Long Island

Nassau

Scott Eidler

Nassau officials have notified more than 200 current and former employees in the Assessment Department their confidential personal data may have been breached after some co-workers last year gained unauthorized access to human resources information about department workers. 
In a letter Thursday to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and county legislators, Technology Commissioner Nancy Stanton said seven Assessment Department employees had obtained "personnel records," containing "Social Security numbers, medical notes, and other personal identifying information." 
Stanton said, "none of the employees were authorized to view or access the data. Not all of the data accessed was confidential or personally identifiable in nature, but some was and, therefore a data breach occurred pursuant to state and local law … " 
Stanton and county officials did not identify the employees who allegedly participated the data breach, or say what they did with the data or if any employees were disciplined. 
The seven individuals still work for the Assessment Department, Chris Boyle, a Blakeman spokesman, told Newsday Friday. 
The county has sent letters to 209 current and former employees notifying them their data may have been breached, Boyle said. 
The breach occurred after the county had migrated its data server system to a new platform, Stanton said. 
The upgrade eliminated a protection for human resource files, and inadvertently allowed all assessment employees to view human resource files of department employees, Stanton wrote. 
On Friday, Nassau Legis. Joshua Lafazan (D-Woodbury) called on the county legislature’s government services and operations committee to investigate the matter, and compel testimony from county commissioners. 
"Why would the Department of Assessment have medical records, as opposed to say human resources?" Lafazan said at a news conference in Mineola. 
"How did this system upgrade result in an internal breach, and what steps have been taken to confirm this was the only breach caused by the upgrade, and we are not vulnerable to an outside cyberattack?" asked Lafazan, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 3rd Congressional District seat. 
Mary Studdert, a spokeswoman for majority legislative Republicans, said the government services committee would schedule a hearing on the issue. 
Stanton said the Information Technology Department began investigating the suspected breach on Dec. 29, three days before Blakeman, a Republican, took office after his victory over then-County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat. 
Under the Nassau County administrative code, the legislature and county executive must be notified of data breaches within 72 hours of their discovery. 
Stanton said her department waited seven weeks to notify Blakeman and the legislature in order, "to determine the nature and extend of the breach." 
The Blakeman administration did not make Stanton available for an interview. 
"While this breach occurred prior to County Executive Blakeman taking office, this administration is already implementing best practices to secure public records and boost cyber defenses," Boyle said in a statement.

Politics

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Nassau notifies 209 workers their confidential personal data may have been breached

Assessment workers accessed colleagues' confidential data

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The administration of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman on Thursday began a mediation effort with major public employee unions whose contracts with the county expired more than four years ago. 
George Silver, a former deputy chief administrative judge for the New York City courts, is presiding over negotiations with top union leaders that began at county headquarters in Mineola on Thursday, Blakeman, a Republican, told Newsday. 
The effort represents Blakeman's first attempt at resolving labor issues that troubled the administration of former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat who lost to Blakeman in November. 
The county's deals with the Police Benevolent Association, Civil Service Employees Association and the Correction Officers Benevolent Association expired at the end of 2017. 
The Curran administration was able to strike new deals with the police Detectives Association Inc. and the Superior Officers Association. 
The Curran administration agreed in principle to a new deal with PBA leaders, but union members rejected the proposal. 
Blakeman likened the mediation effort to use of a "marriage counselor." 
Blakeman said his "experience in the public and private sector has been that if you have an impasse, you try to resolve that impasse with an independent marriage counselor. I cannot understand why it's not in use more." 
In a break with Curran administration practices, no officials from the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the county's financial control board, are involved in the mediation discussions. 
In 2018, NIFA hired labor lawyer Gary Dellaverson to participate in union contract negotiations. 
Union leaders and majority Republicans in the County Legislature objected to the presence of a NIFA labor lawyer at the bargaining table. 
Union leaders argued NIFA was not a party to the proposed agreements, while GOP legislators criticized Dellaverson's fee of $25,000 per month. 
Once the county and union leaders agree on a new contract, terms must be approved by union members and the County Legislature. 
NIFA must sign off on a final deal. 
NIFA chairman Adam Barsky declined to comment Thursday. 
"We want to see if the administration can come to an understanding. Then of course, the legislature would have to review that and then NIFA would weigh in on it," Blakeman said. 
Blakeman argued, "if everybody sticks to their position, and doesn't hear from somebody independent as to areas that they might not have considered, or areas where they may be unreasonable, it's always good to get an independent opinion. So that's why we agreed to mediation."

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Bruce Blakeman begins mediation with major Nassau County unions

Blakeman begins mediation with major Nassau unions

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Rep. Tom Suozzi on Wednesday announced he’s selected Diana Reyna, a former Brooklyn councilwoman, to be his lieutenant governor running mate in Democratic primary. 
Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), who is challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, said Reyna would be the first Latina elected to statewide office if she wins. Besides the New York City Council, Reyna, 48, also served as a deputy to Eric Adams when the now-mayor was Brooklyn borough president. 
"Diana believes that public service is about getting things done to improve the lives of the people we serve," Suozzi said in a statement. "The historic significance of Diana’s candidacy represents a new beginning for the Latino community, that for too long has been effectively denied a seat at the table of state government." 
Suozzi is taking on Hochul in a Democratic primary rather than run for reelection to Congress. He announced Reyna as his running mate hours before Democrats were scheduled to open their state convention in Manhattan, where Hochul is expected to easily win a vote to become the party’s designated candidate. 
New York Public Advocate Jumaane Williams also is competing for governor and trying to secure enough delegates' votes to get on the primary ballot. Suozzi is expected to go another route: Securing enough petition signatures to qualify for the primary. 
Reyna painted herself and Suozzi as candidates who will stand up to Albany insiders. 
"Tom Suozzi and I won’t hide from the tough issues, won’t pander to the political left or right, and will stand up to the special interests and lobbyists that have been choking Albany for decades," Reyna said. "As the first Latina to serve in a statewide position, I will bring a deep sense of empathy, background, and experiences to the job to represent every person in every corner of the state." 
Reyna represented parts of Brooklyn and Queens on the City Council from 2001-13. She also once was chief of staff to late Assemb. Vito Lopez, who resigned in 2013 after being accused of and fined for sexually harassing aides. She was Adams' deputy for four years ending in January 2018. 
Though candidates can campaign as teams, the governor and lieutenant governor races have separate primaries -- Reyna would face Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, Hochul's running mate. Occasionally in state history, governors have wound up running in the fall with a running mate not of their choosing. 
The opening of the party convention coincided with a swirl of other campaign developments. State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) announced he would not seek reelection. A day earlier, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City) surprised party leaders by saying she, too, wouldn't seek reelection. 
Both moves set off a scramble for potential candidates. 
Among those interested in running for Rice's seat: Former Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen and Nassau County legislators Kevan Abrahams, Siela Bynoe and Carrie Solages. 
One name that won't be in the running: Former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, who told party officials she wouldn't run. 
The first day of the convention is filled with routine party business, such as meetings held by various caucuses. The designating of candidates -- the heart of the convention business -- takes place on Thursday. 
Hochul, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Attorney General Letitia James all are expected to easily win the majority of delegates' votes. 
Suozzi is expected to address delegates at a breakfast Thursday.

News

Region/State

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Suozzi selects Diana Reyna as his lieutenant governor running mate

Suozzi selects Reyna as his lieutenant governor running mate in Democratic primary

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Tom Brune

WASHINGTON — Rep. Kathleen Rice dropped a surprise tweet Tuesday saying she will not run for reelection, creating a third open congressional seat on Long Island in this year’s midterm elections and dimming the Island’s clout in the U.S. House. 
Rice, of Garden City, announced on her 57th birthday that she would leave Congress at the end of her fourth term as a moderate Democrat and member of the pro-business New Democrat Coalition. But she did not say what she plans to do next. 
"I have always believed that holding political office is neither destiny nor a right," Rice said in her tweeted statement. "As elected officials, we must give all we have and then know when it is time to allow others to serve." 
She added, "Though I will not be running for reelection to Congress this year, I will remain focused on protecting our democracy and serving my constituents throughout the rest of my term." 
Rice declined an interview, said her spokeswoman Nora Kohli. 
Kohli said Rice’s accomplishments include her work on early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, offshore wind energy, veterans’ mental health and designating Manhattan’s National Urban Security Technology Laboratory to assist the response to terrorism. 
In her four terms, Rice has often clashed with progressive Democrats and twice voted against the election of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to House speaker while calling for Pelosi to step aside to allow new blood to move into the House Democratic leadership. 
Rice, a career state and federal prosecutor, serves on the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, but was blocked from joining her first choice, the House Judiciary Committee. 
A friend and ally of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Rice joined a handful of other moderate Democrats earlier this year in blocking a proposal to cap drug prices that had broad support among House and Senate Democrats. 
Rice’s decision means that three of the four congressional districts on Long Island will have open seats in the midterm elections in November. And it will mean that Long Island will have less clout in the House as it loses seats on two of the four most powerful committees. 
Both Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) chose to run for their party’s nomination for New York governor rather than reelection to Congress. 
Rice becomes the 30th Democrat to bow out of the election this fall, adding to the headwinds against the Democratic Party, which now has a 10-seat majority. Historically, the incumbent president's party tends to lose seats in the midterms. 
Jay Jacobs, chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, said Rice told him about her plans to step down but did not say what she would be doing next. 
"I just think it was a personal decision. I think she’s just taken a look at 17 years in public service and she just felt it this was a good time to step aside and do something else," Jacobs told Newsday. 
Jacobs said he was not worried about his party losing the district, which changed little in the redistricting process. Pundits rate it as solidly Democratic. 
"We should be fine in the district," Jacobs said. "We just have to find the right candidate. This is a district that needs a moderate Democrat with broad-based appeal." 
Among names of Democrats being tossed about as Rice’s replacement are former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, Nassau County Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams and former Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen. 
"Clearly, Kathleen Rice saw the writing on the wall, deciding to step down from Congress rather than face angry voters in November," said Nassau County Republican Committee chairman Joseph Cairo in a statement. "Republicans will offer a sound and sensible alternative to Democrats' left-wing agenda." 
A Republican who became a Democrat in 2005, Rice won the seat held by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy in 2014 after nine years as Nassau County’s elected district attorney. She previously worked as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and as an assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia.

