Election-year politics are truly a double-edged sword. In the positive sense, politicians eager to demonstrate their attentiveness to hot-button issues affecting their constituents, usually redouble their efforts to address those issues. At the same time, unfortunately, the negativity and misinformation that typically accompany election campaigns tend to leave voters wondering whether candidates are merely paying them lip service, or whether they genuinely wish to deal with the concerns that matter most to those responsible for keeping them in office.

A perfect illustration of such political one-upmanship came in the form of two recent press conferences, both held in the shadow of the infamous Courtesy Hotel in West Hempstead - one by Town Supervisor Kate Murray, and the other by her challenger, County Assessor Harvey Levinson.

The press conferences were aimed at shuttering a hotel that has been the site of a host of illegal activities and has consequently drawn the ire of local neighbors and civic groups. Both presentations contained the requisite accusations and apologetics, and while both presenters were articulate and well-meaning in their overall message, neither was without flaw.

At Levinson's rally, a main theme was his accusation of the town's seeming inability and unwillingness to utilize all the available plays in their playbook, specifically in soliciting the U.S. District Attorney to invoke the federal forfeiture law to condemn the property. Town officials counter that they believe the forfeiture law requires clear and convincing evidence that the owner of the Courtesy actively participated in illegal activities - a charge that would probably be very difficult to prove in court.

In response to Levinson, Murray fired back that the county could have applied its own nuisance law but chose not to get involved. Levinson called that assertion "silly," claiming that the town should take care of its own codes and laws without interference of other levels of government.

To be sure, a high level of legal expertise is required to determine whether the federal forfeiture law applies in our case. Given his experience working at the DA's office, we can, for the moment, take Mr. Levinson at his word, and at the very least, commend him for offering a creative solution to the problem. But there is a certain disingenuousness in clamoring, on the one hand, for the federal government to step in, yet turn around while hardly taking a breath to say that county involvement would amount to interference in local code enforcement.

Meanwhile, three weeks later, Murray used the recent Supreme Court decision that private development can qualify as a valid public use as impetus to brief the public on progress of the town's efforts to close the Courtesy.

The Town Supervisor claimed that the High Court's ruling in Kelo v. New London, affirming the right of a municipality to condemn a property and turn it over to a private developer, strengthened the Town of Hempstead's case against the Courtesy. Thus, for Murray, the verdict opened up a hitherto unavailable avenue for the town in its condemnation efforts, and as a result, she felt compelled to inform local residents of the good news.

A careful reading of Kelo, however, shows that Murray has gotten it all wrong in her understanding of the decision. The dissenting opinion, authored by Justice O'Conner, clearly upheld an existing principle established in a previous unanimous decision Berman v. Parker (1954) involving blighted property where, in O'Conner's words, "a public purpose was realized when the harmful use was eliminated." O'Conner added poignantly that, "because each taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter that the property was turned over to private use."

In other words, even if the majority of the Court had ruled differently, the basic right of government to eliminate harm to the community in the form of removing blighted and crime-ridden hotspots (as in the case of the Courtesy) would remain unchanged. Thus, the Kelo decision, which did not involve blighted property, has no bearing upon the town's case with the Courtesy.

In short, a municipality's right to condemn a blighted property and turn it over to private development has been an established precedent in this country long before Kelo, and even the dissenters in Kelo would be very comfortable finding the TOH's case against the Courtesy well within the protections of the Constitution.

Indeed we should applaud our officials for trying to rid our town of a blighted and crime-infested hotel. But now that this problem has been turned into a political football, I am concerned that our elected officials will end up fumbling the issue by taking their eye off the ball while paying too much attention to each other. When our various layers of government have laws that overlap to tackle the same social challenges, it is the responsibility of our elected officials to work together, not against each other, to confront those problems. Vince Lombardi summed it up best when he said, "People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society."

I don't hold out any hope of that happening - at least not until after November.

Joseph Azose

West Hempstead