I take exception to a comment included in Legislative Minority Leader Peter Schmitt's column of Dec. 11, 2003. In that column he accused my office of allowing his request for information about the remodeling of former Deputy County Executive Peter Sylver's office to go "unanswered for months."

This is simply not true. Not only did we not allow Mr. Schmitt's request to go "unanswered for months," we contacted him three times during a four-week period and we have the memos to prove it. In reply to his request of April 17, my office notified him on May 1 of our intention to obtain answers to his questions. We subsequently kept him apprised of our attempt to get the answers in a memo dated May 9. Then, on May 20, we sent him a memorandum we received from the County's Industrial Development Agency responding to his questions.

As Mr. Schmitt knows, the comptroller's office had previously scheduled an audit of the county's Industrial Development units as part of our 2004 audit plan. We decided to move up the starting date for this audit in response to the allegations of improper expenditures. I now expect to be able to share our findings with the Legislature when its hearings begin in mid-January.

Mr. Schmitt wrote that Nassau County residents need to receive all the facts in this matter. I agree completely. My office is determined to investigate fully the allegations of lax financial controls in these units, as well as any possible misuse of economic development funds. But in our zeal to uncover wrongdoing, let those of us in county government maintain a healthy regard for each other's roles and for accuracy.

Howard S. Weitzman

Nassau County Comptroller