Viewpoint

Clearing the Air

1. As of the moment this is being written, Legislator Ed Mangano leads County Executive Suozzi by 497 votes on voting machines. The counting of over 8,000 absentee and other paper ballots might be completed by the time you read this. Most political people believe Mr. Mangano is the favorite to win because more enrolled Republicans returned absentee ballots than enrolled Democrats. However, some of those Republicans are actually older “hidden” Democrats, vestiges from a time when it was smarter and safer to enroll with the G.O.P. just in case you had to do business with the county or town. Are there enough of them to make up that kind of ground? Twenty years ago, the answer was definitely, “maybe yes.” Today, it’s not as clear. Insiders say that the Mangano campaign worked the absentee ballots much more than the Suozzi campaign, meaning they made direct contact with applicants. If so, it’s another sign that the Democratic Party is losing institutional knowledge of even the basic mechanics of campaign making. It isn’t all about collecting large campaign checks.…

The Vote

It will take focus groups and other research tools to really figure out the reasons voters cast their ballots one way or another. Already, the morning after the county election, with the outcomes of two countywide races and a legislative race on hold possibly for weeks, we are subjected to some very tortured and self-serving explanations, particularly from some disappointed Democrats.

Face the ugly facts. In many parts of Nassau County, four out of five Democrats did not feel that the act of voting was worth their time. Younger, independent voters have turned away from our local politics. The voters most likely to support countywide Democrats were uninspired and unengaged and went on with their lives. Overall, more than seven out of 10 Nassau County voters didn’t want to play this game.

Infrastructure

1. It was barely a blip down here, but the recent sudden closing of the Champlain Bridge was a massive jolt to people in a large region of upstate New York and a warning signal to all of us. The Department of Transportation immediately closed the bridge when inspectors found critical deterioration on two supporting concrete piers. Opened in 1929, the 2,184 foot-long steel truss bridge crosses Lake Champlain and typically carries some 3,400 vehicles a day between New York and Vermont. Commuters, local businesses and dairy farms (some of which have operations on both sides of the lake) have experienced major league dislocation. The detour route around the south end of the lake adds about 100 miles to each trip. Ferry companies are scrambling to increase service and the two states, which co-own the bridge, are scrambling to do repairs. Businesses in both states are likely to go under…

Vote

County, town, city and judicial elections are this Tuesday. I have some very definite opinions about the political campaigns that as you read this are maybe hitting you with last-minute automated calls and postcards that all look alike. Our local political campaigns may spend more and more but they have been saying less and less and engage fewer and fewer voters at a time when we need to build a public vision like never before. Perhaps you’ve picked up on that sentiment from little hints I’ve dropped here and there in previous essays.

The Way Things Are

1. Birmingham, England set a standard for public input and openness in a major planning project with its “Big City Plan.” Birmingham has a population comparable in size to Nassau County, with an additional population the size of Suffolk County in the surrounding suburbs. The City Council declared that they want Birmingham to become one of the world’s 20 “most livable” cities. Big City Plan is an attempt to create a world-class city centre area (“greener, smarter, fairer and more appealing”) that increases employment and leisure opportunities into the future. Every part of the work in progress and every public comment has been viewable online and many thousands of residents have actively participated. The city will even provide reports in another language (“We aim to supply what you need within 10 working days.”) and important elements of the developing plan were generated from the general public. My favorite line: “Birmingham is big enough to challenge the way things are.”…

Train of Thought

1. This is being written 24 days before the General Election for county, city and town offices on Nov. 3. For some of us, these campaigns are literally over because thousands of Nassau County residents will have already mailed in absentee ballots by the time you read this…

2. As of last week’s campaign finance reports filed with the State Board of Elections, the four incumbent countywide officers, all running for re-election, have on hand in their campaign accounts $5.156 million. Let’s just call it 5.2 million dollars. Their four challengers have on hand in their campaign accounts $346,963. Let’s just call it zero million dollars…

Final Thoughts on Lighthouse

Dude, bad vibrations.

That’s what I thought as I read headlines like, “Wang: No More Negotiating” and “Wang: It’s All or Nothing.” By the time you read this, the Oct. 3 deadline imposed by sponsors of the proposed Lighthouse Project for agreement, approval, capitulation, or whatever we decide to call it, will have passed.

Ten Years In

From January 1 through September of this year, Nassau County awarded 107 no-bid “personal services” contracts to some 90 public and private entities, with a value totaling $16.152 million. There were at least 332 personal services contracts granted in 2008, totaling some $97.47 million, putting the total for the current two-year legislative term at just over $113.6 million.

The term “personal services” is a government term of art. In a way, the county government is temporarily hiring an employee or agency to perform some special task, quickly and without the expense or time of setting up some new program or agency to do it. In fact, a few of the contracts are with “temp” agencies, presumably for personnel needed to fill in or handle overflow work.

More Government Watch

1. “I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and - a little lookin’ out for the other fella, too.” I think of that quote from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington whenever I watch video of people screaming, “I don’t want my taxes to go for their health care” at some public meeting or rally…

2. Many teenagers have never seen that film, or any other black-and-white movie. If this is your kid, you need to sit them down and teach them how to watch old movies, for everyone’s sake…

Government Beat

1. In 1998, when previous owners threatened to move the Islanders even temporarily, county officials marched into State Supreme Court and got a ruling and an injunction that said the lease on the Coliseum was ironclad, and that the Islanders could play only in the Coliseum until the lease ran out in 2015. Now it seems like the county administration is shoving Islanders’ owner Charles Wang toward the exit and saying, “See what you’re making him do?”…