JULY 2018 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 9
IN THE NEWS
MUTTONTOWN FRUSTRATION RED TAPE ZONE By JEFF BERMAN
Village of Muttontown residents
frustrated with questions raised
about the current administration’s
impact on quality of life in the tony
community voted June 19 to elect a
new mayor and three newcomers
to the Board of Trustees that he will
head.
The majority of incumbents were
unseated in a landslide. The victory
came amid allegations of attempted
voter suppression by village
officials.
Nassau County prosecutors “were
alerted that voters were allegedly
being denied the opportunity to cast
ballots in the Muttontown elections,”
says Brendan Brosh, spokesman for
Nassau County District Attorney
Madeline Singas.
Before the vote, Muttontown
homeowners shared stories of costly
bureaucratic nightmares they and
neighbors faced when trying to build
on, repair, or sell their properties.
“We have tried to comply with
the building department comment
letters, but their requests are ever
changing due to their code interpretations,”
says Susan Dasilva, whose
home has been without a certificate
of occupancy (CO) since January
2014. “These changes are costing
excessive amounts of money in professional
fees and making it next to
impossible to complete the final steps
to get my CO.”
Another Muttontown resident, who
wanted to remain anonymous due to
fear of reprisal from the village, says
it took him more than a year just to get
a permit for a generator and he knows
residents who have waited even longer
for the same thing. He argues that
a generator should be treated as an
emergency need.
“The permit fee structure is
much higher than any other local
village,” he says, adding that “a lot of
architects don’t want to work in the
village” because it’s so hard to get
projects approved.
Other Muttontowners who have
tried to get building permits for
From left to right are the Muttontown village board’s new members: trustee Brian Fagen; James Liguori, who won the
mayorship; plus trustees Dr. Sudha Prasad and Chris Economou.
their homes report that it’s taken up
to four years. The aggravation has
made it harder to sell homes in the
otherwise sought-after community.
A real estate broker who asked to remain
anonymous says it’s especially
hard to sell homes there that need a
lot of work.
“I had one homeowner who said to
me they were given a list of 20 items”
that had to be addressed before work
could be done on a home and “they
got everything cleared up and then
there was another 25 items that came
back.” Several builders and investors
she knows “won’t even go into Muttontown,”
she adds.
The issues crescendoed ahead of
the election.
Playing a key role in that uproar
was the recently formed group
Neighbors for a Better Muttontown
led by a group of political newcomers
seeking change, including Dr. Jim Liguori,
who beat village trustee Julie
Albernas to become the new mayor
and replace outgoing mayor Julianne
Beckerman, who opted to not seek
reelection. Albernas, Beckerman and
the other trustees didn’t respond to
requests for comment.
Beckerman and her husband were
arrested last year for allegedly
failing to pay their income taxes
for the past five years. Beckerman
and her husband pleaded not guilty
to tax fraud and repeated failure to
file personal income and earnings
taxes.
Running with Liguori to serve
as trustees were Chris Economou,
Brian Fagen and Dr. Sudha Prasad.
Fagen, an attorney and an associate
real estate broker with Douglas
Elliman, expressed the same frustration
as the other homeowners. Other
localities require permits, “but very
few municipalities, when you apply
for a permit, look for other things
that you did that weren’t permitted…
They’re actively looking to find
violations – whether they occurred
while you had title to the property or
before,” he says.
Fagen chalks up the excessive red
tape to an “inability to find other
ways to cut expenses and raise
revenue, and the low-hanging fruit
is the people that are doing work on
their homes and that’s what they
grab at.”
He vowed to fix the problem so that
“Muttontown can be the great place
it was.”
Liguori received 1,077 votes compared
to only 315 for his rival. Trustee
victors Economou, Fagen and Prasad
received 1,054; 1,056; and 1,069 votes
each, respectively, while their rivals
each received under 340 votes.
Liguori told us he was “thrilled that
the village overwhelmingly decided
to give myself and my trustees an
opportunity” to lead the village.
“Goal number one is fixing the
building department/permitting
process,” he says.
“Goal number one is fixing the building
department/permitting process”
- James Liguori, newly elected village mayor