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County revotes to raise golf fees
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February 03, 2009 | 03:04 PM
The Suffolk County Legislature voted 12 to 6 on Tuesday in favor of Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher's (D-Setauket) amended bill to increase park, marina and golf fees by no more than 25 percent to shore up $800,000 for the financially ailing Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport.
Her original bill would have brought in $1.2 million.
"Increasing it by 25 percent now — or no more than 25 percent — will basically bring the fees back to where they were eight years ago," Legislator Jon Cooper (D-Lloyd Neck) said, referring to figures adjusted for inflation. "I don't see how anyone could argue with that."
Cooper, whose district includes Centerport, noted that in the hope of earning the full Legislature's support, Viloria-Fisher agreed to "sunset" the bill after one year. At that time, fees would return to their current status.
Cooper corrected any characterizations of the museum as a private institution. "It's not a private museum," he said. "It's the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum. Like it or not, it's our responsibility to maintain this institution."
While some have questioned her interest in a museum that is not in her district, Viloria-Fisher said, "It's the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum. It's in all of our districts."
In an impassioned argument for saving the Vanderbilt, Viloria-Fisher recalled taking her children there in 1977.
"As my kids grew up, they went there with their school; they went there with me. As they got older, they went to laser shows. And just this past Christmas season, my daughter-in-law went with my grandchildren. This is not just a place of history. ... This is a place of shared memories."
Viloria-Fisher, who chairs the Legislature's Parks and Recreation Committee, said she has a pages-long list of Suffolk County schools that regularly send classes to the museum. "It's part of what makes this a community. ... It is worth our while to try to look at saving something that means something to our families, to our children, to our future."
She refuted the notion that coming to the museum's aid would be considered "discretionary spending," since it would cost the county $800,000 just to keep it closed and secured.
Assuring her peers that the cost of using county golf courses and rent canoes would still be bargains at their increased rates, she said, "This is precisely the time to raise the fees, because we cannot afford to subsidize these activities."
The final speaker, Legislator William Lindsay (D-Holbrook), remarked, "We have to work together to keep this government working, that when we come out of this serious recession, there is something left to Suffolk County — that we don't sell all our assets, that we don't close our facilities. We can do all that, then when all is said and done, Suffolk County doesn't mean anything."
After the vote, spokesman Dan Aug said that County Executive Steve Levy would likely veto the bill. He has 30 days to do so.
But Cooper said he was confident the Legislature could override the veto, since they voted under the presumption that Levy would indeed veto it. Cooper also noted that he has two other bills, involving offsets in the county's budget, that could be used if Viloria-Fisher's bill does not come to pass, or in conjunction with it.
With the Vanderbilt's new income sources: higher admission prices, Friends of the Vanderbilt fundraisers, food services and naming rights, Cooper conjectures the museum will need far less money than originally anticipated.
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