Nation/World

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Rep. Kathleen Rice says she won't seek reelection to Congress

Rep. Kathleen Rice says she won't seek reelection

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<h3>Starting March 1, The Point will be available to Newsday subscribers only. Don’t want to miss The Point? <a href="https://subscribe.newsday.com/Subscribe4?sitecode=Ncom&amp;ofrgp_id=1681&amp;returnUrl=https%3A[…].com%2Flong-island%2Fonboarding%2F%3FclearUserState%3Dtrue">Click here to subscribe at a special rate</a><a href="https://subscribe.newsday.com/Subscribe4?sitecode=Ncom&amp;ofrgp_id=1681&amp;returnUrl=https%3A[…].com%2Flong-island%2Fonboarding%2F%3FclearUserState%3Dtrue">.</a></h3> 
<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Rice's exit leaves House seat wide open </h3> 
Laura Curran began the day with a surprise endorsement of Robert Zimmerman in the Democratic scramble in the 3rd Congressional District to replace Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is running for governor instead of reelection. Why would Curran use her political capital so early in primary, the wags wanted to know. 
Before the morning had ended, however, Curran’s name was being mentioned as a candidate to run in neighboring CD4 after Katheen Rice usurped the political news cycle with her own surprise that she was not seeking reelection. Curran, who was traveling Tuesday and did not return a request for comment, is considered unlikely to jump in, but another Democrat named Laura is seriously considering it. 
Former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, who lost a bid for reelection in 2019 to Don Clavin, told The Point she is seriously considering making the run but said among the many factors she is weighing is separation from her family. Gillen said she was surprised by Rice’s decision, although she is in Rice’s circle and hired her sister-in-law, Cheryl Rice, as one of her assistants during her tenure at the town. 
State Sen. Todd Kaminsky had been eyeing Rice’s seat for a while before deciding to run for Nassau County district attorney last year, prompted by the surprise decision by Madeline Singas to seek a seat on the Court of Appeals. Kaminsky brought the Albany baggage of bail reform to what had been considered a sleepy Nassau County executive race. He lost badly and Curran became collateral damage. Had he not run, she probably would have won a second term and Kaminsky might have cakewalked to Congress. Having depleted a multimillion dollar campaign war chest on the DA’s race, he is not considered likely to run. 
Until Tuesday, the only Democratic challenger with a fundraising committee was political newcomer and physician Muzibul Huq of Elmont. Now a fistful of other possible Democratic contenders are measuring the curtains, while Republicans say wait just a minute. 
Rice, a moderate, was formidable because she was able to do well in the Republican stronghold of Garden City, her hometown, defeating current Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, in 2014. President Joe Biden carried CD4 by 12 points in 2020, and while that majority was nipped a bit by redistricting, it is still considered a safe blue seat. 
The National Republican Congressional Committee said it will target the seat in its drive to take back the House of Representatives, but so far only Bill Staniford, a former U.S. Marine from Lawrence who once was an executive at the internet real estate firm Property Shark, said he was in the race. He reported raising $247,000 in the first quarter as he seeks the GOP and Conservative Party nominations. Now household Nassau County GOP names, some currently in state office and local offices, and others who once were, are circulated as possible candidates. 
And just like that, the newly elevated blood sport of Long Island congressional districts continues apace. 
— Rita Ciolli <a href="https://twitter.com/RitaCiolli">@ritaciolli </a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>GOP reassesses its options</h3> 
Last October, as Election Day approached and Nassau County Republicans braced for the likelihood that standard-bearer Bruce Blakeman would lose his bid to unseat Laura Curran, legislative Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello repeated his call for a voter referendum on whether the county assessor should be elected. 
"Nassau residents have a right to decide if they want an elected assessor," Nicolello said in a statement four months ago. "It is clear from the County Executive’s attempt to appoint someone who lacks assessing experience and certifications, that the only question is whether the Nassau Assessor will be elected and responsive to the people or a political appointee as the county executive wants." 
The Republicans running the legislature had even gone so far as to approve a referendum in April that would have let the public weigh in. But Curran issued a veto the Republicans could not overcome. 
Then Blakeman won. 
Now the Republicans have a clear path for a referendum to convert the post to an elected one, but no apparent desire. That’s because with Blakeman’s victory they also gained the right to appoint an assessor themselves under the current system. 
The county had an elected assessor (the only county in New York that did) until a referendum changed that in 2008. The rules for the past 14 years have demanded the appointee be approved by the legislature and fully qualified within three years of getting the position. But the spot has almost always been filled by an interim appointee who does not have those qualifications. 
Only Curran appointee David Moog has ever officially been confirmed. And perhaps it helped. Moog managed to get a new and mostly accurate assessment done after a 10-year freeze, but since he retired, the county has reverted to two years of frozen values. 
The position is currently held on an interim basis by Robin Laveman, who was put up for the permanent spot by Curran and has been in the process of completing her licensing and qualifications but was not confirmed by the legislature. 
Asked whether Nicolello would still pursue a referendum now that it would kill the party's own ability to appoint, a spokesperson answered via email, "The Nassau Legislature’s Majority Members are acutely focused on working with the County’s new Administration to fix the broken assessment system. We are considering all options to enhance fairness, accuracy and accountability." 
And in a 25-minute news conference on assessment held Tuesday morning by Blakeman and Comptroller Elaine Phillips, the method of choosing assessors did not rate even a mention. 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Driven protest goes viral</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Final Point</h2> 
<h3>Grab the popcorn</h3> 
Now primary season has really begun. 
The first candidate panel with all the heavy-hitter CD1 Democratic candidates is set for Feb. 24 at 7 p.m., co-hosted by the Southampton and Brookhaven Town Democratic committees. 
The virtual event will feature Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Kara Hahn, as well as Jackie Gordon, the 2020 CD2 contender whose Copiague home has been redistricted into CD1. 
And for those interested in watching the candidates slug it out for the first time, a required registration link is available on the groups’ websites. 
"It is a public event," said Gordon Herr, the Southampton party committee chairman. The opponents will be on screen at the same time to answer questions, which Herr said are supposed to be applicable to all the candidates, not specific for each one. 
The Southampton organization hasn’t done a discussion like this since 2018, when Perry Gershon emerged from a crowded primary. 
This time, Herr added, the event is meant to allow voters to see who they think is "best qualified" and most "electable" in the general election. 
The event should provide an early sense of how the three candidates are differentiating themselves on issues and on resources to flip a red seat blue. 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

Opinion

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As the CDs turn

Had Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Comptroller Elaine Phillips waited two days to announce their audit of the assessment system introduced Tuesday, they could have commemorated an anniversary, and started a tradition. 
Thursday marks four years since former Nassau County Comptroller Jack Schnirman announced his audit of the assessment system, at the beginning of his term. That analysis, which was expected to take nine months, was released 46 months later. 
A system as complex and befuddling as Nassau assessment must be audited regularly, and this analysis won’t fix the problems any more than others have. The problems don’t center on the assessment department. 
Under state law, assessments can’t rise more than 6% in a year or 20% in five years. That’s workable if you reassess annually, but Nassau failed to do that about 70 of the past 80 years, including the past two. The "six and 20" rule demands annual revaluing because irregular valuation demands hikes larger than the law allows. 
Nassau has failed to perform this basic function under Republicans and Democrats alike. That failure helped create a system of excessive grieving that's put $500 million worth of taxpayer money in the pockets of tax-appeal firms and run up billions in debt as the county refunded money to school districts. 
Former County Executive Laura Curran did some good assessment work. Her administration revalued properties after her predecessor’s eight-year freeze, with a high degree of accuracy. And they enacted a plan to phase in fairness, over five years, for bills that shrank for those who grieved and swelled for those who didn't. 
Implementation was difficult, and errors were made, but the goal was achieved: a largely accurate and defensible roll that could stand up to grievances. 
Then, amid a crippling pandemic and skyrocketing home prices, Curran understandably froze the 2022-2023 roll in 2020. Last year, she froze it again but should not have. High prices are not a blip. Tax bills need to reflect them. 
Blakeman, who largely campaigned by bashing Curran’s handling of the system, has no plan, save another audit. 
The root of dissatisfaction with Nassau property taxes is not the poor assessment system but the fact that taxes are so high. Nothing we do to change assessments will change that. And prudent attempts to reform the laws that bedevil Nassau — ending the "county guarantee," allowing a margin of error for assessments before refunds are triggered, and allowing appeals to result in increased valuations — have gotten zero traction because of the political clout of the groups that could lose out. 
Blakeman’s best play would be to continue the movement toward fairness that Curran’s phase-in is providing, assess properties regularly, and begin to turn the tide of appeals by fighting them rather than granting them. 
No audit can change that.

