In the popular Station Plaza Coffee Shop, otherwise known as Nick's, next to the Mineola Train Station, on a warm Saturday afternoon, Mayor Jack Martins, while eating lunch, is greeted by a friendly resident who urges him not to leave Mineola. While Martins has no intention of leaving his hometown, he may, if his Congressional campaign is successful, be spending a little less time in Mineola and more time in Washington.

Martins is of the opinion that an elected official shouldn't stay in office for too long as the pathway to new and fresh ideas should always be open in a governing body. It's the same philosophy he is applying to the 4th Congressional District and his opponent, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who has been in office for over a decade.

"People should not be in office longer than eight years. I firmly believe that. I love being mayor and there's nothing more gratifying in this world to try to improve something in a significant way, but I think it's also very important that people not become stale and other people have the opportunity to come in and contribute," he said. "I'm approaching my sixth year as mayor [of Mineola] and I've loved every moment of it but the reality is other people should also be given an opportunity to share their vision and their ideas."

Listening to Martins speak, one can certainly get the feeling that his time as mayor of the Village of Mineola is growing short, but that doesn't mean he wants his public service career to. He is running for Congress and, though he faces an uphill battle, he feels the residents of the 4th Congressional District, which encompasses Mineola as well as communities as far away as Elmont and Rockville Centre, deserve better representation.

"I think the village [of Mineola] is well-positioned for future growth and property tax stability and I think that it's a good opportunity now, having stabilized taxes, having developed a plan for our downtown, to try to offer some help in a different position," he said. "Local government has to work with state government and federal government and when the federal government is not doing their part, it makes it that much harder. I understand the issues on the local level; I understand what the pressures are on Long Island and certainly in Nassau County and know that I can help. We've lived it and I understand where the federal government can and should be helping."

Martins has gained notoriety among the communities that will be affected by a Long Island Rail Road third track project since he has been among the local, elected officials that has urged Congresswoman McCarthy to take a stand on the third track. McCarthy has made it clear that she will not take a position until the final plan is released. However, the challenge for Martins is to deliver his message to the communities in the 4th Congressional District who may not be familiar with the Village of Mineola.

Martins also faces an incumbent congresswoman who has gained notoriety in the communities she represents. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Long Island Rail Road Massacre that killed her husband and badly wounded her son. She was elected to Congress three years later to fight for gun control and has been re-elected to the position by generally wide margins. Still, Martins believes McCarthy is caught in the web of the partisan politics of Washington and the residents of the 4th Congressional District have suffered for it. "Unfortunately it appears that her priorities lie more and more with special interests and less with the residents and taxpayers of the 4th Congressional District," he said.

It is a point that McCarthy will debate against Martins in the upcoming months before the November election as the congresswoman, though acknowledging she went to Congress to fight for tougher gun control laws, has taken on other platforms such as healthcare and education.

In the upcoming campaign, Martins plans on focusing on the issues such as the Third Track, providing support to the troops in the Middle East and the current lack of a cohesive energy policy. "Every opportunity that we have had, this Congress has refused to adopt an energy policy that will result in short term and long term solutions for this country. We have dependency on foreign oil that is dangerous and we are now seeing the economic consequences of inaction by Congress on a national energy policy that has left us at the mercy of foreign countries," he said.

On the subject of the war in Iraq, Martins said he favors bringing the troops home, but bringing them home safely and with dignity. "We can't just arbitrarily set a date. Congress overwhelmingly voted for our troops to go into Iraq. Having voted to put our friends, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers in harm's way, I find it absolutely incredible in the pinnacle of cynicism to now vote against providing our troops with every resource we possibly could to make sure they get home safely," he said. "Arbitrary timetables and dates will create nothing but chaos and potentially force us into a position where we will only have to go back in there again."

But, he will also focus his campaign on the need for a representative in Congress to have a presence in the local communities in the district and believes that some of the issues that local communities are facing originate with the federal government. "We no longer receive the level of support that we should receive. It has been left up to our local communities to have to absorb the cost of having to redevelop our own infrastructure," Martins said, adding that the taxes paid by taxpayers of Long Island communities aren't coming back at a level it should be.

Martins believes there is a fundamental lack of leadership in Washington and the one thing that he has shown in his nearly six years as mayor of the Village of Mineola is that he is not afraid to make the tough decisions. Martins has sometimes advanced ideas that others, concerned with their political careers, may have shied away from because of their potential for harm to a political image.

In December 2006, with the approval of two members of the Mineola Village Board, he put a referendum before the public to create a village police department. Although Martins supported the idea of having a village police force like those in Garden City, Floral Park and Rockville Centre, the referendum was soundly defeated in Mineola.

Martins recently made a decision, along with all the members of the village board, to spend half a million dollars to reassess all the properties in the village to create a more equitable assessment of properties in the village. He also help spearhead an investment by a developer to build a nine-story condominium complex near the Mineola train station to expand the village's tax base. He even initiated a successful lawsuit against Nassau County over the county's lack of properly identifying environmental impacts in a land deal he felt could have detrimental effects to parking in Mineola.

"I am not afraid to do the right thing and to work to make sure the best interests of the local communities are not only protected, but also that future needs are addressed today as opposed to tomorrow when it may be too late. We lack that leadership in Congress," he said. "Our national politics have become too polarized. Everyone speaks in absolute terms. I found that in this world, there's a lot more gray than there is black and white. Our national parties have stopped dialoging and have been entrenched in the black and white discussions of today. I think they've done the country a real disservice. The polarizing of politics of Washington has to stop."