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Odd numbered years are election years for local offices and legislatures on Long Island. It is an unusual year for many of the races for which I can vote as there are actual Democrats running against the Republican incumbents and nominees.
Tonight there was a candidate's forum at my local library and while only Democratic candidates showed up (exception was my current Repub county legislator), it was interesting to hear them talk about how they would move both the County and Town in a different more positive and inclusive direction than the current Republican administrations have handled our affairs.
Below the fold I'll focus on some of the ideas they presented and focus on one monumental race that will have huge impacts on the state of affairs in Nassau County going forward.
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As I have noted before, the Town government I live under has never elected a Democratic Supervisor in its 108 year history. This year with the current Supervisor running for County DA (I'll get to that race in a minute), my current Town Councilman is running to replace her. He is odious as she is and both of them along with the County Republican Chair and former Sen Al D'Amato were directly responsible for causing the New York Islanders to have to leave for Brooklyn by voting down a privately funded revitalization project for the Nassau Coliseum and the surrounding area. They voted down the project for two reasons. 1) With affordable housing as part of the plan, they knew the people that would likely move in would not be Republicans. And 2) The owner of the team wouldn't "play the game" by hiring their cronies and greasing their palms.
The Democrat running against him, Rita Kasenbaum, opened my eyes up to a lot of things I didn't know were going on in the Town government above some the well known things. (It's easy to get complacent when no matter bad things become the same criminals keep getting re-elected.) There is a major heroin problem that has been growing on Long Island for the over a decade. Ms. Kasenbaum spoke of how after winning a major upset to get on the the Town Board, she tried to create a youth board to combat the growing problem. He idea went nowhere for obvious reasons. She also spoke of how the Town has eliminated night meetings and requires FOIA requests to keep citizens in the dark about the Town's finances and what they are actually doing.
One issue mentioned by a number of the candidates is the numerous mailings that come out of the County and Town offices. This has been a on-going problem for decades. They are costly and a huge environmental waste. They are also at times illegal as they are always paid for by the taxpayers and usually only come out during election season. They claim to be informational mailings but they are really just hidden political advertisements which is illegal. Additionally she wants to do away with putting the Town Supervisor's name on every public sign, building, truck or any other asset owned or event hosted by the Town. These are essentially 365 day a year advertisements for the current administration and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money a year.
She also talked about wanting to end patronage and corruption by advertising job openings within the Town. This is something that isn't currently done as the only way to get a job with the Town is to be a relative, friend or contributor. And of course, you must be a Republican.
My County Legislator is actually opposed this year which is fairly unusual. I found out tonight that she is a registered Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans. Major Ugh! I always thought she was one of the remaining real moderate Republicans in the country. To find out she is just doing the politically expedient thing by running as Republican disgusts me and makes her answer to my question about pay-to-play politics and corruption suspect in my mind. She, of course, also said taxes have not gone up in the last 4 years without mentioning how fees have doubled and tripled as if they are not just different versions of taxes.
The person running against her gave a bad opening statement in his time at the podium but came back strongly in answering questions. He has vowed to propose strong gun control legislation and work with DA to root out both the corruption and the heroin problem that plagues the County. He also has vowed to join the lawsuit my school district has against LIPA and the power plant that is located in our school district to stop them from getting property tax exemptions which will cause the taxes on local business and residences to skyrocket.
One other major point he made was the fact that the current and previous Republican administrations have both caused the County's finances to be taken over by State through the Nassau Interim Financial Administration while under the last Democratic government the County was on solid financial footing and was able to run itself. 9 of the last 10 years of Repub leadership has left the County pretty much broke and further corrupted. One awful method of corruption that exits is when the County issues Requests For Proposals for different infrastructure projects. There is a 90 day limit to decide on these proposals but at the end of 90 days if only one proposal comes in, it automatically gets approved. Thus, the County only advertises the requests close to the end of the 90 day period. See the Dean Skelos fiasco for examples of this.
The final candidate in attendance was the Acting County DA Madeline Singas who took over when Kathleen Rice was elected to Congress. She is a 24 year career prosecutor who rose through the ranks starting in the Queens DA's office and came over to Nassau to start up a Special Victim Unit at the behest of Ms. Rice. She, along with Rice, has done a tremendous job helping to reduce the DWI problem as well as reducing crime overall. She has also begun programs to help drug addicts get rehabilitated instead of just sending them to jail. Additionally, she help re-write the Penal Code to prosecute dealers when their client dies from overdoes. (You may or may not agree with that.) She has spearheaded programs to help people victims of domestic violence, but she does not prosecute blindly. She looks at each case carefully to see if people in divorce disputes are just using the system to their advantage. This is something her opponent has used to manipulate her record. She gave a strong presentation and got wild cheers at the end of her time.
As for the person opposing her, Kate Murray, is the current Supervisor of my Town, who is neck deep in the corruption that has festered within the Town for decades. Not only that, but this person has never been a prosecutor, never set foot in a criminal court and has not practiced any kind of law in 17 years. The DA's office is the one office in Nassau County has not be able to be manipulated in well over a decade. This of course does not sit well with the Republicans. It is glaringly obvious the Republicans are running her because they know she will turn the DA's office into a patronage office and they can use it to go after the few remaining Democrats who hold elected office in all levels of the County. The other reason is she well known in my Town and probably could siphon votes that normally would have gone to Singas just because Murray is the current Town Supervisor. Unfortunately, Murray is currently leading in the polls 48-42.
I am keeping my hopes up that we finally see some changes in Nassau County, but I am not expecting a good result.
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