Editorials

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Blakeman should continue Curran's Nassau assessment fix

Assessment fix shouldn't wait

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Nassau Comptroller Elaine Phillips said she has begun auditing the county Department of Assessment's handling of former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran's countywide reassessment, which took effect in the 2020-21 school tax year. 
Independent experts have said property values assigned during the Curran administration met assessment industry standards. 
But Republican county legislators have cited reassessment errors, including publication of incorrect values on tentative tax rolls. The county later corrected the values. 
Phillips, a Republican who took office Jan. 1, said she will review the 2020-21 tax year, issue findings and follow-up with reviews of successive assessment rolls. 
"People are frustrated, people are confused, people are angry — what is the root cause?" Phillips, a former state senator and Flower Hill Village mayor, told Newsday. 
"The answer is people are paying, in their perception, too high of taxes," Phillips said. "So, the root of that comes down to the assessed value, and are those assessed values industry-standard correct?" 
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, campaigned largely on his opposition to Curran's reassessment. 
Blakeman, who on Tuesday attended a news conference in Mineola at which Phillips announced her audit, had promised voters that, if elected, he would ask Phillips to conduct a reassessment audit. 
"We know that reassessment is broken," Blakeman said at the news conference. "This audit is essential to me as the county executive, and to my colleagues on the legislature, as we go forward and we have to come up with the solution for the reassessment." 
After taking office in 2018, the Curran administration reassessed the county's more than 385,000 residential properties. 
Republican County Executive Edward Mangano, Curran's predecessor, had frozen the assessment roll in 2011. 
The freeze lasted for eight years, and during the period many homes became significantly undervalued. 
A Mangano policy of offering automatic assessment reductions to many taxpayers caused a shift in the tax burden — from filers who appealed their property values and won reductions, onto those who did not file challenges. 
Democratic and Republican county legislators voted in 2018 to allow Curran's reassessment to move forward. 
County data published in December 2020 showed that 65% of homeowners received school tax increases in 2020-21, the first year of reassessment, while 35% got reductions. 
Legis. Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport), the minority leader, told Newsday on Tuesday that Phillips "should be able to take a look at what the previous administration did." 
But Abrahams stressed that Curran had, "tackled probably the most critical issue that was facing Nassau County residents." 
He continued: "I think all Nassau County residents realized the tax system that was in place before she got there was completely unfair. She tackled it the best way she could. Obviously, there were some errors and mistakes along the way." 
Phillips said she and her team will be fair and thorough in the Assessment Department audit. 
"We have to at least attempt to get the property owners of Nassau County more confident in this assessed roll," Phillips said. 
"I've heard people say this — they're more confident in what the tax grievance companies are saying to them, than in Nassau County, and that has got to change," she said. 
Also Tuesday, Nassau County Legis. Steve Rhoads (R-Bellmore), a frequent critic of Curran's reassessment, announced Tuesday he will chair a new legislative assessment committee, along with vice chairman Legis. John Ferretti Jr. (R-Levittown), another critic of Curran's program.

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Elaine Phillips begins audit of Nassau reassessment

Phillips begins audit of Nassau reassessment

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Comptroller Elaine Phillips and members of the legislature on Tuesday announced an audit of the county's Department of Assessment for its handling of a countywide reassessment program that took effect in the 2020-21 school tax year.


Nassau officials announce audit of property tax reassessment

Newsday

Dane Kasschau was the favorite uncle among his nieces and nephews, according to his two brothers and sister. 
A former lacrosse captain and long-distance runner, he lived in the moment so completely that he brought the best out in his siblings, wife, young son and daughter, his loved ones said. 
A freshman year walk-on to the Lehigh University lacrosse team, Kasschau finished senior year as team captain. That followed earlier successes as captain of the lacrosse team at South Side High School in Rockville Centre. 
Kasschau, 39, died on Jan. 25, nine months after a diagnosis of stage 4 colorectal cancer. He "never complained to anybody" or "showed he was upset" as he spent his final months with family, inspiring nurses and medical staff with his resolve, said his brother Brant Kasschau, 41, of Rockville Centre. 
Dane Austin Kasschau, who lived in Dover, Massachusetts, worked in digital advertising sales for Yahoo, He is survived by his wife, Elaine "Lissy" Kasschau, daughter Austin, 5, and son Jack, 2. Another son is due in about two weeks. 
The weekend before Kasschau died, the family learned they were having a boy after slicing into a cake with blue insides during a gender reveal while Kasschau was in hospice care. 
"It was sad and happy at the same time," his brother Jared Kasschau, 43, of Rockville Centre, told Newsday. Jared Kasschau served as Nassau County's attorney under former County Executive Laura Curran. 
His sister Paige Merendino, 33, said her brother "took all he could out of every day." 
When the extended family would head out to the North Fork of Long Island for getaways, at Nassau Point, "we would joke that he was the Camp Kasschau counselor," Merendino recalled. 
"He would wake up and he'd say, ‘All right, we're going for a run,’ and then he's like, ‘Who's playing pickleball with me?’ " 
He made everyone feel "magical," Merendino said. "He did it so that every single person at the house could have a smile on their face." 
Kasschau suffered from symptoms of Crohn's disease and colitis, both inflammatory bowel diseases, since his senior year at Lehigh. His family is encouraging people to be screened for colorectal cancer, particularly if they have Crohn's or colitis. 
Jared Kasschau and his wife, Deirdre Kasschau, along with Merendino, ran the New York City Marathon in November and raised more than $21,000 for colorectal cancer research. 
In one week since sharing an online <a href="https://p2p.onecause.com/nationaldiy/dane-kasschau">fundraiser</a>, The Dane Austin Kasschau Fund, to support the Crohn's &amp; Colitis Foundation, the family raised more than $100,000. 
A recent event at The Tap Room in Rockville Centre drew streams of people during the day to pay tribute to Dane Kasschau. 
There, current South Side lacrosse coach Steve DiPietro presented the family with a framed jersey with No. 7, the 2001 graduate's number. 
Dane Kasschau was skilled at drawing, often making Etch A Sketch art in the mornings for his daughter, Austin. 
He also wrote poems, including one for Austin two years ago about a race they ran together. 
His wife reread his poem "Our Race" to Dane shortly before he died, Jared Kasschau said. 
It ends: "These moments are so much fun / No record keeping of who won / The time spent together / Is the memory each will hold onto forever." 
Besides his wife and children, his brothers and his sister, Dane Kasschau is survived by his parents, James and Eileen Kasschau of Rockville Centre.

Obituaries

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Dane Austin Kasschau dies at 39; LI native was Crohn's, colitis activist

LI native who 'took all he could out of every day' dies at 39

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Candice Ferrette

Nassau property owners will have until April 30 to challenge their tax assessments, thanks to an extension approved Monday by the county legislature. 
All 19 lawmakers voted for an emergency resolution to give taxpayers a grace period beyond the March 1 deadline to dispute the 2023-24 assessed values of their properties with the county's Assessment Review Commission. 
Majority Republican legislators said the move was necessary because of a January delay mailing out tentative assessment letters. Republicans said there were 160,000 errors found in assessment letters from the administration of former County Executive Laura Curran. 
Curran, a Democrat, lost her bid for reelection in November to Republican Bruce Blakeman, who vowed to "fix" her controversial countywide reassessment program. 
Curran froze the 2023-24 residential tax rolls in an effort to prevent sharp swings in assessments caused by the county's hot housing market. 
In a statement, Blakeman said "we all know the many problems that exist within the assessment system." Blakeman did not provide information about what caused last month's delay in mailing out the letters. 
Administration officials said Monday about 20,000 assessment letters were sent out a day late. Tentative assessments also are posted online. 
"By failing to send out the letters closer to the beginning of the year, they will have shortened the challenge period for almost all county residents," said Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park). 
Steven Rhoads (R-Wantagh) said: "I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that the lateness was the responsibility of this administration. They are kind of having to fix what they inherited." 
At the meeting Monday, Legis. Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport) asked whether all assessment letters have been sent out. Abrahams said he has heard from constituents who have not received notices. 
Afterward, Blakeman spokesman Christopher Boyle said all letters had been mailed. 
Abrahams and Minority Democrats asked the Blakeman administration on Jan. 31 to move the grievance deadline to May 2, citing pandemic recovery and the disruption in the housing market as the primary reasons. 
"We are glad that the County Executive and the Majority heeded our call to ensure that property owners have every opportunity to robustly exercise their rights," Abrahams said. 
Also Monday, more names of Blakeman appointees became available, including Jill Nevin as the new commissioner of the Department of Human Services. 
Her husband, Brian Nevin, a senior policy advisor in the Town of Oyster Bay, served as spokesman for former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano. 
Jill Nevin was among 14 appointees for key positions in the Blakeman administration who advanced through the Rules Committee. 
Democratic spokesman Danny Schrafel called her appointment "the latest in an unfortunate pattern of questionable picks for crucial roles in the new administration." 
"Nassau's most vulnerable residents rely on the Department of Human Services for crucial, life-sustaining resources" Schrafel said. "This position demands an experienced, qualified leader — not a political insider in need of extensive on-the-job training." 
Nicolello, however, said he believed she was "very qualified" and Republicans "don't see a conflict at all." 
"The fact that her husband is a policy director in another municipality is not an issue for us," Nicolello said. "There is simply no connection." 
The appointees will be considered by the full legislature in confirmation hearings on Feb. 28.

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Nassau legislature approves April 30 extension for tax assessment disputes

Nassau lawmakers approve extension for tax assessment disputes

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Herberth Flores was convicted in 2005 for taking part in a bribery scheme involving the sale of patient data from Nassau University Medical Center to personal injury lawyers. Flores and his brother were go-betweens for hospital employees selling information about emergency room patients to the attorneys. 
Flores was sentenced to 60 days in jail and five years probation on his plea to a Class D felony, attempted bribery of a public servant. But in 2007, when Flores was seeking a real estate license, a judge granted him "relief from disabilities" which removed any barriers to professional licensing and government employment he would have had as a felon. 
Flores returned to the county in 2010, serving as deputy director of minority affairs, earning about $100,000 annually. When County Executive Edward Mangano was asked about hiring someone with his background, he told Newsday, "So-called perfect people screwed up Nassau County. I bet less-than-perfect people will repair Nassau County. Welcome to our second chance administration." 
Mangano’s successor, Laura Curran, dismissed Flores on her first day in office, but his four years in the wilderness ended when newly inaugurated Republican Bruce Blakeman chose Flores to head the county Office of Hispanic Affairs. 
Blakeman also brought back John Capece, the former chief of detectives in the Nassau County Police Department, who resigned from the department in 2013 after Mangano threatened to demote him. Capece is nominated to head the Department of Consumer Affairs. 
In 2013 Capece helped lead the effort to apprehend Randy White, who had testified in a civil election fraud case against former Freeport mayor Andrew Hardwick, then a third-party candidate for Nassau County executive. White's work was seen as part of an effort to help Mangano's reelection by siphoning minority votes away from a Democrat. White testified he had been paid on a per-signature basis for collecting nominating signatures on Hardwick's behalf, which is illegal. White received $295,000 from Nassau County to resolve his claim that he was falsely detained after Nassau police stopped a public bus and took White off in handcuffs. NCPD commissioner Thomas Dale resigned two months later for his role in the incident. 
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Capece’s job requires the county legislature's approval. It should be denied. Flores does not need any second look, but shouldn't have gotten the first. Both hires indicate an administration eager to properly feed and care for political pals and allies, despite their prior betrayals of the public trust. 
It is laughable to suggest Flores, convicted of using county employees to take advantage of Hispanic patients at the county public-mission hospital, is the best choice for the Hispanic affairs job. Capece, even absent abusing his police powers, was a career cop, not a consumer affairs professional. 
Blakeman is not making a convincing case that he can run a clean and competent administration.

