Nassau County Legislator Dennis Dunne has filled the seat for the 15th Legislative District, since the inception of the government body on Jan. 2, 1996 and is prepared to defend it this November against two fellow Levittowners who want to see new blood in the Legislature.

Dunne has been a resident of Levittown since he was 21 days old and attended Laurel Lane, Northside, and Division Avenue junior and senior high schools, before attending Nassau Community College, Hofstra University and taking graduate courses at CW Post. He is very active in various veterans' associations, having served and been injured in Vietnam. He is also very active in organizations around the community such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus, and Alumni Associations at Hofstra. He has served as co-chairman for both the 40th and 50th Anniversary Celebrations in Levittown.

According to Dunne, the role of a county legislator is, "solving problems for people in the district, making sure that the county, the 55 different departments in the county of Nassau are running efficiently and being there for the community." Dunne said that no matter what the problem, he wants people to feel that they can come to him and he will do his best to resolve it for them. "I love this job. I'd like to continue helping my neighbors and friends," said Dunne.

Teresa Butler, running on the Democratic, Liberal and Working Families Party lines and Ben Slutsky, running on the Right to Life Party line, each want to have the opportunity to replace Dunne. Both challengers point to the problems in the county and criticize Dunne's role in the legislative process.

Dunne stands on his record of what he's accomplished in the years he has served on the Legislature, citing various opportunities he's had to serve the people of the 15th L.D which includes part of Levittown, Salisbury and part of Wantagh.

Working on the revitalization of Hempstead Turnpike is a project that Dunne is particularly proud of and would like to see through to its completion. He believes this beautification will help give Levittown a warmer look.

Another project Dunne is particularly proud of is his work to have a cancer survey done in Levittown when residents became fearful that there were cancer clusters in the community. Dunne pushed to do a second survey when there weren't enough returned the first time, and even went door-to-door delivering the surveys. When some people discouraged him from doing the surveys, afraid of what the results might be, Dunne pushed forward and found that only one in five houses had instances of cancer rather than the three or four out of five, some people feared. "If we didn't do the cancer survey and people thought five out of six houses had cancer, I bet houses wouldn't be the high prices they are now," said Dunne.

Bringing the Woman's Awareness Fair to Levittown is something also pushed by Dunne to show women the different services available to them through the county. Installing traffic lights at dangerous intersections and by schools, as well as helping to provide the East Meadow and Levittown Soccer Clubs fields to play on are also projects that Dunne has completed recently.

One of the most significant things, according to Dunne, that he has accomplished, is the take-control attitude that he and the rest of the Republican majority have taken with regard to the budget problems that the county is having. Dunne stated that in the last two budgets, "We cut $108 million out of the county executive's budget, he spent that money anyway, without our authorization." He said that because of these expenditures, the majority leadership has had to take charge and in doing that they had to shred the county executive's budget proposal and are now coming up with their own budget.

When asked if he was afraid that the problems the county is currently facing would affect his re-election, Dunne said that he believes that there will be people who will try to use that against him, but, "Most people know that I'm doing the very best I can and that if and when we can take control of something that's gone out of control, we're going to do it. We're going to do what's right for the people of our community, whether it's popular or not."