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                                                                                 Outgoing Democratic County Executive Laura Curran issued an executive order today creating a "Nassau County Advisory Committee for Gender Inclusivity", some 36 hours before she turns over her job to incoming County Executive Bruce Blakeman a conservative Republican. It was unclear whether Curran also made appointments to this new nine-member committee. But the move appears to be a way for Curran to put her successor in a political tight spot: Blakeman has a choice of either upsetting some members of his conservative constituency by approving a committee to review county policies regarding transgender rights -- or angering Nassau's active transgender community by rescinding the order. Blakeman did not take...

                                                                            Assessment Office before Moog resigned as assessor  (from New York-CBS Local.com)             The Nassau legislature is holding an emergency meeting Thursday to again allow automatic renewals of property tax exemptions for low-income seniors and persons with disabilities rather than require  in-person visits to the county assessor's office to file the necessary paperwork. Gov. Kathy Hochul this year followed in the path of predecessor Andrew Cuomo by issuing an executive order that permits local governments to lift in-person renewal requirement for property tax exemptions, a practice followed by Nassau for years. Hochul cited the currant surge in coronavirus cases in New York apparently...

                                                                                           Outgoing Democratic County Executive Laura Curran last week emailed staff a 16-page illustrated on-line booklet of her administration's accomplishments. The last Democratic county executive -- Tom Suozzi -- did the same thing before he left office at the end of 2009. He produced a glossy printed booklet listing his accomplishments. It's not clear if Curran's online booklet will also come in a printed version. Her "legacy" is divided into different sections:  Covid, Public Safety, Roads & Infrastructure, Veterans, Parks, Budget, Transparency and Diversity and Inclusion. And all are packed with pictures. Let's go off on a tangent about the Public Safety section: Cu...

Second floor Rotunda of Nassau's executive and legislative building: source: jgwaarchitects.com All staff in Democrat County Executive Laura Curran's executive offices have been told to work from home through the rest of the year, starting tomorrow. No, not because of the rapidly spreading covid virus variant Omicron. But because the offices -- in the second-floor addition on the back of the old Nassau County courthouse at 1550 Franklin Avenue in Mineola -- are getting redecorated for incoming Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who takes office Jan. 1. Blakeman and Curran (from NY Daily News) Blakeman's team, including his wife, were given a tour of the executive suite earlier this month.  Blakeman, presiding officer of the county legislature from 1996 through 1999, had left county government before former Democratic County Executive Thomas Suozzi built those office in the mid-2000s as part of a complete refurbishing of the then deteriorated old County Courthouse c...

Still haven't heard from State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck) about who paid for her holiday greeting card mailed this week. Anna Kaplan But a reader pointed out that Kaplan in 2019 voted for a law later signed by then Gov. Andrew Cuomo that requires all printed communications from political committees and candidates to include a "paid for by" statement. Here is a summary of the main section of Senate bill 4910 of 2019:     Requires a "paid for by" statement for all political communications including printed, digital, visual or auditory communications. Political communications shall clearly print, state or speak a disclaimer state- ment of "Paid for by" and the name of the political committee that made  the expenditure for such communication. The bill exempts promotional items that are of nominal value and contain brief message of support including pens, bumper stickers, yard signs and buttons. Digital media which is too s...

                                                                                   Bruce Blakeman on Tucker Carlson Show Monday night Incoming Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, pressured for months by parents angry and opposed to school mask mandates, addressed the controversial issue on the Tucker Carlson Fox News program last night. First, though,  Blakeman getting a live interview on Tucker Carlson is quite a coup for his PR team. According to Deadline News, Carlson's hour-long show in November was the top cable news show in the country in terms of total viewers. "Carlson’s show averaged 3.67 million viewers, followed by The Five with 3.51 million, Hannity with 3.23 million, Special Report with Bret Baier at 2.77 million and The Ingraham Angle with 2...

  A holiday card arrived in the mail today for at least some constituents of State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck). It had Kaplan's state senate office listed as the return address. It also had the New York State seal printed on the card. Did taxpayers pay for the greeting? It certainly looks to be printed and mailed at government expense. Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin, a Republican, came under fire from Newsday's The Point newletter recently for mailing a holiday card to some town residents that had Hempstead Town Hall as the return address. The Point reported that Clavin issued a statement through his campaign committee:  "Friends of Don Clavin paid for 400 holiday cards to be printed for distribution to friends of the Supervisor. Inadvertently, 195 cards had postage affixed at the Town's mail room. The Town has already been reimbursed for postage costs of $103.35 by Friends of Don Clavin. In accordance with the law, no disclaimer appeared on the cards as...

                                                                               Outgoing Nassau County Executive Laura Curran Maybe Nassau County Executive Laura Curran's recent flurry radio appearances was not all about blaming State Sen. Todd Kaminsky for losing her bid for re-election in November - which many people outside Curran's tight Democratic political circle think is a bogus argument anyway. Maybe her radio spots were on-air tryouts of a sort. Three political sources say Curran has been seeking advice from media-savvy Republicans and Democrats about how to land an on-air job at a New York City television or radio station now that her gig as county executive is over Dec. 31. It's not as crazy at it sounds. Curran, then an undistinguished but likeable two-term county legislator, fol...

