Community Outreach Speech
The following is an abridged transcript from the Community Outreach event, organized by Mangano’s networking team known as the Citizens for Mangano and held at Ed Mangano’s headquarters. The speech given by Mangano is addressing over 50 of his supporters who attended the event; the second part of the transcript is from the question and answer session held after his speech, in which Mangano addresses a supporter’s question about the Lighthouse Project.
Ed Mangano: I am truly, truly honored by your support and your hard work, and your effort, and all I can say is it’s working. It’s working. You know, we started this race 27 points behind. While I was a legislator in Bethpage and Hicksville and Oyster Bay and the rest of the 17th legislative district (as we all know there, having run seven terms), it’s a very big county, so virtually unknown by all accounts as you transverse the county – transverse the county. It’s really an amazingly large county and you don’t think about it until you have to get to every town, north shore, south shore, east, west, from here to Elmont – it’s a very big and it’s a big, big job. But we did it the old-fashioned way, grass roots [and] attracting people with a good message, and I’ve just been blessed with great support and our name recognition soared off the charts. And quite frankly, right now, by all pollsters, we are in a neck-to-neck race with 27 days to go. So that’s great.
And what’s been easy about it is that our message is based in fact; our message is one that resonates. Everyone knows – they don’t need me to tell them – about how bad off we all are, how everybody’s adjusted their standard of living downward. Everyone but government, that is, because government continues to tax and this government continues to spend with no regard – no regard for the people’s ability to pay. And that’s the ultimate insult. And that’s what we’re going to change. You know, this county executive has had eight years and he had a wonderful opportunity – a wonderful opportunity. He rode into office on a $100 million deficit. That’s what he said he had by the prior administration and that’s what he said he was going to cure. New York State gave him $105 million, so basically a clean state to start off here in Nassau County. But despite that, despite the fact that real property taxes has risen since the year 2000 by 43%. Despite the fact that he’s really increased every single fee – just about every fee in Nassau County has gone up. Despite the fact that there’s a whole new Home Energy Tax, a 2.5% tax on everything and anything – everything and anything you can use to cool or heat your home – despite…the tax on electricity, oil, natural gas…propane, [and] even firewood. And despite cutting back the county workforce – which, you know, it was cut back obviously from the bottom, of course – people who plow the roads, cut the grass, take care of your parks, especially units of the police. But despite all of that, Nassau County unbelievably is in worse fiscal condition than when he started. And that’s the real problem. That’s the real problem: $150 million in deficit.
NIFA, the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, [is] a statewide…agency that was put in place – put in place – to watch over that $105 million gift and make certain that it was spent properly and that Nassau County returned to fiscal stability. By all accounts, it has not happened. And the sad part is, Nassau County misspent this money. Tom Suozzi has mismanaged the money during the good times, as most of that report says. In 2005, there was a $217 million surplus – a reserve fund that was set aside because NIFA knew that bad times would come, that the economy could never stay on the high that it was, and they [NIFA] wanted to be prepared so Nassau County did not fall in deficit. All that money was spent during the good times. And that’s what’s really wrong…not being sensitive to the taxpayers’ ability to pay, not being prepared for a rainy day. But most disturbingly, not only are we in debt here, not only are we having trouble paying our bills and meeting the needs in our own homes, but now this county is indebting our future generation, our children, by geometric proportions.
…the tax assessment system in Nassau County alone loses $100 million dollars a year. That’s $100 million. You could never do it in the private sector, year after year after year having a loss. Only in government could that continue. There’s no desire to fix it, there’s only a desire to defend it. And that’s just the facts. Fact of the matter is, we’re going to fix that system. You cannot have a county that is fiscally stable that loses $100 million a year on property tax assessment. So that’s got to be job one so that we can return this county to fiscal stability. And it can be done and it will be done and we have the plan to do it. And that’s really the news.
