SIGN-UP TIME: Hundreds of union workers turned out at Nassau Coliseum yesterday to show their support for a new arena to keep the Islanders on Long Island through 2045. The $400 million bond proposal must be approved by voters on Aug. 1. (VICTOR ALCORN)
The chant of “Build it now!” came thundering yesterday from mouths of unemployed union laborers standing in the rafters of the dilapidated Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale.
Yet all the hope and rosy hue the Islanders’ organization tried to put on the face of its new proposed arena shortly became horribly smudged.
The Nassau Interim Finance Authority (NIFA), the state-appointed watchdog agency that oversees all of debt-ridden Nassau County expenditures exceeding $50,000, immediately denounced the joint plan proposed by County Executive Ed Mangano and Islanders owner Charles Wang.
A statement released by NIFA said there was “no coordination . . . regarding this major proposal.
“As we await necessary information from the county regarding the 2011 and 2012 budgets,” the statement continued, “NIFA requires details of this new plan, which must be evaluated in the context of the county’s fiscal crisis, the wage freeze on county employees and the reductions in services to county residents.”
NIFA board member George Marlin went one step further.
“With the county in a state of fiscal despair and with county layoffs, to saddle taxpayers with an addition $400 million of debt and to spend scare dollars on a special election is absurd,” Marlin said. “The cash-strapped Nassau [County] can’t afford fantasy baseball.”
Mangano’s proposal for the county to take out a $400 million bond — $350 million of which would be for the hockey arena, and another $50 million for a minor-league baseball stadium on adjacent Mitchel Field — will be put into a referendum and voted on by county residents on Aug. 1.
If that passes, the procedure for taking construction proposals can start. Mangano and Wang hope to have the building started by next spring in order to have it up by 2015, when the Islanders’ lease at Nassau Coliseum expires.
All of which would — again — have to be approved by NIFA.
But as Mangano reiterated throughout the day, the money borrowed would not come from the wallets of the taxpayers, whose county is in $1.65 billion of debt and has skyrocketing property taxes.
Rather, Wang and the other private businesses making money from the venture would share their revenue at an undisclosed rate in order to pay back the loan — all over the 30-year lease that would run until 2045.
“Our intention here is to not have to cost the taxpayers a single dime because the revenue generated from these facilities will be dedicated back to the county,” Mangano said. “Those models will be advanced as the contracts are negotiated as we move forward.”
The current proposed plan is a long way off from Wang’s original Lighthouse Project, which called for an influx of housing and retail outlets in addition to a new arena. That idea was shot down numerous times by the Town of Hempstead.
Yet, with his team’s time in the Coliseum quickly coming to a head, Wang doesn’t want to think about past failures.
“Everybody knows we’re now faced with a deadline,” Wang said. “We can’t play past 2015, that’s it. . . . I’m very confident and optimistic.”
Wang’s team also is optimistic, hoping the proposal passes so they can stop answering questions about an uncertain future.
“I don’t want to jinx it,” said Isles goalie Rick DiPietro, who still has 10 years and $45 million left on his contract. “I’m sitting here with my fingers crossed and my toes crossed in my shoes.”