Gillen or Schaefer to head big social service agency?

                                                                                       

Laura Gillen

Laura Schaefer

The EAC Network, which describes itself as a "diverse social services agency" that serves 82,000 people across Long Island and New York City, has been looking for a new president since former president and CEO Lance Elder retired in September.

Former State Sen. Chuck Fuschillo a Merrick Republican, was the CEO of EAC, then called the Education and Assistance Corporation, in the mid-1990s. After Fuschillo became a state senator in 1998, Elder, then a board member, took over as CEO. Elder had been general manager of the county-owned Nassau Coliseum.

For weeks now, the talk has been that top candidates for the vacant EAC job include former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, a Rockville Centre Democrat who lost her bid for re-election in 2019 to Republican Don Clavin, and Nassau County Legis. Laura Schaefer, a Republican from Westbury.

Gillen, a lawyer, has not announced taking any new prominent paid position since leaving Hempstead a year ago.

Schaefer, another lawyer,  apparently has at least three jobs: Besides serving as an elected county legislator, which pays about $80,000 a year,  Schaefer this fall was reported by Newsday to have been hired as senior associate counsel at McBride Consulting and Business Development Corp. in Melville. Newsday reported she also is with the law firm of Walsh, Markus McDougle & DeBillis in Garden City.

The EAC board chooses the president.

Chairman of the board is Richie Kessel, a prominent Democrat who once ran LIPA and now heads the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency. That would seem to give the edge to Gillen.

But a chairman emeritus of EAC is Robert McBride, who heads the consulting company that hired Schaefer.

Another member of the EAC board is John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor.

Gillen and Durso got into a spat on twitter in November when Gillen criticized Clavin for not sharing with Nassau Democratic County Executive Laura Curran the $133 million in federal Cares Act money received by Hempstead. Nassau had received $103 million in Cares Act money.

Posting a Newsday story about the tug-of-war over the federal funds, Gillen complained that Clavin was just sitting on $100 million "while the county needs money for first responders." 

Durso, who is on Clavin's advisory board for spending the Cares Act funds, tweeted, "Actually the TOH has given millions to the hospitals, colleges and not for profits throughout the TOH and also to Nassau County. "

Gillen has stayed off Twitter, and away from political attacks, since Thanksgiving, leading to speculation that she now has the lead for the job.

Why? Because a bipartisan political social services agency probably does not encourage political attacks by its president.

But we'll see.

(Note: Fuschillo's work dates have been corrected)