The anger and frustration in Little Neck Village, increasing for months and threatening to explode, dissipated somewhat Tuesday afternoon after a press release was issued by Marion Town Administrator Paul Dawson.
    But local seniors remain wary.
    The one-page statement offered two straws of hope to Little Neck residents who have been engaged in a battle with the Marion Affordable Housing Trust (MAHT). According to the release, bids for the expansion of Little Neck Village include proposals for both age-restricted developments and non-age-restricted developments. The press release also indicated that some bids include options for seniors to remain on site during construction.
    Although the future of Little Neck Village still remains uncertain, some residents reacted with a degree of relief by the news. For months residents have worried that the MAHT would only consider non-age-restricted proposals for expansion of Little Neck Village. They’ve also been upset by the housing trust’s inability to tell them where they would live during a construction project.
    Resident Helen Westergard, however, remains skeptical.
    "I’m not that gullible," she said.
    For months many Little Neck residents have believed their concerns regarding expansion of Little Neck Village and their requests for more information have been ignored.
    "Sometimes I feel as though we are invisible," resident Suzanne Peterson said on Monday.
    Residents say they’ve been left out of the information loop as a proposal by the MAHT to expand Little Neck underwent a series of changes. The final version of the proposal, which was released in the RFP (Requests For Proposals) brought Little Neck residents to full furor by converting Little Neck from its current 12 age-restricted affordable units to a 60-unit, non-age-restricted affordable apartment complex.
    Angry that the RFP did not include an option for Little Neck to remain age-restricted, residents mounted a protest that led to the RFP being amended after its release to include an age-restricted option.
    On June 26, following weeks of repeated assurance from housing trust chairman Reg Foster that information received in RFPs would be made public, several Little Neck residents attended the opening of the bids. According to Westergard, after the RFPs were opened Dawson told residents that because of procurement law information contained in the RFPs would not be made public until a proposal was selected. Westergard said that when she asked Dawson if he could at least tell residents if any of the proposals included plans for an age-restricted complex, Dawson said he couldn’t respond to that inquiry. That’s when anger reached the boiling point.
    Westergard, a former Marion Town Treasurer/Tax Collector who’s accustomed to both town government and the reading of legal documents, went home and read her copy of the RFP and seized upon two defining sentences. "All proposals submitted by the filing deadline set forth under…..will be opened in public and recorded. All information contained in the proposals will be public."
    Westergard visited Dawson’s office on Friday in an attempt to discuss the two sentences but was told Dawson was away for at conference. Westergard left the two-sentence quote taken from the RFP for Dawson’s consideration. According to Westergard, Dawson called her late Monday afternoon and said that the sentence "All information contained in the proposals will be public," contained within the RFP was incorrect.
    "I wonder how after the bid date it can be declared that one sentence in the (RFP) was a mistake without causing the RFP to be voided," Westergard said. "That’s a very significant sentence, and I can’t believe all of those experts wrote that sentence and didn’t mean it. They didn’t just write it once, either. They wrote it in an April 2 version of the RFP, in the RFP that was released, and in an addendum added to the released RFP."
    On Monday night during a MAHT meeting with Little Neck residents, Dawson, and Dick Heaton (the consultant who drafted the RFP present), Foster assumed responsibility for both the incorrect RFP sentence and for statements assuring residents that the RFP process would be open to the public.
    "We’re a little town with a lot of volunteers," Foster said, adding he had only recently learned of the constraints contained within procurement law that prevent RFP information from being made public.
    On Tuesday, when Dawson was asked who was responsible for approving the RFP and the sentence now acknowledged as erroneous, he replied, "I’ll take the ultimate responsibility and accept the 40 lashes."
    Asked for a comment on the press release, Dawson responded with surprise, claiming Foster must have written it.