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                                                                             County Executive Laura Curran It's back to the bad old days in Nassau County. County Executive Laura Curran acknowledged in a memo today  "For the first time in years, the county faces significant class one refund liability."  What that means is that the county may owe a significant amount in property tax refunds to Nassau homeowners because of  court-ordered assessment reductions. Curran didn't say how much the county may owe.  A spokesman did not respond to a request for the amount. And its actually the first time in ten years that the county has faced the possibility of significant residential refunds -- ever since former County Executive Edward Mangano instituted an assessment freeze in 2011 and began a mass settlement program of homeowner's property tax assessment grievances. Democrats have blasted Republican Mangano's assessment freeze and settlement program for distorting the

                                                                                    Tom Garry (from Findlaw.com) Tom Garry had a very good day last week. You know Tom Garry. He is a member of the ubiquitous Harris Beach law firm. He is a vice chairman and chief political strategist of the Nassau Democratic party.  He advised the Biden and Hillary Clinton campaigns on Long Island. He regularly appears on media lists of the region's top political power brokers. Last week, he represented the winning slates in two village elections -- a somewhat surprising result in diverse Hempstead Village but a stunning outcome in tony Garden City. Traditionally, major political parties stay out of village politics, at least publicly. Village candidates usually mask their political affiliation by running on invented party lines. But Nassau's Democratic party openly supported trustee Waylyn Hobbs' successful challenge against incumbent Hempstead Village Mayor Don Ryan, in a four-way race. Ho

                                                                                       It wasn't widely noted at Thursday night's meeting of the Nassau Industrial Development Agency that the Simon Group, which is partnering in the development of an Amazon warehouse on the old Cerro Wire property in Syosset,  was County Executive Laura Curran's largest contributor in her last campaign disclosure report. The Simon Group donated $25,000 last September to Democrat Curran, who is running for re-election this fall. Newsday reported today that the county IDA Thursday night granted more than $10 million in tax breaks to Syosset Park Development LLC -- a partnership between Simon and Castagna Realty Co. Nobody is saying there is a correlation between the contribution and the tax breaks, but it's worth noting. Meanwhile on Monday, the Republican-controlled Nassau legislature is poised to require more disclosure from people and groups who use county property. The move is a react

                                                                          Bruce Blakeman ( from BruceBlakeman twitter) Let's talk politics, frankly. Both Democrats and Republicans claimed to be surprised today when the Nassau Republican Party, headed by Joe Cairo, selected Hempstead Town Councilman Bruce Blakeman to challenge Democrat County Executive Laura Curran this November. In truth, with Nassau Republicans, the party's candidate is really the chairman's choice. Blakeman was said to be a favored candidate since early January when he appeared at a news conference with Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin and Tax Receiver Jeanine Driscoll to ask Gov. Andrew Cuomo to push back the deadline for paying the first half general tax bill. Many political insiders scoffed then. Blakeman had run too many times before for other political office and lost: for state comptroller*, U.S. Senator and U.S. Congress. But Blakeman, a former presiding officer of the Nassau legislature, had

                                                                                         State health Commissioner Howard Zucker with Gov. Andrew Cuomo today A guessing game within political circles began Sunday after the Washington Post reported that Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Vaccine Czar Larry Schwartz, who heads the New York's coronavirus vaccine allotment program, had called Democratic county executives throughout the state to gauge their support for the embattled governor. The story said one of those executives, who was not named, filed an ethics complaint with the state attorney general because of the fear that his or her response to Schwartz would affect the amount of vaccines distributed to their county.  Cuomo is under investigation by both state and federal authorities for alleged sexual harrassment/assault and for allegedly covering up the actual number of coronavirus deaths in New York nursing homes. Cuomo has denied the allegations. Larry Schwartz was a deputy county exe

  Nassau County Executive Laura Curran has been adamant as she campaigns for re-election that she did not raise taxes. " I want to be very clear, Nassau County did not raise property taxes. Since I took office three years ago, I have never once approved any property tax hikes," Curran, a Democrat, said at a news briefing Thursday about the coronavirus. Even though county financial watchdogs have reported separately that the Curran administration increased property taxes by 3.5 percent in the Nassau sewer fund, Curran put out a taxpayer-funded mailing to county residents this weekend insisting that Nassau County DID NOT RAISE TAXES. But Nassau budget director Andy Persich admitted at a public hearing on the budget last week that there was a property tax increase in this year's budget -- in the sewer fund. According to a video of the hearing, (see above)  Legis. John Ferretti (R-Levittown) focuses on Curran's claim that there had been no property tax increase in her 202

