A newly formed group working to keep the Nassau County-operated open and thriving is urging the community to contact local elected officials to rally support for the museum on the Seaford/Massapequa border.
Friends of Tackapausha Committee leaders urged the more than 20 people who attended the group's first public meeting Monday night at the to call and send e-mails to elected officials, particularly on the county level.
The organization's founder and president, Lorraine Bondi-Goldsmith, said the county indicated last month wanting to form a partnership with Friends of Tackapausha but lately has been keeping the group in the dark of late with the developments.
"They wanted to partner with us and now they are kind of dragging their feet," said Bondi-Goldsmith during Monday's meeting.
Katie Grilli-Robles, a spokeswoman for Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano, said the county is still planning a reopening of the museum by April 22 and then be open on a Thursday to Sunday schedule from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum will likely operated by a newly hired director of county museums, Grilli-Robles said.
Friends of Tackapausha, which has an application pending to form as a 501(c charity, has been pressing to get a full-time person in charge of the educational center after the museum’s director Wendy Albin was one of more than 200 county workers laid off in late December. The group in front of the museum on 2225 Washington Ave. on Feb. 17.
The Tackapausha Museum, which first opened in Seaford 65 years ago, has not been open for regular public hours since mid August of 2010 when a $300,000 renovation project commenced. Mangano announced in early November that the Tackapausha Museum starting Jan. 1 from Wednesday to Friday, but the facility instead has stayed shut. In September, Mangano had announced that wildlife museum to help close a more than $300 million budget gap.
