic Aviation Corp.; and George J.Smith, Mechanical Engineer, General
Sales Manager and Secretary of the Columbian Bronze Corporation.
This Board operates in much the same way as a court, in the follow
ing manner: An individual applies to the Building Department for a permit to
erect a structure, or otherwise use his premises in some way not in strict
compliance with the Village Building Code and for that reason his application
is refused. If the applicant desires to make the alteration despite denial, he
has the right to file an appeal to the Zoning Board requesting that the decision
of the Superintendent of Buildings be set aside and approval to his application
be granted. His case will be put on the calendar, and taken up at a public heap-ing
held on the third Wednesday of the next month, by tlie Zoning Board. Tes-timony
is taken concerning the reasons why the applicant feels he is entitled
to a variance from the restrictions as set forth in the Zoning Ordinance. Up-on
presenting sufficient and reasonable evidence to prove a practical difficulty
or legal hardship, and that by such alteration of the requirements of the Build -
ing Code the public welfare will not be jeopardized, the Zoning Board has the
right to grant a variance from the strict letter of the Zoning Code. However,
if in their judgment, the alteration would be detrimental to the area involved
they have the right to deny such appeal.
To insure the rights of the neighbors adjacent to the property where
the proposed alteration is to be made the Board of Appeals requires service
by mail, ten days before the hearing, on all property owners within 200 feet
of the premises, and notice of such hearing is published in the official Vill-age
newspaper the Thursday preceding the hearing.
The Zoning Board of Appeals only has jurisdiction over individual
cases and has not the right or privilege to change the zoning in any district,
this being a matter for. the Village Board of Trustees,in the exercise of its
legislative power after public hearing. The Zoning Board of Appeals hears,
on an average, seventy cases ayear. Minutes are kept of these hearings which
are filed with the Village Clerk and become a matter of public record.
Assisting the Zoning Board of Appeals in the clerical details of the
work are: Wilbert F. DeMott, Superintendent of Buildings and his assistant
Edmund T. Young, Russell E. Hotaling, Deputy Village Clerk and Acting Sec-retary
to the Board, and Mrs. Marge Enders, Recording Stenographer.
REPORT FROM the BUILDING DEPT.
Permits issued: Month of June 1952
27 Permits for new construction Cost $329, 328.
18 Permits for additions & alterations .. ..' 22, 895.
$352.223.
as by comparison with ...
Month of June 1951
12 Permits for new construction Cost $360,500.
24 Permits for additions & alterations .... 22, 415.
$382,9157
FREEPORT CIVIL DEFENSE
Freeport was one of the first units to function under the provisions
of the New York Civil Defense Law, and has been cited as a pattern of organ-ization
for others to follow. It works in close harmony with and under the di-rection
of Nassau County Civil Defense and is known as Unit No. 125. It i s_
organized with a Director and two Deputy Directors and the following servicel
each directed by a chief:
Chaplains; Communications; Evacuations; Auxiliary Fire-men;
Industrial & Public Buildings; Medical; Auxiliary Po-lice;
Public Relations; Public Works; Radiological Teams;
Recruit Registration; Rescue Teams; Schools; Supply.Trans-portation;
Wardens; Ground Observor Corp; Aircraft Warn-ing
Service; Welfare and Secretarial.
