Small steps for Sands, big leap toward Coliseum lease

Daily Point

Casino giant chips in to mow ballfield, furnish community center

Just days before Sands New York is expected to come before the Nassau County Legislature to seek approval for a new operating lease for Nassau Coliseum, Sands executives spent their day Thursday in Nassau County, celebrating two community projects the casino giant financed.

Neither project is part of the massive community benefits expected to emerge out of a potential casino license. Instead, these are small efforts to gain goodwill that emerged from individual conversations with Sands about local communities’ needs, sources told The Point.

One event celebrated Sands' contribution of about $80,000 toward furniture and other needs for the Uniondale Community Center, which opened last year after more than a year of political and bureaucratic intransigence. But the United Neighborhood Center, the nonprofit operating the facility, didn’t have funds to furnish it. That’s when Sands stepped in, after company officials learned about the issue.

Later Thursday, Sands executives participated in an "inaugural mow" in East Meadow, which came after Sands contributed more than $20,000 to purchase a new ride-on lawn mower, along with a new push mower, a backpack blower and two weed whackers, to keep the East Meadow Little League ballfields trimmed.

Sources told The Point that the Little League had been unable to keep its ballfields in good shape in part because of a dispute over who should fund the expense; the county owns the land but the Town of Hempstead had been maintaining it. To resolve the issue, Sands stepped in to buy the new equipment.

Neither benefit was contingent on any county lease approvals or any future steps related to the state’s awarding of three downstate casino licenses, a decision expected next year. But first Sands needs a county lease.

The lease that county lawmakers will vote on Monday allows Sands to operate the Coliseum and keep it open. Sands has to pay the county $10 million a year in rent just for that operating lease — which does not permit the construction of a casino resort on the property.

Also on Monday, the legislature is expected to kick off a new state environmental review process, which the county will run. That process will include environmental analyses and additional public hearings. After that review, which is likely to take many months, the county and Sands would have to agree to another lease that does permit the development of a casino resort on the site.

In the run-up to Monday's vote, Sands has launched a six-figure digital ad campaign featuring nine of the Coliseum’s 400 employees, complete with photos and quotes specifically targeting Hofstra University’s opposition to the approval of an operating lease and focusing on the possibility that the Coliseum could close without the lease approval.

"The message is clear — Hofstra doesn’t care about our community," one employee says in the ad.

"Now Hofstra’s actions could threaten my ability to provide for my family," says another.

All of this comes on a key date in Coliseum history. Thirteen years ago, on Aug. 1, 2011, Nassau County taxpayers went to the polls in the hail and rain to decide whether the county should fund the construction of a new arena with $400 million in public money. That referendum failed, leading to the New York Islanders’ announcement more than a year later that the team planned to move to Brooklyn.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

The catwoman cometh

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Final Point

Trump’s latest identity challenge has CD1 fallout

Long Island’s 1st Congressional District has its own rhetorical reflections of the presidential race. This week’s partisan declarations on social media show the clear connection between what will be up-ballot and what will be down-ballot on the East End.

When former President Donald Trump on Wednesday attacked his likely Democratic opponent Kamala Harris by claiming she "happened to turn Black" a few years ago (as opposed to previously being Indian American), predictable reactions were unleashed. These included statements from several congressional Republicans and other GOP candidates that the remarks were not helpful.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican Senate candidate, said, "It’s unacceptable and abhorrent to attack Vice President Harris or anyone’s racial identity."

But CD1 incumbent GOP Rep. Nick LaLota was quoted by the Axios news site as saying: "Trump’s political adversaries question his style because they lose on policy and fact." LaLota also chose to echo the Republican line that "Trump did more for Black Americans than any President in at least 50 years."

In response, LaLota’s challenger John Avlon posted and criticized these quotes on X.

"Flunkies are gonna flunk," Avlon stated, "but this is ridiculous — even for Nick LaLota. We know that Nick does whatever Trump says (like mocking the Bipartisan Border Security Bill)."

How to define a candidate is always part of a political campaign.

Avlon, a former CNN anchor and book author, is well-known in media circles and appears in the media/celebrity limelight in Manhattan, where he owns a Gramercy Park co-op along with his Sag Harbor house.

In that context, freelance journalist Jacqueline Sweet this week posted, also on X, news photos from April of Avlon at the movie premiere of a PBS documentary coproduced by Kathryn Murdoch, spouse of James Murdoch, the relatively liberal son of global media magnate Rupert Murdoch. James Murdoch contributed $6,600 to Avlon’s campaign in March. Also on hand, shown facing Avlon at one point, is Elon Musk, the current owner of X, formerly Twitter, who has endorsed Trump. Alongside Avlon in the photos is Margaret Hoover, his wife, who hosts the conservative PBS show Firing Line, made famous by its original host, the late William F. Buckley Jr.

By themselves, photos of Avlon’s casual mixing with elite party guests on both sides of the Republican-Democratic divide might make it hard for detractors to define him as anything but centrist, which Avlon seems to encourage.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

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