When the plans for the County’s Operation Downtown on Park Boulevard were drawn up, and a proposal by the Long Island Railroad for improvements at the station were presented to the Village of Massapequa Park, officials took on the responsibilities of reviewing them, studying all aspects of the proposals and ensuring that the plans not only met the needs of the Village but were also attractive and compatible. It was an major task and while officials tried to review and provide input to every aspect of the plans, the job was difficult.

Now Mayor James Altadonna is looking for a little help with that kind of work and has established a Beautification Committee whose responsibility will be to pick up where public officials leave off and look at plans and issues and ideas with an eye toward esthetics. He said he wants to help create a "warm and friendly community where people can come, spend a day, enjoy the surroundings and, hopefully spend money to keep the it economically viable."

Les Astrof, the committee’s chairman said the members believe that "it is always a good idea to make the village special and the only way to accomplish that is to make the Village look special.

"It will be special when we set it apart from the rest of Masssapequa," he added. "And the exciting part is that we have elected officials who want to accomplish that.

The committee includes Paul Christian of First Avenue, Mary Ann Chalupa of Lakeshore Boulevard, Sue Mehr of Jackson Avenue, Steve Costello of Lake Shore Drive, Les Astrof of Southgate Circle, John Giovenco of Second Avenue, Travis Nicholson of the Massapequa Funeral Homes, Fran Foley of Grand Boulevard, Suzanne Krieger of Harbor Lane, and Cindy Murphy of Garfield Street. Linda Murphy represents the Village and Massapequa Park Village Trustee John O’Brien is acting as the liaison between the committee and the Village Board.

"I realized that we needed to have some additional input into how things look throughout the Village," said Altadonna. "My hope is to have a committee that will actually establish projects, put together budgets and implement the projects in a logical progression from beginning to completion to avoid some of the problems we had with Operation Downtown."

"The committee will act in a capacity similar to that of the planning commission in that they will review things and bring their information to the Village Board, which will make a decision," said O’Brien. "The members are already working very hard on a number of issues."

They would, in reality, be the detail people. For example, when plans for Operation Downtown were reviewed, information on things like benches, planters and waste receptacles, what they would look like and where they would be located were not clearly outlined. The result, said Altadonna, was that the Village had little input into those decisions. "If we have a committee, we can be sure that in projects like this, these kinds of details will be addressed," said the Mayor.

Already, the committee has a list of chores. Altadonna said he would like them to review a proposal to restore the Medal of Honor park at Lake Shore Drive and to look into the feasibility of planting an evergreen tree at Park Boulevard and Front Street, as well as refurbishing that entrance way and others. Currently the Village cuts down a tree every year to decorate it for the holidays and the Mayor said he wanted to see if it would be better to have a tree there permanently. The committee will look into how much, if any parking, would be lost and how the site would be landscaped, as well as providing the Village Board with a cost estimate of the project.

In addition, there are grants at the state and federal level that the Village could apply for. But, in some cases, the grants require that proposals be submitted, work the committee could also undertake.