Reposted from Jay Jacobs, Chairman of the Nassau County Democratic Committee
By Jay Jacobs
Published: June 28, 2012 by Long Island Business News.
In last week’s column, Nassau Republican Chairman Joe Mondello was
adamant in his assertion that the county’s dire fiscal crisis was – and
continues to be – the result of errors made by the previous Democratic
leadership (“A political challenge across the aisle”). I admit that I
am in awe of Chairman Mondello’s capacity to continually repackage
manure, spray it with perfume and attempt, once again, to resell it to
the public.
During his THREE DECADES at the helm of his party, Mondello and his
hand-picked elected officials have presided over a government that has
managed, in the greatest period of American economic growth, to take
Nassau County, one of the nation’s richest, from the pinnacle of
suburban excellence to the brink of bankruptcy. He does himself a great
disservice by trying to share any of that credit with the Democrats.
Alarmingly, he continues his “streak” with his hand-picked county
executive, Ed Mangano. It is disingenuous for Mangano to claim he does
not have the $6.8 million to fund youth programs, yet he has had more
than enough to award $10 million in legal contracts to his politically
connected friends. This includes hundreds of thousands of dollars to
his former employer, Rivkin Radler, over $1 million to Republican Party
stalwart Peter Bee and a $300,000-a-year job to former colleague John
Ciotti.
These are just a few of the most egregious examples, but it does not
end there. It takes more than a patronage mill to put one of the
wealthiest counties into such a downward spiral.
Mangano has now spent $27 million in police overtime, all since he
has closed half of Nassau’s police precincts. He has wasted millions of
dollars in failed legal battles. He has spent $2 million on
politically charged, taxpayer-funded mailings; and he has spent
$300,000 on trucks bearing his photo and name that do nothing but drive
around the county promoting him.
Mangano has the audacity to claim that the county’s fiscal problems
were caused by his Democratic predecessor’s practice of awarding rich
contracts to the public employee unions. He MUST be kidding. The county
began to choke under the weight of those contracts under Mondello’s
other hand-picked county executive, Tom Gulotta. Remember Nassau
Interim Finance Authority? The state oversight board was created in
1999 – two years BEFORE County Executive Tom Suozzi took office – to
oversee a bloated budget and over-burdensome debt.
Joe Mondello approved every one of those contracts and as a
legislator, Ed Mangano voted for all of them – the same contracts he
now condemns! What’s worse is that Suozzi was thwarted in every effort
to renegotiate them on better terms by none other than Ed Mangano and
Joe Mondello. For Mondello, it has ALWAYS been about politics. For him
now to complain that the whiff of politics has entered the sphere of
governing is like the skunk complaining about the stench in the forest.
Let’s be clear: The county’s finances are in dire straits, the likes
of which we have not seen before. The facts are that this fiscal
crisis belongs to Mondello’s county executive. This deficit belongs to
Mangano. The overtime and budget mess all belong to Mangano. The credit
rating downgrades are owned by Mangano, as are the broken promises and
the plans for savings that have not been realized.
Democrats will work with Joe Mondello and Ed Mangano when they get
serious about the work that needs to be done. To date, their record is
one of hair-brained schemes, failed litigation to support unlawful
practices and threatened cuts to those who can least afford them, while
approving huge payouts to their connected friends. THAT is not good
government.
Mondello challenged me in his commentary to accept his “Taxpayer’s
Fiscal Protection Act,” which had not one detail associated with it
beyond the fancy title. With his leadership record of THIRTY YEARS, I
submit that taking his advice is like accepting the recommendation of
the captain of the Titanic to take the ship north.
