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"Impeach Cuomo" sign posted on Montauk Highway in West Bay Shore Gov. Andrew Cuomo's sky-high favorability rating of 77 percent in April -- after New Yorkers were locked down and watching the governor's daily coronavirus briefings -- dropped to 66 percent this month, according to a Sienna College Research Institute poll released yesterday. Most media outlets headlined those statewide results, which came from polling 796 registered voters throughout New York from May 17 through May 21. But Cuomo's popularity dropped much more drastically among downstate suburban voters, which inlcudes Long Island. In April, they gave him a 76 percent favorability rating. This month,  they gave him a 57 percent favorability score. Downstate voter's opinions also dipped slightly on how well local government leaders were operating during the pandemic, but support remained strong. Although Nassau County Executive Laura Curran and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone ...

Long Island Democratic elected officials can't seem to keep their eyes off of Republican Hempstead's federal money. On May 7, Democratic state senators Anna Kaplan of Great Neck, Todd Kaminsky of Long Beach, John Brooks of Seaford and Kevin Thomas of Levittown wrote Republican Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin, urging him to give villages in their districts a "sufficient" alotment of the town's $133 million in federal coronavirus assistance. Their letter was followed the next day by statements issued by  two Democratic Congress members, former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi and former Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice, calling on Clavin to "share" the federal aid with current Democratic County Executive Laura Curran. Sources say Suozzi and Rice's statements, released to the media, followed personal phone calls from both to Clavin, demanding he turn the money over to Curran. Instead of brow-beating Clavin, it was unclear why Suozzi and...

State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck), who requested campaign contributions from her financially squeezed constituents last Thursday, is just one of Long Island's Democratic elected officials looking  to leverage other people's money, including other governments' funds. Kaplan and three other Democratic state senators earlier this month sent Republican Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin a letter suggesting he should spend at least some of $133 million in federal funds on their constitutents. Hempstead had applied for--and received--the federal dollars to help the town's 800,000 residents through the coronavirus pandemic. State Sens. Kaplan,  Todd Kaminksy of Long Beach, Kevin Thomas of Levittown and John Brooks of Seaford requested "sufficient funding" for villages in their districts. "The villages we represent are in severe fiscal distress due to the economic ramifications from COVID-19, " they wrote. "Villages provide essential ser...

Government shutdowns intended to stop the coronavirus pandemic have caused financial upheaval throughout the country as people lose jobs and paychecks. With all but "essential" businesses closed, 39 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began, Newsday reports. Nearly 316,000 of them are on Long Island. Long Island food banks have seen a surge of demand as people who formerly gave donations to the food banks are now customers for the free food. The newly poor cannot pay their rent or their mortgage. Unemployment checks are weeks late. They are desperately scraping for money to get by. But this is a campaign year and politicians are still looking for money. Including freshman State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck). She sent out a fundraising email last Thursday, pointing out that she had been working hard "making history" during the pandemic. See below. The history? Kaplan co-chaired a virtual public hearing on the federal respo...

 No matter what they say, not all publicity is good publicity. Consider Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, whose daily briefing about the coronavirus last Friday included a tutorial on how to handle balls -- tennis balls, that is. The county was opening its outdoor courts to tennis again: Singles only,  no doubles. Play limited to every other court. But then somebody gave Curran give instructions on how to handle the balls. And she made the mistake of reading those instructions. "Every player, unless they're from the same household, has to bring their own tennis balls so that you don't touch other people's tennis balls with your hands," she said. "You can kick their balls, but you can't touch them." At that point, Curran seemed to realize what she was saying. "I'm going to blush. Sorry." "If you're playing with someone in your household, you can touch those tennis balls," she continued. "To avoid conf...

  Nassau County residents will not get an additional nine days to pay the second half of their school property tax bill without being subject to penalties or interest.  County Executive Laura Curran yesterday returned a local law adopted by the county legislature to delay the May 10th deadline for incurring taxes and penalties for late payment of school taxes until June 10. Although Curran at first questioned the financial impact, the legislature on April 20th unanimously approved pushing back the deadline for a month. The legislature cited the financial upheaval and public health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Faced with unanimous legislative support to move the deadline,  Curran quickly changed her position and met lawmakers half-way. She said she would ask Gov. Andrew Cuomo to delay penalties and interest until June 1 -- even without a financial impact report.  The next day, Curran issued an executive order, authorized by Cuomo, ...

A state court appellate panel on Thursday ordered that Suffolk Republican Elections Comissioner Nicholas LaLota, who took a leave of absence from his county job to run for the state senate against incumbent Democrat John Brooks of Seaford, be removed from the ballot in November. The four-member appellate panel -- all Democrats -- decided unanimously that LaLota's candidacy violated a provision in elections law that prohibits elections commissioners from running for elective office while commissioner. The four-page decision overturns a lower court ruling by Nassau Supreme Court Justice Jack Libert, a Republican, who found LaLota qualified to run on the Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, and SAM Parties ballot lines for the state senate's Eighth district, which straddles Nassau and Suffolk counties south shores. Both decisions focused on the meaning of "or otherwise" in state election law. The law says: "An election commissioner shall not be a candida...

Nassau Legis. Joshua Lafazan                                                                         Another Nassau public official has gone to work for Northwell Health. Legis. Joshua Lafazan of Syosset is a program manager for Human Resources at Northwell,  New York's largest health care provider, according to Northwell's directory assistance. Lafazan could not be reached for comment. But his webpage says Lafazan "a dvises Northwell - New York’s largest private employer - on implementing policies and initiatives to best care for our employees, protect the environment, and impact our communities through strategic par...

Nassau sales tax collections crater in March The Nassau legislature's bipartisan Office of Budget Review reported today that county sales tax revenues had fallen sharply in March after growing through January and February. The news was not unexpected because Gov. Andrew Cuomo had essentially shut down the state's economy on March 22 in an effort to stop the spread of the coronvirus. Economic activity generates sales tax revenues, which make up 40 percent of the county's budget. But the decline is a bit ear-popping. As indicated in the above chart from the OLBR report, the check received by Nassau for the initial March revenues was down 6.1 percent from the prior year. The next check for March sales tax revenues dropped 23.9 percent from the year before and the last check covering the final collections in March fell 35.3 percent from the previous year's checks. Because of the early bump in collections, total revenues so far this year are only down by $11...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo offers alternative statistics about New York's stunning number of Covid19 nursing home deaths Most everyone knows that statistics can be manipulated. That's why there are so many cliches about them: Lies, damn lies and statistics.  Figures don't lie but liars figure. Gov. Andrew Cuomo came up with his own alternative facts today at his daily briefing about the coronavirus pandemic. For background: Cuomo has been heavily criticized about about his handling of coronavirus patients in nursing homes, with various news outlets reporting that New York has the highest virus death toll in the nation for nursing home patients and workers. Many blame a March 25  Cuomo administration order that required nursing homes to take coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals. Today: Cuomo announced new rules to protect nursing home patients, including a rollback of that controversial order. Hospitals now will no longer be permitted to discharge inf...