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Blakeman's poor choices

Bruce Blakeman's poor choices

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<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Sound waves from the mainland </h3> 
State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi’s Monday entrance into the Democratic primary for New York’s newly redrawn 3rd Congressional District immediately changed the race’s contours. 
First, expect to hear lots more about the left-most wing of the party. Biaggi was one of the Democratic winners who in 2018 broke the hold of the Independent Democratic Conference and took the upper chamber away from Republicans. She became a prominent critic of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and is one of the defenders of the Democrats’ overhaul of the state’s criminal justice laws. 
Her congressional launch statement promises "progressive and honest leadership." The CD3 opponents to Biaggi’s right are sure to describe her less as a catchall progressive and more as a radical leftist, combing through the Pelham Democrat’s past tweets and statements for nuggets about bail policy and policing, subjects that animated Long Island voters in county elections last year. 
The labeling began quickly. CD3 Republican hopeful George Santos sent out a Monday statement calling Biaggi "AOC 2.0." And state and Nassau Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs lumped in Biaggi and fellow CD3 primary contender Melanie D’Arrigo with the "far left" end of the party, in a phone call with The Point. 
Biaggi, who has criticized Jacobs’ leadership in the past, did not comment on Jacobs’ description, but the way her launch statement highlights criminal justice issues might give a sense of how she plans to navigate reform and moderation: The statement says she’ll work to ensure "public safety and a fair criminal legal system." 
The other way the Pelham Democrat is upending the race is geographic: She’s the first high-profile mainlander to join the Long Island Democrats in what is now a five-county, Long Island Sound-hugging district but one dominated by Nassau and Suffolk constituents. 
Biaggi’s current Bronx/Westchester senate district overlaps with the new CD3 in just a few areas such as Pelham, Throggs Neck and City Island, says Steven Romalewski of the Mapping Service at CUNY Graduate Center, who has been <a href="https://newyork.redistrictingandyou.org/?districtType=cd&amp;propA=current_2012&amp;propB=congress_latfor_20220202&amp;selected=-73.494,40.898&amp;opacity=2&amp;toggledlayers=counties,places#%26map=9.79/40.943/-73.4893">mapping the district</a>. The overlap included 11,692 Biden votes and 9,072 Trump votes in the 2020 election. 
Will that toehold help Biaggi consolidate the non-LI parts of the district? Will the five Long Island primary hopefuls — Robert Zimmerman, Josh Lafazan, Jon Kaiman, Reema Rasool, and D’Arrigo — dilute the Nassau/Suffolk vote and boost Biaggi? 
The Biaggi name itself is not new to parts of the district. The current senator’s grandfather Mario Biaggi was a longtime Democratic member of Congress from the Bronx who ended his career in a corruption scandal that landed him in prison. Her father, Richard Biaggi, was also convicted in that federal case which was known as the Wedtech scandal. 
But her grandfather was so popular — and so unconfined by political labels — that even after his 1988 felony convictions he got nearly 30% of the general election vote despite not actively campaigning. On the Republican line. 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>Curran stocked NUMC board on her way out the door</h3> 
One of the last powers Nassau County Executive Laura Curran was able to exercise, after losing in November to Republican Bruce Blakeman, was filling board seats. 
The board of the Nassau University Medical Center was a priority. 
Curran’s appointments, Jason Abelove and Lisa Daniels, are both Democrats who lost races in 2021. Abelove, of Garden City, lost his bid for Hempstead Town supervisor and Daniels, of East Rockaway, lost a county legislature race to Howard Kopel for the second time. Both new board members are attorneys. 
The hospital appointments are crucial, as the facility has $1 billion in liabilities, is hemorrhaging cash, and has been used in the past as a Republican dumping ground for the jobless. The chair put in place by Curran, nursing-home operator Edward Farbenblum, is trying to manage a long-odds turnaround and will need tremendous support on and off the board, from both parties, to make it happen. 
Curran also tried to make a third appointment, of Ann Kayman, to fill Warren Zysman’s seat, but the incoming Republicans have thus far kept that switch from happening by arguing Zysman’s term is not up. And it says something about the NUMC’s disarray that no one is quite sure who’s right. 
 Republicans disputed that Zysman’s seat was vacant, arguing Zysman’s reappointment in 2017 was to a five-year term, and another seat refilled at the same time Zysman was reappointed is actually now vacant. Hospital and county officials say there is confusion about which of two expired seats Zysman was appointed to in 2017, the law is less than clear, and the issue could end up in court. 
Meanwhile Farbenblum canceled the board’s January meeting and has not issued notice of a February meeting, as he awaits clarity on who sits and votes on his board. 
And the tension is heightened by the fact that Zysman is a very active member, closely allied with the Republicans. Last year Zysman posted a letter by CSEA time clocks during CSEA elections painting Nassau CSEA President Ron Gurrieri, in a feud with region president Jerry Larrichiuta, as one of the leaders "who in my opinion are trying to close the hospital and reduce union jobs and pay." 
Gurrieri retained his position. Now Zysman is fighting to do the same. 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Beijing 2022</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Final Point</h2> 
<h3>State getting closer to disability advocate </h3> 
To the happy surprise of concerned advocates, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed holdover legislation on Friday that would create an office dedicated to advocating for the needs of individuals with disabilities. 
The legislation, which had passed both houses during last year’s session, was on its last day of viability when Hochul signed it. Had she not acted, the bill would have been automatically vetoed. 
Her decision to sign the bill came after an intense week of lobbying by disability advocates and some pushback from at least one of Hochul’s gubernatorial opponents. 
Hochul’s signature came with a note that "technical changes" would be made through chapter amendments, including calling the head of the office a Chief Disability Officer and moving the office from the Department of State to the executive chamber. 
But supporters like Meghan Parker, the director of advocacy for the New York Association on Independent Living, who had pushed for the bill to be signed, called Hochul’s move a "major win." 
"We see this as a step forward in a good direction," said Therese Brzezinski, who directs planning and public policy for the Long Island Center for Independent Living in Levittown. 
Of course, the advocates noted that their work isn’t done. They already have their eyes on bills sure to percolate during the current session, including one seeking fair pay for home health aides that didn’t make it through the legislature last year. 
— Randi F. Marshall <a href="https://twitter.com/randimarshall">@RandiMarshall</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220207

CD3 getting crowded in the left lane 

For one day, Jan. 25, some Long Island school districts discarded the state's indoor mask mandate after a Nassau judge declared the state order invalid. 
The decision, though stayed later by an appeals court, prompted confusion among parents, students, teachers and administrators. 
That morning, however, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman — who has inserted himself squarely into the statewide and national debate over mask and vaccination mandates — spent time enjoying celebratory social media posts from Nassau parents who opposed mask requirements. 
"I think it was a joyful day," Blakeman, a Republican who took office Jan. 1, told Newsday last week. 
"Friends of mine were sending me texts and emails and YouTubes of their kids dancing that morning, when they found out they didn't have to wear their masks in school — kids smiling in school, showing off their face," Blakeman recalled.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50501381" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50501381">poMASKS220207_infobox</a>
 
