Hello – Old Harbour Green neighbors! Welcome to a new year – the Roaring 20’s as some may refer to it as!! It is always amazing to realize how time flies as we watch our families grow and prosper, new friendships start and old friendships deepen and life just continues to bring us along on our individual incredible journeys!! Year 2019 for our community was another active one with SEVERAL KEY PROJECTS completed. In 2019, we completed the front gate repairs – that being mostly the Bay Drive entrance. The front property clean-up and dead tree removal was completed in late Spring. We finally got the front gate lights fixed along with shoring up the columns on both entrances. The Bay Drive island needed some repairs on the sprinkler which was taken care of. In Year 2020, the main community improvement project will be repair & replace of many of the street signs. This is a significant undertaken given that it is all volunteers from the neighborhood offering their time to help with the sign templates and stenciling as well as post replacement where necessary. We have identified 12 street signs that are in a very distressed state and a few posts that also need to replaced. This work has already started in January and will continue through the early part of 2019. The expectation of the Board is that all signs in need of repair will be replaced this year.
HGA Annual Toy Drive with Santa – Saturday, Dec. 7th
Meet Santa on Candytuft Court at 1 PM on Saturday, December 7 for photos, hot chocolate, and cookies!
Santa will then take off on his sleigh through the streets of our neighborhood between 2-4 PM.
Come out and say hello or leaven an unwrapped toy on your doorstep.
The toys are brought to the Social Service Volunteers of Nassau, Inc. and then distributed at their annual Christmas Party for needy children.
Hope to see you all!!!
2019 HGA Candlelight Social Cancelled
Unfortunately, the December 6th Candlelight Social is cancelled due to low Membership Dues collected this year.
The Board of Directors, serving our community of 422 homes, works very hard every day to carry out all of the responsibilities necessary for our
Unfortunately, the December 6th Candlelight Social is cancelled due to low Membership Dues collected this year.
The Board of Directors, serving our community of 422 homes, works very hard every day to carry out all of the responsibilities necessary for our neighborhood. If we do not collect enough Dues from our residents we cannot fund all of the events.
This year only 251 families paid their membership dues and we sincerely thank them.
The Candlelight Social is a long-standing tradition of our community and represents a key event to celebrate the Holidays with our neighbors. After numerous reminder letters sent to residents who may have forgotten to pay, and some did respond with payments, it was not enough.
The HGA board also held a clothing fundraiser late Fall to offset the shortage of Dues payments which yielded $388.
If anyone believes it is not necessary to pay their Annual Membership Dues, it can’t be further from the truth. We can’t stress enough of the critical importance to do so to keep the beauty and charm of Old Harbour Green and run the community events offered to our residents.
The annual Dues is what allows the association to pay taxes and maintain the front property, run events, make repairs and initiate capital improvements. It also provides a foothold with our local public officials.
We ask everyone to please pay their Dues to continue the momentum of our great community. If you haven’t paid your 2019 Dues and would like to do so now, you can pay via credit card on our secured Payment page
HGA always welcomes questions and feedback from our residents. Please use the email icon below or the Contact page to reach us.
Thank you!
HGA Jr Civic Association – Looking for New Members!
Dear Harbour Green teenagers,My name is Kyra Varley and I am the president of the Junior Civic association. As a group, we have two meetings a year and volunteer at many of the community events, such as the candlelight tea. It is a great way to get involved in the community and get community service hours. We are in need of new members and if anyone is interested in joining please contact me by Calling or Emailing me.Thank you,
Kyra Varley
2019 President’s Message
HGA President 2019 Message…
Hello, Old Harbour Green neighbors! My name is Greg Lowrey and I am honored to introduce myself as your new HGA Board President beginning January 2019. Our family has lived in the Massapequa area for many years and, after living out of state for a few years, we moved back in Spring 2014 to call Old Harbour Green our new home. I have been gladly serving as a member of our Board since 2015 after being invited to join by a fellow member. My motivation to get involved was largely influenced by the charm of our community and my desire to play a part in preserving it! After meeting other Board members, I immediately recognized a committed group of residents that shared my same motivation for the good of our community – I have enjoyed the experience ever since! I hope to – and look forward to – continuing the good work that our past Presidents and Board members have accomplished for all of us…
A Look-Back
Last year 2018 was a very productive one for the HGA Board as we accomplished many of the main project goals that we set out to achieve. These were the following:
- Repair/Replace several of the Drive Slowly signs
- Repairing the Cedar Shore Drive front gate entrance
- Repairing of Cedar Shore Drive & Bay Drive entrance columns & lights
- Clean-up and replanting of Bay Drive islands
** A BIG THANK YOU to Michael Murphy who replaced a few of the damaged Drive Slowly signs & Andrew Sellino who repaired the Entrance Gate columns & lights!! **
Our past President – Stephanie Carter – was successful in gaining attention from TOB and NYS officials to the issues concerning our residents. The relationships she has established and her continued assistance will serve our community well in 2019. In 2018, our Annual Dues paid residents remained steady from the previous year with approximately 12% of our residents contributing more than the requested $60 which helped us get closer to the monies needed to accomplish our projects HOWEVER we did fall short of 100% of Dues Paid residents and this always makes it difficult to meet our financial obligations of Property Taxes & Insurance. We did have donations come from our New Harbour Green neighbors south of us which were directed specifically for the front gate repairs – we greatly appreciate their generosity! Our year of community social events finished with another successful Candlelight Tea Social event at Grace Day which couldn’t have happened without the HARD WORK of CTS Committee Chairperson Jerry Langsner!