    Nassau County Executive Laura Curran on Thursday accused Hempstead Town and Oyster Bay of putting out "misinformation" in mailers delivered to residents' doorsteps. She did not provide copies of these mailers or specify the misinformation, but they apparently involved property taxes. Today, a Curran mailer arrived on some county residents' doorsteps, which could also be termed "misinformation." "Nassau County Did Not Raise Taxes," Curran's mailer says. But county financial watchdogs have said otherwise. According to Nassau's financial control board, the Curran administration proposed a "tax levy increase of $5.2 million" for the sewer fund in this year's budget. See pages copied from the Nassau Interim Finance Authority's "Review of Nassau County's Proposed Multi-year Financial Plan Fiscal 2021-2024, dated Oct. 15, 2020. From the Nassau Interim Finance Authority's report on the county's 2021 budget  

  Long Island Democratic state senators and U.S. congress members have called on Cuomo to resign or step aside because of ongoing sexual harrassment -- and assault -- allegations. Long Island Democrats have been some of Cuomo's strongest supporters. Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs is also the state chairman. But a seventh accuser has comes forward, according to news reports. Cuomo has called a 1 p.m. news conference for today. Friday afternoons are traditionally the time to dump bad news because of the lag of readers for newspapers and viewers for broadcast news from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. But as one wag puts it, the traditional time for bad-news release is 3 or 4 p.m. not 1 p.m. The Democratic majority in the state Assembly reportedly have enough votes to impeach Cuomo, which may force him to act.   Cuomo, however, has been adamant that he will not resign. So let's see what happens.   UPDATE: Cuomo remains Cuomo. According to a breaking news report from t

                                                                    Erin King Sweeney from Nyulangone.org A major Long Island law firm announced this week that former GOP Hempstead Town Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney had joined its corporate securities department, but the former Wantagh resident said she is not back living on Long Island. And King Sweeney, the daughter of former U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), said she is not running for county executive against Democrat incumbent Laura Curran. It seemed like a perfect solution for the Nassau GOP, which has had trouble finding any Republican willing to challenge popular Curran. It has been 11 days since the petition gathering period started and there still has been no announcement of a Nassau Republican candidate. King Sweeney is an Irish Catholic woman with political experience who would likely get fundraising help from her still-popular father.  But King Sweeney said her work for the law is virtual and she likely won't be back

                                                                                Nassau County Executive Laura Curran at briefing today Nassau Republicans still have yet to announce a candidate against Democratic County Executive Laura Curran, who is running for re-election this fall, but Curran and Republican Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin are continuing to square off against each other. And this time Oyster Bay joined in. Curran started it today. At a news briefing about vaccines for veterans at the Nassau University Medical Center, Curran said she also wanted to announce that she had directed the county's Department of Assessment "to open a new telephone hotline in response to misinformation that has been spread about property taxes and the assessment process. " Curran said "This misinformation was delivered to residents' doorsteps in the form of numerous taxpayer  funded political style mailings that have been sent out by the towns of Oyster Bay and Hem

                                                     Nassau Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello from county website Word has gone out in political circles that longtime Republican legislator Vincent Muscarella of West Hempstead will be cross endorsed by Republican and Democratic parties this November for district court judge in Hempstead. That will leave Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) as the last still-serving member of the original Nassau Legislature, which took office in Jan. 1996 -- assuming he doesn't also nab a judicital cross-endorsement. The 19-member legislature took the place of the old Nassau County Board of Supervisors, which was ruled unconstitutional because its weighted voting system (giving Hempstead Town more clout than any of the other Nassau towns and cities) violated the priniciple of one person-one vote. Muscarella and Nicolello, both attorneys, were members of the first Republican majority that controlled the legislature until 2000 when D

                                                                               From the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Former Hempstead Town Councilman Ed Ambrosino should be out of prison Saturday and headed back to Nassau County, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. That's when the North Valley Stream Republican will have completed his six-month prison term in the minimum-security lock-up in Fort Dix, NJ. Ambrosino still faces three years supervised release. He was sentenced Nov. 15, 2019 and began serving his sentence Sept. 15, 2020. He was also ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution to his former employer and $254,628 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).   Ed Ambrosino Ambrosino, a protege of Nassau GOP Chairman Joseph Cairo, and a longtime friend of former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, had been charged with failing to forward income he received  to his then law firm from two county agencies for which he worked: Nassau County Industrial Development Ag