I met with Newsday’s editorial board and they said, you know, “How are you going to fix Nassau County if this county executive couldn’t do it?” And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. NIFA, that statewide…agency said it eight years ago: if you want to fix Nassau County, you have to fix the property tax assessment system. You can’t allow a system to lose [money]…. And what has happened – what has happened with that system is that he tried, they expanded it to over 300 people in Nassau County, 300 employees working on the real property tax assessment system, if you will. They put $50 million dollars worth of technology into there. And you know what NIFA says, that reports says, their analysis says – nothing. Nothing’s changed. It’s the same $100 million loss. Throwing good money after bad. We have to freeze it, set it, give people the benefit of their correction, and then work on fixing it when we’re not reassessing every year. We can’t keep making those mistakes. Quite honestly, they’ve not helped anybody at all. Other than if you practice, perhaps law in that area or if you have a service that collects a third of that type of money, you know, as a fee…. Because, unfortunately, many homeowners don’t or can’t grieve their taxes on their own and they hire services or attorneys to do it and those services usually take about a third. So it’s sad. It’s a mill of losses that we just can’t sustain anymore, so we’re going to do that, we’re going to fix that.
The problem with Nassau County continues – continues throughout this entire eight years to spend more money than it even taxes, if you can believe that. Its reoccurring expenses exceed its reoccurring revenue. And you just can’t live like that. You couldn’t do it in your home and you really can’t do it in government unless you kick that can down the road and indebt future generations. And that’s what’s occurring here. If you want to have a county for you, for your children, that’s stable, that can deliver services properly, we have to fix the system now. So that’s my message – our message is to cut wasteful spending, freeze and fix the broke and bleeding property tax assessment system, stop and repeal that Home Energy Tax – it’s regressive, it hurts those who can least afford it – and most importantly create local jobs and local opportunities. The emphasis is on local. This county, if you can believe it or not, sends money out of state [and] hires companies out of state. And I tell you, I sit on the committees that review this stuff, I vote against these contracts. The testimony there, by their own administrators, administrators that work for this county – their testimony is that, “Well, they’re cheaper.” Well, obviously they’re a little cheaper because they don’t have to pay these taxes that are imposed on them by this government. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. There’s a lot [that] can be done. We’re going to start an Office of Local Opportunity, and we’re going to get more competitiveness in this bidding process, and we’re going to teach Nassau County residents and Nassau County businesses how to get this business, compete for this business, and keep this money here, in Nassau County.
With respect to operating the County Executive’s office, there’s a lot of ways. He’s [Suozzi’s] actually doubled the size of patronage – doubled the size of management in Nassau County. The prior County Executive had 232 exempt patronage positions. What are those? Those are positions he can just appoint. You don’t have to take a test for them. He can just hire at will. Those have doubled to over 462. But most disturbingly – even most disturbingly – 20% of those people don’t even live in Nassau County. Okay, so that means they take these big salaries, many of them making over $100 thousand, and they take that money, they get in a county car that you paid for with your gas, and they drive over a bridge and they spend their money in another county. So what that means is now you lose the sales tax revenue that would have been generated from that dollar. And that sales tax revenue is a large part of our budget – a large part of our revenue, the sales tax. And that’s just another thing that’s wrong with Nassau County. You know, I understand if you needed, you know, if there’s some special person or some special, unique talent that you need. But to have that amount of policy makers, people who decide on whether fees are going to go up, people that decide that your taxes are going to go up, and not be subject to paying those taxes and increased fees is wrong. So there’s a lot. You know, the present county executive has [made] a lot of inferences that there’s nothing you can do or he’s done it all. It hasn’t happened. There’s a lot that can be done. There’s a lot of ways. Just a quick little math: if he didn’t expand that office – if he didn’t expand his office – he would not be spending $21, $22 million a year more on patronage. Over eight years, and I’ll round it down to 20, that $160 million. We’re $150 million in deficit. There are answers – there are solutions.