In just five weeks in office, Blakeman, who defeated Democratic County Executive Laura Curran in November, has become a high-profile backer of the GOP-driven campaign against COVID-19 mandates. 
He's clung to his stance despite criticism from top Democrats such as Gov. Kathy Hochul and numerous health experts who say masks are effective in helping stem the spread of the coronavirus, particularly among the unvaccinated. 
Blakeman drew cheers at an anti-mask "Back the Bruce" rally on Jan. 23 in Mineola. 
At a recent news conference of Blakeman's, mandate opponents, some wearing "Make America Great Again" caps, displayed signs with slogans such as, "Unmask our Children." 
"You are definitely at peril if you're getting a mom mad at you. And I think there are a lot of mad moms out there," Blakeman told Newsday. 
"For any elected official who's not taking notice, I would say you should rethink your position and understand that this is a visceral issue with parents," he said. 
Nick Langworthy, New York State Republican chairman, said Blakeman's strength derives from his position as a "Republican County Executive for a county as big as Nassau." 
Langworthy continued: "Right off the bat, day one, he's one of the leading Republicans in the State of New York. And with that, he has a bully pulpit, and he has used that right away." 
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), a GOP candidate for governor, told Newsday colleagues in Congress have been asking him about, "this new County Executive from Nassau County." 
Zeldin said Blakeman, "didn't waste any time to let it be known where he stood on top issues. There are too many people who get elected who just seem to waste a whole lot of time trying to be all things to all people and never really showing strength in bold leadership at all." 
Democrats and many health experts say Blakeman, Zeldin and other Republicans who vocally oppose mandates are stoking political division, ignoring science and putting inappropriate pressure on school officials when COVID-19 cases still are numerous. 
The medical experts say mask-wearing in schools is key to helping prevent infection among the unvaccinated; the immunocompromised, particularly children who are too young to qualify for vaccination; and staff with young children at home who don't yet qualify. 
Jay Jacobs, the Nassau and state Democratic chairman, said Blakeman "is playing to the far-right Republican base. He believes that’s how he got elected, and he sees that as an opportunity to advance himself either to a higher elective office, or just to greater prominence within the Republican Party." 
Top GOP officials in other states, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Gov. Glenn Youngkin, of Virginia, also are attacking school mask mandates. 
But Jacobs and some political experts say Blakeman is hewing to a risky strategy in Nassau, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 100,000. 
"What he’s doing is he’s playing on people’s frustrations and upset with a virus that’s lasted too long, and he’s utilizing that to gain temporary personal popularity," Jacobs said of Blakeman. 
"I think that only is good in the short term," Jacobs told Newsday. 
Blakeman, who defeated Curran by 2,146 votes, says he's not following a national political playbook, but instead is fulfilling a campaign promise to use executive orders to exempt Nassau from mask mandates. 
On his sixth day in office, Blakeman signed an executive order directing Nassau school districts to decide for themselves whether to require masks in school buildings. 
Hochul and State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa warned Blakeman that districts could lose state funding for disobeying the indoor mask mandate. 
"I have the law of the state of New York behind me," Hochul said in January. 
Hochul's schools mandate expires Feb. 21. A lawsuit filed by Long Island parents over her mask mandate still is in court. 
"Mask regulations keep our schools and businesses safe and open, protect vulnerable New Yorkers, and are critical tools as we work to get through this winter surge," Hochul said recently. 
Blakeman has refused to back down, and conservatives nationwide have taken notice. 
He's joined the "Monday Meeting" in Manhattan, a gathering of influential conservative Republicans. 
Blakeman also has appeared on prime-time Fox News shows including "Tucker Carlson Tonight" and Laura Ingraham's "The Ingraham Angle." 
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the elections newsletter Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told Newsday that Blakeman's focus on mask restrictions is "pretty standard fare for Republicans" in the United States. 
"A lot of Republicans feel like they can outflank Democrats on COVID restrictions at this point," Kondik said. "The risk is whether people look back on it and feel like what Blakeman did ended up being a public health problem." 
Meena Bose, a political-science professor and executive dean of the Public Policy and Public Service program at Hofstra University, said Blakeman, "is certainly playing to his political base. There’s two years of the pandemic taking over life in the United States and much of the world. People are impatient and frustrated, and he is clearly tapping into that impatience." 
Blakeman, like Youngkin and DeSantis and other conservatives across the country, has focused on school issues, which have become a flashpoint on Long Island and nationwide. 
Last week, a Tennessee school board banned the teaching of "Maus," a graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its eighth grade curriculum, citing the book's use of inappropriate curse words and depiction of nudity. 
In some districts on Long Island, school board meetings have become contentious, with parents attacking board members, administrators and each other over issues such as COVID-19 restrictions and teaching about racial divisions. 
"What we’re seeing here with this frustration, all frustration with the state of American politics and society at this time, is that all politics is local," Bose told Newsday. 
"We're seeing … what should be, I think, some kind of extended discussions about … education kind of being reduced to talking points," Bose said. 
Zeldin lauded Blakeman's focus on parents who are becoming more involved in how public schools are run. 
"There are people who are opposing that position and saying, 'Well, if the parent wants to be that involved in their kid's education, then they should home-school their kid,' and they think that that's a clever response," Zeldin told Newsday. 
"But they're actually just really [angering] that parent who might work. They want their kids to be surrounded by other kids, for all those benefits," Zeldin said. 
"Their kids' education transcends party loyalty, always," he said. 
Nicole Kitatani, of Merrick, a parent of a middle- and high school-aged children, said she is a registered Democrat but voted in November for Blakeman. 
Kitatani, 49, said she had supported Curran in 2017, and wasn't following the 2021 race too closely. 
But she said some of Blakeman's remarks about parental choice struck a chord. 
"There is this sort of line that a lot of politicians aren't willing to cross, and push at what's right, and whatever he said made me think he could help us," Kitatani said in an interview. 
She said Blakeman supports "choice" in a way Democrats have in the past. 
"I respect and will stand up for the right to love who you love, marry who you marry, and the choice for our bodies, and this is no different," Kitatani said. 
"The choice to wear a mask, not wear a mask, vaccinate not vaccinate, those are very personal choices," Kitatani said. 
Bill Ferro, a former Jericho school board president who retired in 2021, said Blakeman has put school districts in a difficult spot. 
"If you start leaving it up to districts, or leaving it up to individuals, or families, where half the kids are masked, and half aren't, it's just not going to work," Ferro told Newsday. 
"And I don't think Mr. Blakeman really thought it out to the extent necessary," Ferro said. 
Blakeman defends his stance against mandates. 
"The physicians and scientists that I talked with and consulted with told me that the omicron variant was nothing more than a bad cold, that people would not be hospitalized in large numbers, that there wouldn't be a large number of deaths attributed to it. And they were right," Blakeman told Newsday. 
"The hospitals are not full. The ICU units are not full. So I feel personally that I was the one that was following the science and not our elected officials," he said. 
Experts say COVID-19 continues to cause deaths, with the number depending on the share of the population that is vaccinated. 
Medical professionals say the omicron variant appears less virulent than prior viral strains to individuals who've been immunized and received booster shots.

poMASKS220206

Bruce Blakeman succeeds with conservatives nationwide by taking anti-mandate stance 

Blakeman succeeds with conservatives by taking anti-mandate stance 

New Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has become the mouthpiece for those against mask and vaccine mandates. Blakeman says he is speaking up for his residents who want his help in ending the mandates.


County exec Blakeman taking the lead against mask mandates

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Robert Brodsky

Bobby Nystrom can still hear the eruption from the capacity crowd at the Nassau Coliseum as he scored the game-winning goal in 1980, securing the New York Islanders their first Stanley Cup championship.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50500280" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50500280">LICOLISEUM220206_fullimage1</a>
 
"I think all 15,000 fans were on the ice after I scored the goal," recalled Nystrom, who signed his first NHL contract in the Coliseum's parking lot. "The Long Island fans really added a whole other dimension to our success. When we were down, or behind by a couple of goals, they were the loudest fans in the league. ... It was a helluva building." 
Officially known as the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the Uniondale arena is far removed from its glory years, sitting dark most days, with the exception of the occasional COVID-19-rescheduled concert or home expo show. And its future, after the Islanders moved to their permanent home at Belmont Park last year, is uncertain.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50500281" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50500281">LICOLISEUM220206_floatimage1</a>
 
But as the 'Old Barn' approaches its 50th anniversary on Feb. 11, the venerable arena — which once hosted Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney and four straight Stanley Cup champions — remains arguably the most significant building in Long Island history. 
"Nassau Coliseum put Long Island on the sports map, and to a wider set gave national recognition to this area," said Nicholas Hirshon, 36, of Forest Hills, a journalism professor at William Paterson University in New Jersey and the author of a photographic history book on the Coliseum. "Being home to the Stanley Cup champion and so many famous acts brought much more awareness around the world to what Long Island is." 
The Coliseum was originally intended as a cog in a grand vision for the Uniondale property, along with a concert hall, museum, library and gallery. Those plans, as would become a pattern over the next 50 years, never came to fruition. 
When the Air Force closed its base at Mitchel Field in 1961, the county acquired most of the land and allocated $32 million in taxpayer funds for a new arena that would allow Long Islanders to avoid trekking into Manhattan to see the world's greatest athletes and entertainers.
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The Coliseum opened Feb. 11, 1972, as nearly 8,000 people — capacity at the time was 15,000 — watched the American Basketball Association's New York Nets, who had moved from the Island Garden arena in West Hempstead, defeat the Pittsburgh Condors. The Nets, after merging into the more established NBA, moved to New Jersey in 1977. 
The Islanders made their Coliseum debut in October 1972, with the expansion team winning just 12 games that season. 
The Coliseum was considered state-of-the-art at the time, featuring a digital scoreboard, the first of its kind in an indoor arena, instant replay technology, unobstructed sightlines and affordable tickets, starting as low as $4.50 in 1972. 
During the mid-1970s and 1980s, the Coliseum's resume was virtually unmatched among indoor arenas. Frank Sinatra, the Grateful Dead, Madonna, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen and of course Billy Joel took the stage. The arena also hosted the 1983 NHL All Star game, a Richard Nixon political rally and WrestleMania II.
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Sports radio voice Mike Francesa, who was born in Long Beach, recalled watching the Coliseum being built while attending Kellenberg Memorial High School. The retired co-host of the "Mike and the Mad Dog" show interned for two seasons at the Coliseum with the New York Sets, a charter franchise of World Team Tennis. 
"I think it is very important that a community have a place where they can see special things: playoff games; college basketball, through the big names of the day," Francesa, who lives in Manhasset, said of the Coliseum. 
The arena was never hotter than the early 1980s as the "Fort Neverlose" Islanders won four straight Stanley Cups, making Hempstead Turnpike a perennial parade route. 
"The acoustics. The noise and volume. The fans right on top of the ice. It probably cannot be replicated," said Chris Vaccaro, 35, of Lake Grove, director of the graduate journalism program at Hofstra University who reported on the Coliseum for years. "A tight-knit structure that allowed fans to connect with players unlike any place in North America."
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But the arena had flaws, some minor, others more significant, that were never corrected. The Coliseum had a single narrow concourse, scarce bathrooms and no access to public transportation. And as the team's fortunes turned, the arena <a href="https://www.newsday.com/sports/friday-special-a-coliseum-in-ruins-islanders-home-has-become-arena-of-despair-1.381925">showed its age</a>. Asbestos. Leaky roof. Torn seats. 
And with the property owned by the county, much of the revenue, and decision making, was out of the Islanders' hands. 
Team owner Charles Wang's plans for the privately funded $3.8 billion Lighthouse Project, with housing, offices, retail and a luxury hotel, were blocked by the Town of Hempstead. After a public referendum to spend up to $400 million to refurbish the arena was rejected by voters, the team left for Brooklyn. 
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The building eventually received a $180 million face-lift, allowing the Islanders a brief return as the Brooklyn marriage fell apart, and while Belmont was under construction.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50500282" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50500282">LICOLISEUM220206_slider</a>
 
