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Members of the county's largest union -- the Civil Service Employees Association -- agreed in August to a new 13-year contract that raises their salaries by 25 percent and gave them as much as a $3,000 signing bonus. But they also agreed to a change in their health care -- which has been stalled because of a legal challenge by union retirees -- and to increase the length of their workday by 15 minutes. For decades most members worked  6-3/4 hours a day. Now they will have to put in their full seven hours. Starting March 8. According to the January financial report by the county's office of Management and Budget, the CSEA had 3,365 fulltime members on payroll by the end of last month.  The contract's higher salary rates began a month ago, on Jan. 25.

                                                                     Nassau Coliseum (from Wikipedia) Last Friday's decision by Acting Supreme Court Justice Sarika Kapoor that Las Vegas Sands Inc. does not have a valid lease for the county-owned Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale raises a lot of questions. Kapoor, a Hofstra University's law school graduate, first sided in November with Hofstra when it challenged Nassau's lease with the Sands to develop a $4 billion entertainment resort and casino on the Coliseum's 72 acres. Hofstra and the Village of Garden City had been the staunchest opponents to the proposed takeover of the outdated underused Coliseum by t...

                                                                               In a blow to Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Supreme Court judge today ruled that Las Vegas Sands has no lease interest in the Nassau Coliseum. Today's decision by Nassau Supreme Court Justice Sarika Kapoor is her second punch against Blakeman's plan for Las Vegas Sands to develop a $4 billion casino/entertainment project on the 72-acre Coliseum site in Uniondale. In November, Kapoor ruled that the Sand's 99-year lease approved by the county legislature in May was void because the county did not follow the state's open meetings law. Hofstra University, which strongly opposed the proposed Casino development, had sued to overturn the lease. Despite Kapoor's ruling, the county argued the Sands still h...

Mangano vs Margiotta? A federal appellate judge twice brought up the name of the late Nassau Republican boss Joseph Margiotta during 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals arguments last week about former Republican County Executive Ed Mangano's request to overturn his 2019 conviction on federal corruption charges. Mangano is currently serving a 12-year prison term for pressuring Oyster Bay Town officials to guarantee $20 million in personal loans to its concessionaire, Harendra Singh,  a Mangano family friend. Ed Mangano In return, Mangano was accused of accepting exorbitant gifts from Singh, including a $100,000 a year "low-show" job for his wife Linda over four years. Judge Gerard Lynch, appointed to the Appeals Court  in 2003 by former President Barack Obama, seemed to suggest that Mangano, as county executive, was more powerful than Margiotta because Margiotta had been a private citizen. This blog will pause a moment now to allow for old-time Republicans to stop laughing. Marg...

                                                                                                                                                Mangano appeal    While suffering a decisive defeat Tuesday in the special election to fill the vacant Congressional District 3 seat, Nassau Republicans are about to be reminded of another past setback. Nearly five years after former Republican County Executive Ed Mangano and his wife Linda were convicted on f...

Credit: Newsday/Siena College Research Institute Poll released today   A startling but overlooked finding in today's  Newsday's/Siena College Research Institute poll about the special election in Congressional District 3 is the difference between who voters would choose in a hypothetical race between former Republican president Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden. Trump, who is seeking to run again in November, leads Biden, who is seeking re-election this year, 47 percent to 42 percent. The poll's 4.2 percent margin of error doesn't totally eliminate Trumps' 5 point lead. That's quite a turnaround from 2020. According to the Cook Political Report, Biden carried the district by eight points over Trump in 2020 and the district still leans Democrat. In the headline race in next week's special election for the vacant District 3 Congressional seat,  the Newsday poll found Democrat Tom "Suozzi, who represented the 3rd District from 2017 to 2022, l...

                                                                      Migrant assault on NYC police officers (from CNN)   When the special election campaign to fill the vacant Congressional 3rd district seat began in December, Democrat Tom Suozzi of Glen Cove seemed like the surefire winner. Suozzi, a veteran elected official, seemed to be everywhere, talking about everything while his Republican-backed opponent, Nassau Legis. Mazi Pilip of Great Neck, was nowhere to be found.  Since then, local incidents seem to be conspiring against Suozzi. At the start, the shadow of  former 3rd District Rep. George Santos, a Republican expelled for lying and for alleged campaign finance fraud, cast a dark pall over the GOP. In comparison, Suozzi was well known and mostly well-liked. A former Glen Cove mayor and f...

                                                                      As early voting begins today in the special election between former U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Glen Cove Democrat, and Nassau Legis. Mazi Philip, running as a Conservative Republican, for Congressional District 3, Pilip supporters are complaining about a Suozzi endorsement. The regional Civil Service Employees Association sent out a pro-Suozzi mailer to residents in the district -- where the Congressional seat has been vacant since Republican U.S. Rep. George Santos was expelled by Congress in December for lying and alleged campaign finance violations. The mailer -- headlined CSEA 2024 -- e...

It was rumored last month that former Nassau legislator Denise Ford, a registered Long Beach Democrat who voted with Republicans, was working at the county Board of Elections after she ended 20-years on the legislature when she decided against seeking re-election last year. Denise Ford Newsday tracked down the rumors and confirmed that Ford spent a week at the board -- a favorite landing spot for former politicians -- earning about her same fulltime $84,304 legislative salary before she moved to a part-time job in Long Beach. She told Newsday that she wanted to continue in public service, working on the same issues she had dealt with at the county. At 73 years old, that made sense. Ford, who was well-liked by both parties, had already earned county health benefits for life as well as a full pension. And she had been involved in Long Beach issues even while she worked for the county. Former Ford colleagues on the legislature also are still on the county payroll. Former Legis. Laura Scha...

Critics of a $1.1 billion refinancing of Nassau's debt by the county's financial control board were right. Advocates of the massive deal were wrong. As watchdogs warned three years ago, the refinancing done by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority in early 2021 is costing Nassau about $30 million more a year for the next 15 years. And, it turned out, the refinancing wasn't even needed. Nassau Budget Director Andy Persich confirmed the additional costs when questioned by Legis. John Ferretti, a Levittown Republican, at a legislative meeting last month. John Ferretti "Refinancing helps you in the short term but   in the grand scheme we will pay more money than if we did not refinance," Ferretti said. "That’s coming due now, right?" "That's right," Persich responded. In late 2020 the county's financial control board -- The Democrat-controlled Nassau Interim Finance Authority -- and the administration of then-County Executive Laura...