It was December 2017 when former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo stood alongside Billy Joel and then-New York Islanders John Tavares and Cal Clutterbuck, and welcomed back the Islanders. The team and its development partners would build a new arena on state land at Belmont Park. 

"It's a great day for Long Island," Cuomo said.

For residents of Elmont, however, it was just the beginning of a long struggle to gain the community benefits that New York Arena Partners, as the development group was known, had long promised them. In the eight-plus years that followed, construction on UBS Arena started and finished, and the Islanders have completed five seasons of play there. Tavares left to join the Toronto Maple Leafs and Clutterbuck retired. Even Joel sold his Centre Island estate and Cuomo no longer is an elected official.

In those intervening years, Elmont residents fought battles that shouldn't have been as difficult or as long as they were. As the arena was built and opened, community........

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