All in the neighborhood

It appears that differences on a handful of inconsequential differences stand between the current uncertainty in which the New York Racing Association is operating on time borrowed by politicians and the relative calm that will accompany the moment at which the issue is put to rest.

Foremost is the configuration of the NYRA board of trustees with an increase in political appointments. Since there is no pay associated with membership on the board, these are unlikely to be high level appointments made by the governor, assembly speaker and senate majority leader. It may be difficult to get these people to meetings without the promise of free lunch.

Sen. Joe Bruno wants certain performance standards met in relation to attendance and purse guarantees. What’s wrong with this man? Attendance is no longer a meaningful issue. Someone please tell the senator about OTB, in-home simulcasting, phone accounts and the Internet. Purses are set by statue. They are already guaranteed and are expected to increase by about 30 percent after the VLT casino at Aqueduct is operational. Bruno has a great capacity for creating the illusion of issues where none exist.

Such as making an issue of community involvement.

Exactly what does that mean?

There is always the possibility of involving the wiseguys who live in those huge houses that just don’t fit in the South Ozone Park neighborhood adjacent to Aqueduct, which is bordered on the south by Kennedy International Airport. We know they’re horseplayers. The late John Gotti used to give his father $300 a day to play horses at Aqueduct. “Never thought I’d live this long,” the old man used to say. Perhaps NYRA might buy new bulletproof glass for the local bodegas or provide every local homeowner with a new Madonna on the halfshell.

Saratoga is no problem. Every citizen of that city is somehow enriched by the summer race meeting. Saratoga Springs during the summer has everything you want in a small town at Central Park South prices. Enough is enough.

Back downstate to Elmont, where the business community in the immediate vicinity of Belmont Park includes a hot-pillow motel, the odd hooker on the Plainfield Avenue stroll, drug dealers, bodegas, delicatessens, a car wash, an assortment of fast food places, gas stations, greasy-spoon dining, a storefront psychic who goes in and out of business, low-rent shopping and mostly boarded up buildings where saloons operated in better days. So where do we go with this one?

The people to the north, in affluent, highly taxed Floral Park, include more than a few already connected in one way of another to Belmont Park – trainers, owners, NYRA employees and others. On many nights, everyone at the bar – and Floral Park is a village of bars – is in one way or another a participant in the racing game. The local business community has for decades profited from their presence. There are also lifelong residents of Floral Park deep into middle age who have never once set foot inside Belmont Park.

There have been town meetings on the subject in Floral Park at which the decision was made to demand something for nothing. There is precedent. NYRA once donated land on its northern periphery on which a school now stands. The town, however, refused NYRA’s request to build a daycare center for the children of backstretch workers on the Floral Park portion of the property. The facility now stands on part of the property located in Elmont. The good neighbor concept is in theory reciprocal.

It is laughable that Bruno has even broached this subject. That it is a point of contention is sublimely absurd.