Mastic Beach Residents Vote To Dissolve Village
MASTIC BEACH, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- The residents of Mastic Beach have voted to dissolve their small, Suffolk County village on Long Island's South Shore.
Residents voted to disband the village in a roughly 1,900 to 1,200 vote on Wednesday.
Mastic Beach, located just south of Shirley, became a village in 2010, WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported.
According to Mayor Maura Spery, the village taxes were never raised and services that are required by law -- including street cleaning -- could not be completed due to lack of funding.
"We were at a skeleton staff last year, and my budget would have just kept that skeleton staff going," Spery said. "But instead of raising the taxes enough to keep us at status quo, they didn't raise taxes at all, and then had to actually cut a tremendous amount of employees and services."
Sprey says she proposed a budget that would have added an additional 125 percent increase in spending -- which she says amounted to around $250 per home on average.
Mastic Beach's transition from a village into being a part of the Town of Brookhaven will likely take up to a year.
Newsday reports Mastic Beach is the first village to dissolve on Long Island since Pine Valley in 1991.