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Nassau detectives have approved a new contract--the first of the county's five major unions to reach an agreement with County since all of their deals expired at the end of 2017. County Executive Laura Curran put out a newss release today announcing that members of  Detectives Association had ratified the new deal. Their vote puts a squeeze on the Police Benevolent Association and Superior Officer's Association to agree to similar terms.   The news release says the detectives have agreed to work more hours, contribute to their health insurance, cut termination pay and forego some vacation days. In return, it says the salary scale has been improved for new detectives. Stagnant pay had led to a shortage of applicants and had even driven some detectives to give up their shields and return to police officer duties. In addition the release says all detectives will receive raises annually beginning in 2020 of 2%; 2%; 2.5%; 2.5%; 3% and 3% over the term of the 8-1/2year agr...

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran's property tax reassessment roiled residents last year. Some people say anger over reassessment contributed to Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen losing her bid for re-election in November because voters confused the Democratic town supervisor with the Democratic county executive. But watch out, Nassau taxpayers. New assessments are coming. After being shocked by tentative property tax values issued last Jan. 2, new updated values will be issued Thursday as part of the 21-22 tentative assessment roll. Who will win and who will lose this time around? Last year, Curran and Gillen were reassessment winners, along with their political leader, Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, who is also the state Democratic chairman. County records show their property taxes are projected to go down by thousands of dollars. Losers in the reassessment roulette were Hempstead Town Tax Receiver Don Clavin, a Republican who will take over as Hempstead S...

Nassau Comptroller Jack Schnirman, a Democrat, has given a high grade to Republican Public Administrator Brian Curran for cleaning up an office that administers millions of dollars in estates of residents who died without a will. A year ago Schnirman  sharply criticized operations under former Republican public administrator Jeff DeLuca. An audit by Schnirman's office cited poor record-keeping, missing cash receipts and the potential for mishandling millions of dollars because of a lack of checks and balances.  It also said DeLuca was not involved in daily office operations and accused him of misreporting his time. All in all, auditors made 55 recommendations to improve the public administrators' office. Last week, Schnirman issued a follow-up report that said the current public adminstrator "is making positive strides" to upgrade the office. It found that Curran "is engaged in the daily operations of the Office" and  "has implemented or is ...

Although Theresa Kohuta, president of Hempstead's Civil Service Employees Association, backed Republican Tax Receiver Don Clavin's successful race for town supervisor,  it looks like departing Democratic Supervisor Laura Gillen is leaving a gift to union members after she leaves office Dec. 31. A CSEA Local 880 notice of a "payroll change" agreement was delivered to town employees yesterday that essentially says that Hempstead and the union negotiated an additional day off annually for all fulltime employees, starting Jan. 1. See above. The flyer says the town agreed to make employees whole during a change in payroll companies,  by fronting each employee five vacation days to make up for the one-week pay lapse that will result from the switch. The five vacation days will be paid back one day per year for the next five years, it says. But to make up for the "inconvenience", the town agreed that each fulltime employee will receive an additiona...

Final motions are due tomorrow in Butch Yamali's court fight to stop Nassau from terminating his exclusive contract to provide catering and food services in county parks -- eleven days before the county says the deal automatically ends anyway. County Attorney Jared Kasschau contends in a letter submitted to the court that Nassau's 10-year license agreement with Yamali's company, Dover Gourmet Corp.,  terminates Dec. 31.  But Yamali argues that former Deputy County Executive Rob Walker extended the contract through 2021. Yamali has asked Supreme Court Justice Vito DeStefano to set aside the Dec. 31 termination date and declare the two-year extension valid. He also wants the judge to bar the county from seeking new vendors to provide catering and food services in county parks. Yamali is fighting on all fronts right now. He has been in a legal dispute with the Nassau University Medical Center since this spring over alleged unpaid fees for operating the hospitals coffe...

Democratic Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen chaired her last official town board meeting Tuesday after losing last month's election to Republican Town Tax Receiver Don Clavin. Partisan animosity continued to the end. Republican Town Board member Anthony D'Esposito walked out when Deputy Supervisor Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who endorsed Gillen's election  two years ago but not this year, transformed a moment of silence for a late constituent into a standing ovation for the departing supervisor. At the end of the board meeting, Blakeman stood up and said, "I'd like to rise to a point of personal privilege. I would ask everybody to stand for a moment," according to a video of the meeting. After the audience and board members dutifully stood up, Blakeman asked for a moment of silence to honor the passing of a retired NYPD deputy chief Vincent DeMarino of North Valley Stream from 9/11-related cancer. When the moment ended, Blakeman quickly sa...

