Incorporated Village of Islandia, Long Island, New York

A Message from the Mayor

Headshot of Mayor Dorman

I hope this letter finds you and your family well and that 2025 is off to a good start.

2025 marks the 40th anniversary of our Village. As someone who has lived in our community since 1980, I have never been prouder of our Village and what we have accomplished to enhance our community.

As reported in my letter accompanying Village tax notices mailed to residents earlier this month, I am again pleased to report that, beginning with the 2025 tax year, there will be no Village residential property taxes. In 2017-18, we cut Village taxes by 50%. We are now eliminating the other half. This, combined with our elimination of the Village garbage collection fee for the 14th consecutive year, means that residents, on average, will experience $1,750 in savings annually, while paying ZERO in Village residential property taxes. The business/commercial property tax will remain the same. We have accomplished this, thanks to maintaining fiscal discipline, encouraging investment in our commercial district and through our Taxpayer Relief Agreement with Jake’s 58.

I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of our accomplishments of the past year. In 2024, to further invest in improving our local quality of life, we launched our Neighborhood Development Program with the demolition of a dilapidated five-family home — long a community eyesore — located at 59 S. Bedford Avenue that will be redeveloped into one to two single-family homes, which will help enhance local property values. Since then, we have been identifying several other properties in need of remediation and have been working with property owners and developers to rehabilitate and, in some cases, re-develop homes as new single-family residences.

Our park continues to be one of the focal points with respect to improving quality of life in our Village. The Memorial Recreation Field is a true state-of-the-art complex featuring ball fields for youth and community baseball and softball games, a concession stand, restrooms, a gazebo, a playground, and an exercise path with ten different exercise stations. In the past year, we made some improvements to the Park, including a parking lot expansion and sidewalks alongside the Park to keep pedestrians safe. The Memorial Recreation Field and the 9/11 Memorial are both living up to the highest standards of giving recognition to our first responders, who sacrificed and continue to serve our communities.

Our residents are enjoying the new pickleball courts that we installed two years ago. I want to thank our Village Trustees for allocating the funds to make the investment in our recreational facilities possible. We had a great turnout for our grand opening and everyone had a lot of fun. This past October, we hosted the Bridges of Hope Pickleball Tournament, which raised $14,000 to benefit United Veterans Beacon House. We also launched a pilot pickleball program at Andrew T. Morrow Elementary School to get students interested in the sport. If you wish to reserve a court, go to voi.pickleplanner.com and download the app.

This year, attendance at our Village events reached new highs. Over 1,000 people attended both the Village BBQ and the Pumpkin Fest, held at the Memorial Recreation Field. More than 500 people attended our holiday buffet and tree lighting events. We are also looking to bring back Music Under the Stars in front of the gazebo and Family Movie Night on the big screen.

We also increased our activities at the Village Activity Center, beginning with Family Movie Nights, recently featuring Inside Out 2 and Elf. On January 23, we started Ladies Bingo Night.

The elimination of residential property taxes and the investments we have made towards improving our local quality of life and building a greater sense of community truly make Islandia one of the most affordable and desirable places to live, work and raise a family in Suffolk County. While much has been accomplished, much more can be done and that’s why I say and continue to repeat that this is only the beginning!

Thank you again for the opportunity to serve you as your Mayor. Please don’t hesitate to email me at adorman@newvillageofislandia.com or call me at (631) 348-1133 with any questions.

Sincerely,

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