A Long Island city is looking to become the first in New York state to formally recognize 9/11 a as a holiday, but there’s a catch — schools would still be in session.
Long Beach officials said they’re planning to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by offering paid day off to city workers, but the change wouldn’t affect local schools, according to the Long Beach Herald.
City Council Vice President Chris Fiumara — who was working inside one of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and made it out alive before the towers fell — announced the plans Friday at the city’s annual memorial ceremony, the Herald said.
“I’m honored to announce in front of all of you in Long Beach today that we are going to be the first municipality in the state of New York to make 9/11 a holiday,” he told the crowd gathered at the Virginia Avenue Garden of Remembrance.
Sept. 11, currently recognized nationally as “Patriot Day,” is a National Day of Remembrance, but it is not an official holiday at either the state or federal level.
A handful of other municipalities nationwide have also made 9/11 an official paid holiday for public workers, including Monmouth County in New Jersey, which has marked it as a public holiday since 2023.
Though Long Beach would be the first “city” in the state to recognize the day as a holiday, Amityville, a village also on Long Island, first recognized 9/11 as a holiday and gave public employees the day off in 2017.
However, Amityville later reversed course that same year because of a limit on paid holidays, which forced workers to choose between having 9/11 off or Veterans Day — with the latter winning out, according to CBS News.
Long Beach may find some of the same issues arise as they go through the process of recognizing the day as the holidays have to be worked out with unionized workers, City Manager Daniel Creighton said.
“The Council is very adamant that they want this done — now it’s [about] the nuances of it, the union contracts,” he said. “We have to have conversations with all of them to make it happen.”
Local schools are governed by a Board of Education that operates entirely independent of the City Council. The local BOE would have to approve a holiday and arrange the particulars with unionized teachers.
It’s unclear when Long Beach would take the action to officially mark the holiday.