Now onto 2019
2019 Board Member Changes
We underwent some changes in Board positions going into 2019 as is normal according to our Old Harbour Green by-laws. These changes included Jerry Langsner, Jane Huang and Dave Palmer finishing out their tenures as HGA members and who deserve a GREAT BIG THANK YOU for their contributions over the years!! Stephanie Carter (recent past President), Rob Scarola, Doug DiDomenica and Art Pensato remain as HGA members and our 2019 Board Officers will be:
President – Greg Lowrey
Vice President – Michael Venditto
Treasurer – Mike Pratt
Secretary – Mike Fay
2019 Board Meeting Schedule
Any resident is welcome to join us at an upcoming HGA Board meeting which is normally held in the church basement of Grace Day – just send us a note if you plan on attending so we can anticipate how much room we may need. Our scheduled meetings:
March 5th // May 7th// September 10th // November 12th
2019 Community Projects
This year will bring new projects that the Board is planning to undertake in maintaining the charm and beauty of our community. Our focus will be finishing the repairs of the Bay Drive front gates, repairing and/or replacing street signs that are in very poor condition and adding new landscaping at Cedar Shore & Bay Drive entrances. In addition to these, the issue of speeding on Bay Drive continues to be a concern for our community. Our Board had pursued TOB officials in 2018 for a traffic flow review of this through the street and they did respond to us however their findings did not arrive at a solution to this issue – we will continue to work with TOB in 2019 on this matter.
2019 Annual Maintenance
We will continue to use Neptune Landscaping for our front property clean-up and seasonal maintenance as well as any add-on projects. They have always done a great job and the Board is confident that attention to our community will continue. Rain Pro maintained our sprinkler systems last year and will be contracted again in 2019.
2019 Community Events
Our annual events area tradition for our community – especially are always well attended Candlelight Tea Social – and 2019 will be no different!
Easter Egg Hunt – Saturday, April 13th 11:00am-12:30pm – Location TBD
Halloween Parade — TBD
Annual Candlelight Tea Social – Friday, December 6th 7:30pm – 11:00pm – Grace Day Auditorium
S.O.S. (Student Outreach to Seniors)
Our S.O.S. Committee comprised of several young adults from our neighborhood under the adult supervision of Doug DiDomenica is ready for SNOW! and helping many of our beloved seniors digging out after a storm – it’s been a mild winter so far and the groundhog has predicted an early spring! This group’s main mission is to help during winter storms HOWEVER we welcome any feedback of other support that we can consider providing our senior neighbors.
Junior Civic Group
Kyra Varley will be passing her leadership role to another member of the group this year as she focuses on finishing out her senior year and preparing for college in the Fall 2019 – THANK YOU Kyra for all your help and support!! Stephanie Carter will continue to provide her guidance for the group.
Tax Year 2020-2021
In late 2018 the Board received the Nassau County Re-Assessment Notice which re-evaluated the market value our front property with a significant increase in total value resulting in a General & School Tax increase of approximately 66%. The HGA Board is pursuing an appointment with the County Assessor office to discuss this. Stephanie Carter has already had preliminary conversations while she was President and we will both be focusing on this issue immediately. Other options may include grieving these taxes as well as alternatives of front property ownership by another non-profit organization.
2019 Resident Dues
Finally, our 2019 Dues Letter will be mailed in early February. The amount will remain at $60.00 and any additional donations over the $60 Dues is ALWAYS appreciated! This year we have added a NEW online credit card payment option via our website right here. As mentioned throughout this message we need all residents Dues payments to meet the increased taxes and other expenses that help keep OUR community uniquely charming.
In closing, on behalf of the Harbour Green Association Board, we thank all of you for your continued commitment and financial support in making sure that OHG remains OUR beautiful neighborhood!
Sincerely,
Greg Lowrey
President
HGA Newsletter going paperless!!
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