So, you know, I know you’re our supporters, but I wanted to share our message that we are sharing with the entire county – whoever will have us, whoever will hear us – and I ask you to go out and spread that message. I’m happy to answer any questions that you may have and I just want to say thank you very much, because we have really made this a winnable, winnable race. [It’s] a grassroots efforts, you know…faced an opponent, a popular opponent, a two term opponent, eight years, $3 million in his campaign war chest, you know, media loves him, and we’re winning the race. You guys have a great night. Thank you very much.
The following portion of the transcript is from the question and answer session and discusses the Lighthouse project, as noted above.
Question from audience: A lot of Nassau County folks – you know your message revolves around economic stimulus and building up jobs and opportunities and things like that. How exactly do you feel about the lighthouse project and where it’s headed and development as a whole?
Ed Mangano: Absolutely. Well, first of all, you should know, when I took office – and one of the major reasons I’m in office – was I grew up here in Bethpage. The Grumman property, the defense industry contractor – I basically got involved because there was environmental issues. That brought my interest into getting into government to try to correct those issues that were in my neighborhood. But, lo and behold, when I began to take office, the defense industry downsized. 20,000 jobs were lost. Those were jobs of taxpayers. Dozens of buildings became vacant and it was a real, real problem. As a matter of fact, the experts said – they said it would take decades and decades to redevelop that property because of the environmental conditions and because of the nature of the buildings. They’re very large buildings where you can build airplanes and whatever. But I tell you what – I, along with concerned residents and workers of every level of government, regardless of party, we returned 15,000 jobs to that property [and] millions of dollars in tax base. We have white collar industry, blue collar industry, research development, we have a college, a hotel, senior housing, Nassau County Police aviation is in there, a community center, many, many – a hundred acres of manufacturing type businesses, offices, banks. We redeveloped and diversified that property and worked on attracting a homeland defense center there that’s being constructed right now and diversified and actually tried the movie industry. We filmed a movie with Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Love Hewitt back in 2000 and we recently just finished with Columbia Pictures, a $300 million picture with Angelina Jolie called Salt done right here in Bethpage and Hicksville. So what did I do during this same time that this county executive has pretty much dealt with trying to redevelop…the Coliseum property, 77 acres? We’ve redeveloped over 400 acres here in Bethpage. The jobs are there. How we did it? We didn’t need a camera, we didn’t need the big photo-op, we got the job done and now people are going to work there. You can drive through there and see everything that’s occurring there. We have a little bit more work to do.
So what I’m saying to you is that…we would be sitting in a new arena now if I lead Nassau County because he has polarized the issue and it shouldn’t have been done. You have to bring people together in order to achieve this type of development. You also have to understand who are the stakeholders and who has a role in it. In Nassau County, the towns have zoning jurisdiction. You need to work with the towns in order to achieve your purpose and that’s what wasn’t done here. What was done here was a lot of photo-ops and a lot of divisionary, they’re Republican, he’s a Democrat statements. That doesn’t work. You have to bring people together. So what’s going to occur right now is that that project has to get through the Town of Hempstead. They will decide on the proper level of development. When it comes to Nassau County, I look forward to support it. Our analysis will simply be this: that’s your 77 acres of land [and] they have to be fair-market value paid for that 77 acres of land. You can’t give it away – It’s not right. Now we’re going to get a refurbished Coliseum and you take that into account, but, you know, it’s a very simple audit, a very simple analysis that an appraisal can be done and you set a value to it and that’s it and you move ahead. Do I want a new Coliseum? Absolutely. Do I want the Islanders to stay? Absolutely. Do I support mixtures development? Absolutely. We have it right here in Bethpage. It’s already been done and we hope to have it on the Coliseum property. We want to see that development, we want to see job creation, we want to see a destination – it just has to be a destination that’s sustainable and adds value. So, you know, they boiled this down to a “yes” or a “no.” It’s not a “yes” or a “no” – it’s what level of development are you going to have and who’s going to pay for it and [that] everybody gets their value and let’s move on and get it done. That’s what I say. Let’s get it done and move on, as simple as that. You have to be able to move ahead with it. It could be done – we did it in Bethpage and we’ll do it in Uniondale.
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