But the combination of COVID-19 and the lack of a true anchor tenant — the Nets' G League developmental team and New York Riptides lacrosse team notwithstanding — has left the Coliseum in limbo. 
"The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum had its time and I just hope they leave it there as a landmark and as a reminder of what we did there," Nystrom said. 
Master developer Scott Rechler, who did not respond to requests for comment, has said the county could <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/nassau-hub-rechler-curran-coliseum-1.50282689">break ground</a> as early as March on a largely privately financed $1.5 billion plan to build housing, offices, biotech research space, "experiential retail" and parking garages around the arena. 
In a statement, leaseholder Nick Mastroianni II said development of the Hub site can create a boost of high-paying jobs while building a location that provides memories for Long Islanders for the next 50 years. 
"As we look toward the next 50 years of this institution, we recognize that the world has changed dramatically not just over the past five decades, but over the past two years," Mastroianni said. "The global pandemic has permanently altered the arena experience and with the introduction of the state-of-the-art UBS Arena at Belmont, combined with the decision to make the UBS Arena the new home of the Islanders, a re-imagining of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum is needed more than ever." 
In March, former County Executive Laura Curran waived Mastroianni's rent payments until six months after the lifting of government restrictions on occupancy of the Coliseum. She later extended that relief through the end of February, according to Chris Boyle, spokesman for current County Executive Bruce Blakeman. 
Beginning March 1, the leaseholders are obligated to pay an annual rent payment of $4 million, or $333,333 per month, Boyle said.
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While the Coliseum's future is uncertain, its place in history is secure. 
"The legacy of the Nassau Coliseum is a location of some of the greatest moments in Long Island, American and hockey history," Vaccaro said. "That building housed Hall of Famers who played for Long Island on Long Island. There is not a greater sports story to come from this area. There may never be."

Entertainment

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Nassau Coliseum at 50: Memories of Islanders, concerts at the 'Old Barn'

Nassau Coliseum at 50: Memories of the 'Old Barn'

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Ken Schachter

Helena Williams, a former Long Island Rail Road president who later served in the administration of Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, has been tapped to lead the $3.9 billion makeover of John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 6. 
Williams was named project executive and CEO of the redevelopment project by JFK Millennium Partners, a consortium chosen by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 
The Garden City resident said her experience as president of Long Island Bus and later at the helm of the LIRR, the nation's busiest commuter line, prepared her for the new role, which she assumed Tuesday. 
"Early in my career I did buses, then trains, and now I'm on to planes," she said. "I see JFK as a natural progression." 
The project at the Queens airport will generate an estimated 4,000 jobs and Williams said that some of those may go to nearby minority communities in Nassau County. 
The 10-gate, 1.2 million-square-foot terminal project is expected to fully open in 2027, serving JetBlue Airways international flights, with capacity to add additional carriers.
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JMP is made up of: Vantage Airport Group, an airport developer with offices in Vancouver, Canada, and Manhattan; American Triple I Partners, a Manhattan private equity firm specializing in infrastructure; and RXR, a real estate developer with offices in Uniondale and Manhattan. 
Williams served as chief deputy county executive in the administration of Curran, who was defeated by Republican Bruce Blakeman in November. 
She was the first woman to lead the LIRR, serving seven years until her ouster by former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Thomas Prendergast in April 2014, 
Terminal 6, which will be linked to JetBlue's Terminal 5, will include more than 100,000 square feet of dining, retail, lounge and recreational space. 
The Terminal 6 project is part of a broader $13 billion plan promoted by Gov. Kathy Hochul to modernize JFK. 
On Thursday, Williams toured LaGuardia Airport's Terminal B, a redevelopment project similar to JFK's Terminal 6. That project also was led by Vantage. 
JetBlue has been primarily a domestic carrier. But the airline has accelerated its push into foreign markets, adding 19 international routes since establishing its Northeast Alliance with American Airlines in 2021, president and chief operating officer Joanna Geraghty said in a January earnings call.

Business

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Former LIRR president to lead $3.9B JFK terminal project

Ex-LIRR boss to helm $3.9B JFK terminal project

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Mark Chiusano

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ wallet might be ruing his decision to convert some salary payments into cryptocurrency, what with the plunge in that market in recent days. 
But Adams appears committed to promoting the electronic, blockchain-based money system even on pain of a short-term loss, which got The Point wondering whether Long Island’s county executives have had any similar flirtations with crypto in this brave new world. 
Spokespeople for Suffolk’s Steve Bellone and Nassau’s Bruce Blakeman said neither county executive had plans to be paid in Bitcoin or the like. Neither had Nassau’s former top official Laura Curran, but it turns out there has been something of a common crypto denominator with Adams in New York City: Brock Pierce. 
Pierce, the former child actor and 2020 Independence Party presidential standard-bearer, is also a crypto enthusiast on whose private jet Adams flew last year to Puerto Rico — seen as a tax haven of sorts for crypto magnates (an Adams spokesman has said the then-mayor-elect paid for the flight). 
Pierce has also donated to Curran and Bellone, according to state campaign finance filings. And he talked crypto with both Democrats last year. 
That included a Suffolk "roundtable discussion" in the spring with local elected officials and business and labor leaders, in which Pierce did a briefing on the future of crypto and how local governments should plan for it. 
Pierce also made his pitch to Nassau leaders in the fall of last year, as Curran was getting into campaign season. No big crypto policies appeared to come of it. 
Curran went on to lose to Bruce Blakeman, and though the Republican has reshuffled the office on other fronts he doesn’t appear to be jumping on the crypto train yet, either. 
Spokesman Chris Boyle said Blakeman has not met with Pierce and won’t take his salary in crypto.

OPTCRYP220124

The Point: Crypto politics

LIENDORSE200905_photos

<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Smithtown addiction facility may get zoned out</h3> 
When Charlie Murphy’s Residence opened in 1942, Alcoholics Anonymous had only existed for seven years and its instruction manual, originally titled "Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism," had only been in print for three. 
But in 2016 the famed Fort Salonga facility, which housed and rehabilitated thousands of Long Island addicts over eight decades, burned down. 
And since the time Charlie Murphy’s was established, the neighborhood around it has grown up. 
At 6 p.m. Tuesday, investors hoping to again use the site for an addiction treatment facility will appear before the Smithtown Board of Zoning Appeals, opposed by a local civic association and neighbors fighting to stop it. The proposed facility is for-profit; Charlie Murphy’s was a not-for-profit. 
The neighborhood is residential, both in zoning and character. As long as the treatment facility was operating, and holding 12-step meetings for patients staying there and locals needing a meeting, its use was grandfathered in. 
But opponents led by the Fort Salonga Association, which is asking residents to send form letters to elected officials that can be found on its website, say when the rehab burned and stopped operating for more than 12 months, the site lost its right to a zoning exception. 
Additional arguments are that the proposed 50 beds of the new facility would double the old facility’s census, and that the rehab would increase traffic, endanger children at a school one-third of a mile away, and bring "violence" and "the dregs of society." 
Vincent Trimarco Sr., the attorney for John Bonlarron and William Alvaro, the buyers looking to acquire and reopen the site, told The Point he may argue the use was never abandoned. And, Trimarco points out, similar uses like halfway houses, which this could become instead, are largely exempt from zoning bans under state law. 
In previous similar battles, like a rehab in Blue Point proposed by the Seafield Center that never opened and one for eating disorders in Glen Cove proposed by Monte Nido that did, the outcry in the recovery community in favor of the planned facilities was loud. 
In this case, it has been more muted. 
And elected officials and addiction-treatment advocates say the difference that has them holding their fire and doubling down on due diligence is that they don’t know the operators’ work the way they did Seafield and Monte Nido, which have strong track records here. 
Those officials and advocates say they’d like to know more. Opponents would certainly like to say more, and perhaps even hear more, too. 
And once more, on Long Island, anxious residents will spell "donnybrook" with the letters "B.Z.A." 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>Crypto politics</h3> 
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ wallet might be ruing his decision to convert some salary payments into cryptocurrency, what with the plunge in that market in recent days. 
But Adams appears committed to promoting the electronic, blockchain-based money system even on pain of a short-term loss, which got The Point wondering whether Long Island’s county executives have had any similar flirtations with crypto in this brave new world. 
Spokespeople for Suffolk’s Steve Bellone and Nassau’s Bruce Blakeman said neither county executive had plans to be paid in Bitcoin or the like. Neither had Nassau’s former top official Laura Curran, but it turns out there has been something of a common crypto denominator with Adams in New York City: Brock Pierce. 
Pierce, the former child actor and 2020 Independence Party presidential standard-bearer, is also a crypto enthusiast on whose private jet Adams flew last year to Puerto Rico — seen as a tax haven of sorts for crypto magnates (an Adams spokesman has said the then-mayor-elect paid for the flight). 
Pierce has also donated to Curran and Bellone, according to state campaign finance filings. And he talked crypto with both Democrats last year. 
That included a Suffolk "roundtable discussion" in the spring with local elected officials and business and labor leaders, in which Pierce did a briefing on the future of crypto and how local governments should plan for it. 
Pierce also made his pitch to Nassau leaders in the fall of last year, as Curran was getting into campaign season. No big crypto policies appeared to come of it. 
Curran went on to lose to Bruce Blakeman, and though the Republican has reshuffled the office on other fronts he doesn’t appear to be jumping on the crypto train yet, either. 
Spokesman Chris Boyle said Blakeman has not met with Pierce and won’t take his salary in crypto. 
— Mark Chiusano <a href="https://twitter.com/mjchiusano">@mjchiusano</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Their silence is golden</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Quick Points</h2> 
<h3>Comfort zones</h3> 
<ul> 
 <li>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is backing a Republican-sponsored bill in that state that would bar public schools and businesses from inflicting "discomfort" on white people during lessons or training about discrimination. Oh my, now who’s getting triggered and reacting to micro aggressions?</li> 
 <li>Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul said Russian President Vladimir Putin "smells weakness" in President Joe Biden’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Funny, McCaul never said anything about what Putin smelled while Donald Trump was president.</li> 
 <li>New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has registered to become licensed as a substitute teacher as part of an effort to deal with a COVID-19-created teacher shortage. Now there’s a hands-on governor.</li> 
 <li>Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Joe Biden cannot count on his support for "almost any compromise" with Sen. Joe Manchin on a social spending and climate package. OK, as long as Sanders understands that guarantees the failure of almost any compromise.</li> 
 <li>Arizona Democratic leaders voted to censure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for her role in killing voting rights legislation. But what they and lefties in the right-to-center state don’t realize is that what doesn’t kill Sinema will make her stronger.</li> 
 <li>Inflation continues to plague the United States. And here’s the thing: It might not be President Joe Biden’s fault, as the White House says, but it’s his problem.</li> 
 <li>Like a bat out of hell, he flew high over rock ‘n’ roll, took the words right out of our mouths on many occasions, reminded us that two out of three ain’t bad, and established that paradise could indeed be found by your dashboard light. RIP, Meat Loaf.</li> 
</ul> 
— Michael Dobie <a href="https://twitter.com/mwdobie">@mwdobie</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220124