County Executive Laura Curran hosted another anti-hate news conference Thursday to announce that Nassau was bolstering security around Long Island synagogues after a shooting rampage in a Jersey City Kosher grocery store was blamed on anti-semitism. "Today I stood in solidarity with our Jewish brothers & sisters to make clear Nassau County will be neither silent nor complacent in the face of rising anti-Semitism," Curran tweeted, with an accompanying photo. See above. Curran had tweeted on Monday the formation of an island-wide anti-hate task force in response anti-Semitic graffiti at various locations in Nassau and Suffolk.  She included a photo of the task force. see previous post. Thursday's news conference was a bit more colorful. In either case, both are laudable actions.

Longtime Hempstead Town Attorney Joe Ra on Thursday said he played no role in booking his daughter's wedding reception at a town-owned catering hall run by a vendor under investigation by state and federal authorities. Ra, the Franklin Square Republican leader, also said he never talked about his daughter's July reception at the Sands on Lido Beach with Democratic Supervisor Laura Gillen, who held an October news conference attacking vendor Butch Yamali for operating the oceanfront facility without an official town contract. "I have never discussed it with Laura Gillen. Nobody in that building (Hempstead Town hall) ever discussed it with me," Ra said, in returning a Tuesday request for comment. At her October news conference, Gillen said Yamali, who heads the Dover Group, had been holding weddings and other events at the Sands through a "verbal or oral" agreement since 2011, including four events in 2019.  “There is nothing in place protecting the t...

While the purpose of an island-wide anti-hate task force announced by Nassau County Executive Laura Curran and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone is important and laudable, the group pictured in the photo tweeted by Curran at her Monday news conference seems to be missing something. Diversity perhaps? Oh well,  the purpose is important. The task force was formed in response  to anti-Semitic graffiti found in various locations in Nassau and Suffolk. It came a day before six people were killed in a gun fight at a kosher market in Jersey City Tuesday. “We have a zero tolerance for bigotry,”  Curran said at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center in Glen Cove,  Newsday reported. “The only thing that allows hatred to consume us is when people of good faith refuse to stand up and call it out for what it is,” Bellone said.

To crib from Sherlock Holmes, it seems odd there was no fuss about Hempstead Town Attorney Joe Ra's daughter having her wedding reception this summer at the Sands in Lido Beach despite controversy over the town-owned catering hall. Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, a Democrat, held a news conference in October, blasting Dover Sands Inc. for not having an official contract with the town.  She said the company, operated by Butch Yamali as part of his Dover Group, had hosted weddings and other events at the Sands through an “verbal or oral" agreement with the town since 2011.  “There is nothing in place protecting the town and the town taxpayers from potential liability at this facility should anything occur,” Gillen said, according to reports about her news conference. A Yamali spokesman told reporters that Dover has a valid operating contract but declined to produce it. At the news conference Gillen said the Sands had hosted eight events in 2018 and four in 2019....

The Nassau Detective's Association has reached a tentative deal with County Executive Laura Curran for a new contract, three sources said late Friday.  Details were not available. All five major county unions have been working without a contract since the end of 2017. The detectives union would be the first to strike an agreement, which would be unusual.  Normally, the Police Benevolent Association sets the pace for bargaining among the county's major unions, which include the Superior Officers Association and the Civil Service Employees Association. ADDED: The deal has not been announced, some say, because senior detectives are not happy with the terms and may vote against approving it. County officials have expressed concern about the dropping number of detectives in Nassau because of contract rules that hold down pay for years after police officers are promoted to the usually coveted job. DAI president John Wighaus told county legislators in June that seven detecti...

Nassau County will reimburse large residential water users who purchase "smart sprinker" systems to reduce their summer lawn watering. The county legislature voted unanimously last week to establish a reimbursement program for homeowners who use 15,000 gallons of water or more during peak sprinkling season if they purchase the weather-based systems. Nassau County Executive Laura Curran set aside $100,000 in her 2020 budget to pay for the program, sponsored by Legis. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury). Newsday has reported that Curran's $3.11 billion budget is projected to have a $47.8 million deficit, which does not include the cost of future labor agreements. All five major county unions have been working without contracts since the end of 2017. The new legislation does not say how much these smart spinkler systems cost and how many homeowners are expected to participate in the program.  A spokesman for Nassau Democratic lawmakers did not return requests for comment. ...

Nassau homeowners who challenged their assessments on their own, without using a tax attorney, and who accepted the county's "offer" of zero reduction, are getting a second chance to appeal. The county legislature voted unanimously last week to overrule "Stipulation of Settlement" letters sent over the last several months by the Nassau agency that reviews tax protests, complaining that "an unprecedented number of these stipulations of settlement do not offer a settlement of the homeowner's challenge because the Assessment Review Commission did not offer a reduction of the assessment." What the letters actually do, legislators said, was mislead homeowner into giving up their rights to continue their appeal through Small Claims Assessment Review hearings or Supreme Court. "These notices are extremely confusing," said Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park).  He  said 85 to 90 percent of homeowners who filled tax challen...