Asharoken raising funds for village hall

By Tim Healy
tim.healy@newsday.com

The village of Asharoken is closing in on its goal of raising $250,000 in donations to expand and restore the village hall to provide additional room for the police department and the village clerk’s office.

“We’re doing great,” said Police Commissioner Mel Ettinger, who is leading the effort. “And you can quote me on that.”

The village has raised $208,000 in pledges and actual donations so far from roughly 122 of the 400 families in the village. Design and construction drawings have been completed, with the majority of those costs donated by a Northport architect.

Ettinger said that the village is beginning to solicit construction bids. “We have all the applications complete,” he added. “And we will be visiting with the New York State [Department of Environmental Conservation] . . . to file our applications for their approval of our permits.”

The building started as a garage for the police cars many years ago, according to Ettinger, who said a first expansion roughly 15 years ago to 1,150 square feet provided an office area for the village clerk, a meeting room, which doubles as a court . . . and a very, very small space for the police.

“So what we’re doing is about doubling the village clerk’s office area, going from 400 square feet . . to roughly 800 square feet, “Ettinger said. “We’re substantially increasing the size of the police from roughly 120 square feet to approximately 800 square feet . . . and then we’re putting on a garage and a storage area for some of our police vehicles as well as file storage.”

Ettinger started the actual fundraising drive in the middle of March with a mailing that resulted in $80,000 from 35 families. “We were all overwhelmed by the response that we got from our residents,” he said.

A second mailing in July and a third last month have brought the total to $205,000.

“I originally was targeting $200,000, but being that we’re doing so well I actually upped the goal to $250,000 and I’m very confident that within the next few weeks we will not only achieve our goal . . . I have every confidence that we will exceed that goal.”

In addition to the money donated or pledged so far, three residents have pledged “in kind” donations of a boiler and fittings, bathroom fixtures, and the installation and excavation of the cesspool.