By Legislator Carrié Solages
A multimillion-dollar investment focused on transforming Woodfield Road in Lakeview Avenue is on the horizon – and your input is essential for ensuring the success of this long-awaited endeavor.
The forthcoming opportunity is one that illuminates the history of our region and the importance of grassroots advocacy in advancing change for the better.
As a result of redistricting, I have had the privilege of representing Lakeview since the start of this year – and it is a source pf personal pride to advocate for this community. Lakeview is where many Black World War II veterans bought and built homes with the GI Bill benefits that they earned through their service to our nation.
As a burgeoning suburban community, Lakeview found itself on the forefront of the civil rights movement, and the schools that served its community were among the first to be desegregated in New York State. In fact, during the push for integration, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the Malverne School District in 1965 to support advocates for the cause.
These concerns about equity connect the past to the present day. Then, advocates raised concerns that the Woodfield Road Elementary School, where the student body was three-quarters Black, was overcrowded and under-resourced. In the present day, communities of color have called out the fact that infrastructure initiatives are not prioritized as they are in other parts of Nassau.
After this winter’s heavy snowstorms, I personally witnessed this while touring District 3 and saw the difference how Franklin Square’s roads were cleared more promptly than comparable residential roads in Elmont. In Lakeview, the Southern State Parkway overpass was in an impassable state for pedestrians for far too long until I called it out on social media and started clearing the roads myself.
It is a pattern that repeats itself far too frequently in the administration of Nassau County’s capital infrastructure plan, and my Democratic Caucus colleagues and I have taken important steps toward rectifying the imbalance.
The first step came last year when we broke the nonsensical blockade that County Executive Bruce Blakeman erected against providing Community Revitalization Program (CRP) to Democratic districts. We successfully leveraged our votes for the 2025 capital plan – which requires a 13-vote supermajority to pass – to force the County Executive to add funding for 14 CRP grants for first responders, totaling $1.3 million, into the 2025 capital plan bond ordinance.
By again leveraging our capital plan votes this July, we unlocked another 32 CRPs grants – including hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for projects that will enhance public playgrounds in Elmont and provide key educational resources at the Lakeview Library. Those grants were approved as part of an agreement that advanced an amendment to the FY 26 capital plan – one which delivers over $58 million in new investments to Democratic-served communities.
These resources include $7.2 million for a major streetscape, beautification, and traffic safety project focused upon Woodfield Road and Lakeview Avenue – funds which were secured in Nassau’s capital plan by former Legislator Siela A. Bynoe, who now serves in the New York State Senate. Initial projections from Nassau DPW indicate the design phase is expected to be completed this year, with construction slated to begin in 2027.
We cannot complete this streetscape in a vacuum – and we cannot wait until 2028 for this work to be done. I urge you to contact County Executive Bruce Blakeman at 516-571-313 or ncexecutive@nassaucountyny.gov and urge him to expedite this critical investment in our future.
By leveraging this road project and the community’s proximity to the Long Island Railroad, we can stimulate investment that will create a vibrant and modern transit-oriented downtown community at the intersection of Woodfield Road and Eagle Avenue – one that is vibrant, modern and reflective of its historic roots as gathering place and community hub. Moreover, I want this to become a model for communities across District 3, including Elmont.
I will be joining Nassau’s Department of Public Works and my colleagues in local government to host town hall meetings across Lakeview. Please follow my office on Facebook or Instagram or sign up for my digital newsletter at www.nassaucountyny.gov/LD3 to learn about the dates and times as they are scheduled – and in the meantime, provide me with comments and insights by calling my office at 516-571-6203; by emailing me directly at csolages@nassaucountyny.gov; or mailing comments to our office at 1550 Franklin Avenue, Mineola, N.Y. 11501.
Your feedback and participation will help us to build a consensus that best serves the entire community and charts a course to a more prosperous future for the historic hamlet of Lakeview.
Carrié Solages, of Valley Stream, represents the communities of District 3 in the Nassau County Legislature.