                                                                              Incoming North Hempstead Supervisor Jenniferr DeSena North Hempstead Democrats reportedly threatened to pull a Ben Zwirn on incoming Republican Supervisor Jennifer DeSena last night  --  but apparently wiser heads prevailed and they backed off. DeSena, a registered Democrat who ran on the Republican and Conservative party lines, had said in a news release Wednesday that a current Town Board member notified her the Democrat-controlled board intended to amend North Hempstead's approved 2022 budget to strip the supervisor's office of most of its staff while adding "substantial costs" to the town board staff. The seven-member board, including retiring Democratic supervisor Judi Bosworth, already had approved a b...

                                                                                      Nassau Democratic minority at a news conference earlier this year (from Nassau County website) Minority Democrats on the Nassau Legislature today accused incoming Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman of playing politics with the indoor mask mandate ordered by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. " Just one day after the Omicron variant was discovered in Nassau County, it is naïve for County Executive-elect Blakeman to declare that ‘we’ll never be in crisis again’ during the remainder of the pandemic,” said William Biamonte, Chief of Staff of the Nassau County Legislature’s Minority Caucus. “Such a statement illustrates the political motivations behind this decision," Biamonte said in a...

                                                                                      Bruce Blakeman wearing mask as county legislative meeting began at 1 p.m. today Incoming Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman acquiesced to a mandate from outgoing Democrat County Executive Laura Curran's administration that all visitors to county buildings must wear masks. You can see Blakeman waiting to speak at the county legislature today in the above photo. He was wearing a mask even though a spokesman told Newsday more than an hour later that Blakeman would not enforce the ...

                                                                             Joshua Lafazan Nassau Legis. Joshua Lafazan, who squeaked out a slender victory in his race for re-election last month, today announced he is running for Congress. The Woodbury politician, who is not registered in a major party but votes and caucuses with Nassau Democrats, made the announcement on his Facebook page. It comes after U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi said late last month he will run for New York governor next year rather than seek re-election to his Congressional seat, which runs from northern Queens, through northern Nassau into Suffolk...

                                             Nassau Mask Memo                    From: HRAnnouncements < HRAnnouncements@ nassaucountyny.gov > Sent: Friday, December 10, 2021 5:30 PM To: All Nassau County Employees < allnascntyemployees@ nassaucountyny.gov > Subject: NYS Face Covering/Mask Mandate Effective Monday, 12/13   To All County Employees:   The New York State Department of Health has issued a determination that, effective Monday, December 13, 2021, and due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations statewide, and in alignment with CDC recommendations, that all persons over the age of two and able to medically to...

                                                                                   We already know that Nassau Republicans are having a high-priced victory party at the Garden City Hotel on Monday night after the party scored stunning wins on elections night. Now Democrats are having their own party in Garden City on Tuesday evening to raise money for Kathy Hochul,  the state's former lieutenant governor who was automatically boosted into the governor's office when Andrew Cuomo resigned under fire in August. Nassau and State Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs has strongly supported Hochul, a Buffalo Democrat, since she took office. But Democrats aren't saying where their fundraiser is being held in Garden City on Tuesday. Guests have to first RSVP before learning the location. De...

                                                                                 The Nassau County Republican Committee is having a victory celebration at the Garden City Hotel on Monday to celebrate the party's winners in last month's local elections. There haven't been so many GOP winners in so many local offices in years: County Executive, District Attorney, County Comptroller, County Clerk, Presiding Officer of the county legislature, all three town supervisors and Mayor of Glen Cove. So those who want to party with them are going to have to pay. The lowest priced ticket is $1,000 to have d...

                                                                                   U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi of Glen Cove with President Joe Biden (source: Facebook) U.S. Congressman Tom Suozzi, a former Nassau County executive, has a tough path ahead of him to win the Democratic primary for governor in New York State, according to a poll released today. A majority of voters don't know who he is, according to the Siena College Research Institute poll. Not Democrats, not Republicans, not even downstate voters. Worse, the Glen Cove Democrat ties with Bill de Blasio, outgoing New York City mayor, in the percentage of New Yorkers who would vote for him in the Democratic primary: 6 percent. Only the category "vote for someone else, unnamed" got a lower percentage. The poll sampled 785 New ...

Bruce Blakeman Incumbent County Executive Laura Curran, a first-term Democrat, spent more than twice as much as Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman but still lost her bid for re-election, state reports show. Together the two candidates spent a total $5,600,898 trying to win the county executive post, which pays about $200,000 a year. Candidates for Nassau District Attorney spent a total $4,274,633  vying for the county office, according to state board of election campaign disclosure reports. But Republican Anne Donnelly spent about two-thirds less than Democrat Todd Kaminsky to win the high-profile office. Final reports on spending for the November elections -- the 27-Day Post general election campaign finance disclosures -- were filed with the state Board of Elections late last month.  State reports show that Curran's total campaign expenses since Jan. 16 were $3,895,688 Blakeman's total spending since March amounted to $1,705,212. A Hempstead Town Councilman and former Pres...