Rehabbing a rehab in Suffolk County

Nassau County has frozen residential property values for the second year in a row in an effort to prevent sharp swings in assessments caused by the soaring housing market, Newsday has learned. 
Former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat who lost to Republican Bruce Blakeman in November, froze property values for the upcoming 2023-24 tax year shortly before she left office last month. 
The new values are reflected in the tentative assessment roll published Jan. 3. 
In December 2020, Curran also froze assessments for the current 2022-23 tax year, in a move she described as temporary until the heated housing market settled after the pandemic. 
"We’ve seen these double-digit increases in the communities and bidding wars with all the people moving from the city to the suburbs," Curran told Newsday at the time. "It’s great news for homeowners, but this dramatic increase in sale prices is going to unfairly skew property assessments." 
Curran declined to comment further on Friday. 
Real estate experts cautioned that Nassau, by freezing values, could face difficulty in the future in calculating accurate assessments. 
Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, a property appraisal firm based in Manhattan, told Newsday that housing prices may remain high. 
"I think the other side of this boom is not a correction — it’s plateauing," Miller said. "I'm not too sure in a year or two it's going to look that much different other than perhaps higher prices, a little bit more inventory and fairly heavy sales." 
Miller said two factors were contributing to sky-high home sales in Nassau County: Low interest rates, and a record low inventory of properties on the market. 
Last month, the median price of a home sold in Nassau was $645,000, up 6.6% from a year earlier. 
Blakeman's acting county Assessor Robin Laveman confirmed the new assessment freeze, which the Curran administration didn't announce. 
Property owners began receiving notices of their assessments this month. 
"Nassau County has paused property valuation updates due to continued instability of the real estate market," Laveman said in a statement to Newsday. 
"Therefore," Laveman said, "unless you have received an assessment reduction, correction of error, physically altered an improvement or petitioned for a map change, your notice should reflect the same property assessment as the previous tax year, as former County Executive Laura Curran again froze the roll for 2023-24 at the 2022-23 level." 
Laveman, who was acting assessor in the final months of the Curran administration, said the Blakeman administration was examining Curran's "reassessment and laws associated with its implementation to create a more fair, accurate and equitable system." 
County property owners have until March 1 to appeal their assessments with the county Assessment Review Commission, an independent agency that reviews tax challenges. 
Assessments are used to calculate school taxes that will be mailed in the fall of 2023, and general taxes to be mailed in early 2024. 
Curran reassessed all properties for the 2020-21 tax year after her predecessor, Republican Edward Mangano, froze tax rolls in 2011 in a bid to revise the way Nassau assesses properties. 
The freeze lasted for eight years. 
During the freeze, hundreds of thousands of properties became significantly undervalued. 
Home prices rose by 34% while property values remained frozen, according to an audit the county Comptroller's Office conducted of the review commission. 
At the same time, Nassau granted assessment reductions to many homeowners who had appealed their property values. 
The mass settlement practice caused a shift in the tax burden from homeowners who won assessment reductions onto filers who did not file appeals. 
Paul Dyckes, a real estate appraiser based in Huntington who values properties in Nassau and Suffolk, said with the new freeze, Nassau risks moving "further away from actual market values." 
Dyckes told Newsday he doesn't expect the housing market to, "go down; we’re not going to go back to January of 2020." 
Dyckes continued: "If you want to freeze" assessments at January 2020 levels, "and the market's gone up 23% since, there's quite a gap." 
Assessments, he said, "could be potentially 25% off the mark." 
Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park), presiding officer of the Nassau County Legislature, expressed concern about the recent freezes along with the spike in successful tax challenges in the 2021-22 tax year, the year after Curran's countywide reassessment program took effect. 
In a statement, Nicolello said the freeze and surging settlement numbers, "will perpetuate tax shifts and inequity." 
He said the GOP majority plans to work with the Blakeman administration, "to reform the Department of Assessment and its policies." 
Blakeman has said Nassau Comptroller Elaine Phillips, a Republican, will audit the Curran administration's handling of reassessment. Neither has offered a specific fix or policy proposal. 
William Biamonte, chief of staff for Democratic county legislators, blamed the Mangano administration for contributing to an inaccurate assessment roll that Curran reformed. 
"As home prices skyrocketed during the pandemic, it was appropriate to temporarily freeze the rolls to protect taxpayers," Biamonte said in a statement to Newsday. 
"However, we have witnessed the inequities that occur when a frozen roll becomes the status quo," Biamonte said. "Once the housing market stabilizes, the resumption of routine reassessments is essential for ensuring fairness and equity in taxation." 
With Candice Ferrette

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Nassau County assessments frozen for second year in a row 

Nassau assessments frozen for second year in a row 

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Driving down Round Swamp Road in Old Bethpage — or better still, walking — it's possible to get a glimpse of old Manhattan, circa 1882. In the summer, woods shroud the site just to the east of the Museum of American Armor, but right about now, just behind the museum parking lot and an earthen berm, the edifice arises: A Gilded Age mansion on the west side of a re-created 61st Street, and, to the east just out of line of sight, a row of brownstones. 
This is where HBO's "The Gilded Age" (launching Monday at 9 p.m.) filmed in 2020 and wrapped last summer. It's a little piece of Hollywood in your backyard, or, if you happen to live on nearby Kingswood Drive or Willow Road, this piece of Hollywood literally is in your backyard. 
 Lots of TV shows shoot on Long Island, but none quite on a scale like this; the voluptuous interior of that aforementioned mansion, by the way, fills an entire soundstage at Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage. Dozens of buildings, or their exteriors, as well as a Potemkin village train station and ferry terminal, went up on this site two years ago. There they will remain, perhaps for years or seasons to come. 
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Gary Lewi, vice president of the American Armor Museum, who ran interference for the production team when they decamped here, calls the set "nothing less than extraordinary." 
He's not wrong. Even by real Hollywood back lot standards, this place would be impressive. It's an immaculate reconstruction of a bygone world, meant to appear as if it was just minted yesterday, with the sharp edifices of these buildings lined, as it were, with gold. 
This was (or is) the Gilded Age, after all. Gold is a requisite. 
HBO declined to offer a tour of the site because it was mothballed early last summer after production wrapped.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKj1cMz3yfI"> But it's easy enough to see in the extended trailer, </a>released in December. "New York is a collection of villages," says Christine Baranski's Agnes Van Rhijn — think Old Money dowager with stiff upper lip — in voice-over. "The old have been in charge since before the Revolution until the new people invaded." 
Ah, yes, those "new people," specifically fictional railroad baron George Russell (Morgan Spector), and his hyper-ambitious wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon.). To Agnes, they are vulgar arrivistes with too much money who are desperate to claw their way into the frosty, rarefied upper reaches of Manhattan society. They are the ones who built that garish mansion across the street from her tasteful (or rather faded) Old World beauty. 
With a few exceptions, virtually every scene in that 2:17 trailer was filmed on this lot or at Gold Coast Studios six miles away. 
Last summer, "there were occasions when they were setting up for the 1890s, and we were running [World War II-era] tanks in the other direction," says Lewi. "You were looking around for Rod Serling." 
Dozens of TV shows, of course, have filmed on Long Island over the years, from "The Affair" to "Z: The Beginning of Everything" (about Zelda Fitzgerald). They come here for the views (mostly water) or atmosphere (in a word, the Hamptons.) They set up their cameras, take their pretty pictures, then disappear — until they need more pretty pictures.
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For a complex set of reasons, "The Gilded Age" has been different. When "Downton Abbey's" Julian Fellowes and longtime production partner, Gareth Neame, decided to pursue a period drama about the Roaring '80s — the 1880s — they knew they needed proximity to New York City, cradle of the Age, but also to some of the remnant glories of the time period, a few of which still stand on Long Island and elsewhere, including Jay Gould's vast white elephant, Lyndhurst, in Tarrytown. They also needed access to older homes, like Lawrence's Rock Hall (1767), which can also be seen in that trailer. 
Moreover, they needed a place that could double for Central Park circa 1882, the year the so-called Triple Palaces were built along Millionaire's Row on 5th Avenue. This obviously meant there couldn't be skyscrapers looming over trees. The landscape also needed to be relatively flat, with mature trees. The location scouts quickly settled on the grounds of Old Bethpage Village Restoration for that purpose. 
David Crockett, executive producer as well as line producer on "The Gilded Age" — which means, among other things, that he's the boss of all aspects of the physical production — said in a recent phone interview that "we knew there would be a bunch of places here and in some respects, more of it would be filmable" than elsewhere in the country, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, which also gets an extensive close-up in "The Gilded Age." 
 "But you also are reminded that it is set a hundred-and-forty years ago. The challenge was not only finding a building that exists from 1880 or 1900, but asking whether the interior and exterior look structurally the same as they did then. They can't look antique — but modern." 
He added, "our story is really an old money/new money story, at 61st and 5th Avenue where the Old Money Van Rhijns have lived and grew up and then comes 1882, and a place goes up across the street that's no different from the Doris Duke [the Benjamin N. Duke House at E. 82nd Street] or Frick [E. 70th] mansions that went up on 5th Avenue at the time. There was no finding that sort of place to shoot so we quickly chose to build early on. " 
For the interior of the Russell mansion, HBO and production company Universal TV contracted with Gold Coast, which has the largest sound stage on the east coast. (Apple +'s "Dickinson," which recently wrapped, was also partly filmed there.) The exterior would be the tricky part, however. 
After the production settled on Old Bethpage, Crockett and HBO began negotiating with Nassau County to build a set on 6.25 acres of land adjacent to the museum — land that once crawled with M18 Hellcats or M48 Pattons. Lewi and the museum board agreed to move the tanks further south and then, in late November, 2019, HBO worked out a deal paying the county $600,000 in annual permit fees for the land. It also promised jobs, educational "opportunities" at local schools, and a plan to build athletic fields on the site when "The Gilded Age" goes off the air. 
During production last spring, then-Nassau County Executive Laura Curran went to the completed set, telling Newsday that "I visited not too long ago [and] it's really stunning." Besides that re-created slice of Manhattan, what Curran saw and passerby still can are huge green screens. Those are used to digitally re-create scenes that a set, no matter how sumptuously built, ever could. (For one of those special effects scenes, says Crockett, the producers even created the turbulent waters of the Hudson River.) 
What happens when "The Gilded Age" ends, as all shows must? "Hopefully we'll be back at Old Bethpage and Gold Coast for season two, God willing," says Crockett, then adds, "God willing, and if COVID subsides a little bit." 
Lewi meanwhile hopes his new neighbor sticks around. "While I'm not an expert on construction, they have clearly created a back lot that will last years to come and will accommodate many seasons [of the 'The Gilded Age']." 
 He adds, "it could easily be repurposed years from now, long after a successful series run. This is an asset that's unique to New York, and certainly unique to Long Island."

