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Nassau Voters Reject Proposal to Fix Coliseum

Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale has been the home of the New York Islanders since it opened in 1972 for the team's first season.Credit...Christopher Pasatieri/Getty Images

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Nassau County voters, who pay among the highest local taxes in the nation, handily defeated a contentious proposal on Monday to spend $400 million to overhaul the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the outdated home of the New York Islanders hockey club.

With 82 percent of the ballots counted late Monday, the vote was about 57 percent to 43 percent against borrowing the money through a general obligation bond to pay for the plan, which also called for construction of a minor-league baseball park and convention space. The results marked an enormous defeat for Charles B. Wang, the owner of the Islanders, who had sought a new or refurbished arena for nearly a decade.

“I have to tell you I’m disappointed, and to put it very bluntly, I’m heartbroken,” Mr. Wang said. He said he would not discuss his next move.

Mr. Wang could sell or move the National Hockey League team, which began play in 1972, the year the Nassau Coliseum opened. Mr. Wang, who has owned the Islanders since 2001, had said construction would begin next June. The Islanders’ lease with the Coliseum expires in 2015. He said after the defeat, “We will honor our lease.”

Edward P. Mangano, the Nassau County executive, who supported the plan, said: “Tonight is not an ending but a beginning. We will find a new path that brings people together — a path that solves the problems and blockades for the redevelopment of this property.”

On Monday evening, voters at the poll at California School in Uniondale, about a mile from the arena, fell into two camps: those who thought the project would benefit Long Island in the long run, and those who did not think the project was worth paying additional taxes.

Marc Gundel, a Uniondale resident, said he had voted for the project. “I’m a homeowner, and I’m a laid-off union plumber,” he said, “and if the Islanders go, a lot of businesses right behind them go.”

Steve Melendez, a Uniondale resident who opposed the proposal, said Mr. Wang should pay for the project privately.

“He said he was paying for everything on his own,” Mr. Melendez said. “Why make the taxpayer shell it out, when two years prior to this, he was paying for everything?”

Although a new arena would play host to concerts and other events, the election centered around the viability of the Islanders, who became a source of civic pride less than a decade after the team’s inception, winning the Stanley Cup four straight times from 1980 to 1983.

But the Islanders have not won a Stanley Cup playoff series in 18 years and have not even qualified for the 16-team playoffs in the last four seasons. They were last among the N.H.L.’s 30 teams in home attendance last season, averaging 11,059 fans per game. The roster, however, has been rebuilt in recent years, and the Islanders are generally thought to be more competitive. The N.H.L. and the Islanders’ two most bitter rivals, the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils, have been publicly supportive of the arena project on Long Island.

The referendum spurred much debate, including the timing of the election itself. Holding the election on a Monday in August instead of on Election Day cost the county $2 million, and turnout was light. Mr. Wang had offered to cover the cost of the election if the measure passed. The county’s finances are in such poor shape that they are monitored by the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority. The authority said the county could run a deficit of up to $140 million this year.

The authority had said that the referendum, if ultimately approved, could have meant that voters could have to pay 4 percent more in property taxes. But supporters of the measure argued that a new arena would generate far more money in new tax revenue over the long term, and that tax increases for single-family homeowners would be between $14 and $58 a year.

Besides the Islanders and their fans, many Republicans, like Mr. Mangano, supported the plan, along with construction unions and some land-use groups. Democrats, fiscal conservatives and developers generally opposed the plan, saying the county should not go further in debt to help Mr. Wang.

A correction was made on 
Oct. 24, 2012

An earlier version of this article gave the incorrect middle initial for an owner of the Islanders. He is Charles B. Wang, not Charles E. Wang.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Nassau Voters Turn Down Proposal to Overhaul Coliseum. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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