ettel220123

LI stars in 'Downton Abbey' creator's new HBO series 'The Gilded Age' 

LI is the star in HBO's 'The Gilded Age'

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Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman's administration has retained nearly two-thirds of the political appointees from Democrat Laura Curran's administration, including county lawyers, and assessment and budget officials, county records show. 
Blakeman, a Republican, defeated Curran in the November elections. 
In November, the Blakeman transition team sought resignations from the county's 308 nonunion employees — standard practice during administration changes. 
The transition team said employees who wanted to stay in their jobs could reapply for them. 
Blakeman has retained 193 of the nonunion workers, or ordinance employees, who can be hired or fired at the will of county administrations. 
That represented more than 62% of Curran's political appointees. 
Other employees retired, transferred to other county agencies or were terminated from county employment, the Blakeman administration told Newsday. 
Officials are in the process of filling the vacancies, and plan to hire 70 full-time and six part-time ordinance employees. 
"Party affiliation is not a prerequisite for employment in my administration. My transition team and I have worked for months to assemble the most qualified and hard working staff to best serve the residents of Nassau County," Blakeman said in a statement. 
"These public servants are united in their mission to make Nassau County more affordable and safer while creating new jobs and growing the economy," Blakeman said. "I look forward to working with them to move Nassau forward." 
The statement did not address why some employees were kept and why others weren't. 
Blakeman also has yet to announce many senior level hires for positions including department commissioners and deputy county executives. 
Among those Blakeman has retained are county Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder, whose salary is $270,005, and Sheriff James Dzurenda, whose salary is $190,000. 
Blakeman also kept on Chief Medical Examiner Tamara Bloom, who makes $213,599 annually, and Tatum Fox, a deputy county executive for public safety under Curran whose salary is $160,000. 
Martha Krisel, executive director of the Civil Service Commission, was retained at her annual salary of $160,000. 
Blakeman also is keeping Robin Laveman, the acting county assessor, at a salary of $140,000 and county budget director Andrew Persich, whose salary is $150,000. 
Laveman previously had led the county Assessment Review Commission, which decides assessment appeals challenges, under Curran and former Republican County Executive Edward Mangano. 
Curran last year attempted to appoint Laveman as county assessor, but majority Republicans in the county legislature refused to allow the appointment to go forward. 
Curran then appointed her acting county assessor, a move that did not require legislative approval. 
Republicans said Laveman lacked key certifications for the job, but Laveman said she was in the process of completing the relevant coursework. 
Blakeman was severely critical during the 2021 campaign of Curran's handling of assessment issues.

poSTAFF220113

Blakeman keeps two-thirds of Curran top staff

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The Democratic leader of the Nassau County Legislature has accused county Health Commissioner Lawrence Eisenstein of defying state health laws and committing a "flip-flop" for backing the "anti-mask regime" of County Executive Bruce Blakeman. 
In a letter to Eisenstein Monday, Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport) said, "in failing to publicly renounce the County Executive's illegal orders and refusing to enforce the lawful mask requirements issued by the State Health Commissioner, it is the opinion of the Minority Legislature that you are in direct violation [of] your statutory duty as the County's local health officer." 
Abrahams continued: "More importantly, you are also jeopardizing the health of county residents whose medical wellbeing has been placed in your hands." 
Abrahams told Eisenstein that if he did not "disavow" Blakeman's "unlawful orders, we do not see how you can legitimately continue to function in your position of trust as Nassau County's Health Commissioner." 
In a statement to Newsday Tuesday, Eisenstein said he was not "anti-mask." 
He said, "despite large numbers of cases, our healthcare facilities are not overwhelmed because of our excellent vaccination rates." 
Eisenstein continued: "At no point have I said people should not wear a mask, nor am I anti-mask. In fact, my position has not changed, in which people have to make the best informed decisions for themselves at the time … " 
He said his "position on public health has remained consistent but has adapted as the science reveals itself. As a doctor, I take very seriously my ethical obligation to speak the truth, adapt with the science, and help Nassau County residents get their lives back in the setting of COVID. Let’s continue this journey respectfully and safely." 
Last week, Eisenstein appeared with Blakeman, a Republican, when Blakeman issued an executive order directing school boards in Nassau to hold votes on whether their districts should comply with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's order requiring children and staff to wear masks in schools. 
Blakeman also issued an order codifying his position that Nassau would not comply with the state's indoor mask mandate for businesses, and another letting county employees opt out of wearing masks on county property. 
Former County Executive Laura Curran, whom Blakeman defeated in November, said in December the county would "not be actively enforcing" the state's indoor mask mandate, but would respond to specific complaints about violations. 
Eisenstein, who also served under Curran, a Democrat, and former GOP County Executive Edward Mangano, said he supported Blakeman’s masking policy. 
Eisenstein said residents should make the decision "that's best for them." 
"School districts have to do what’s best for them," Eisenstein said. 
He also said the science was unclear about whether masks stop the spread of the omicron variant. 
"You are starting to see with omicron there are questions of what level of masking is better than other levels," Eisenstein said. "So we are waiting for more clear science." 
Hochul and State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa criticized Blakeman last week for acting outside his legal authority as county executive. 
Hochul also referred to the state Education Department, "which has direct control over funding of schools. I hope I don’t need to say anything more on that topic." 
Michael Kelly, president of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, told Blakeman that he did not have the legal authority to order schools not to follow the state's mask mandate. 
Abrahams in his letter to Eisenstein called Blakeman's orders "grossly irresponsible and blatantly unlawful. It is inconceivable to us that you, as the county's chief medical officer would acquiesce in such orders." 
Abrahams wrote: "In our opinion, every doctor with a medical license in Nassau County has an ethical duty to raise his or [her] voice in denunciation of these harmful directives. And you, above all, as our County's Commissioner of Health have a special obligation to take the lead in this opposition." 
Abrahams cited an op-ed Eisenstein wrote last February in which he advised vaccinated people to "protect themselves and their communities by wearing masks." 
Abrahams continued: "Overnight it seems, with the advent of an anti-mask political regime in Nassau, your views have changed to coincide" with Blakeman's. 
"Such an abrupt flip-flop is medically inexplicable especially in the height of a resurgent pandemic," Abrahams said. 
Eisenstein serves at the direction of the county Board of Health. He earns $235,700 a year, according to county records provided by the Blakeman administration. 
Blakeman defended Eisenstein in a statement Tuesday, calling him "a certified infectious disease expert who has earned bipartisan support for helping guide Nassau through the worst of the pandemic." 
Blakeman urged legislative Democrats to "stop playing politics with the rights of parents, and follow the science." 
At a news conference Tuesday at the State Capitol in Albany, Blakeman said, 
"basically, I’m very comfortable in my position … What I’m saying, in my county, is I want to give school boards the choice. I want to give businesses the choice as to whether or not to require masks." 
With Yancey Roy

poMASKS220112

Nassau Democrats criticize health chief Lawrence Eisenstein's 'flip-flop' on mask mandate

Democrats criticize Eisenstein 'flip-flop' on mask mandate

Nassau's health commissioner was accused by Democrats of flip-flopping his position on masks. Minority leader Kevan Abrahams on Tuesday sent a letter to Dr. Lawrence Eisenstein calling for him to "immediately dispel the public confusion we believe you have caused by your waffling regarding masks." Newsday's Cecilia Dowd reports.


Nassau health commissioner accused of flip-flopping his position on masks

New Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman signed an executive order Thursday that allows local school districts to choose whether to mandate masks for students in public schools — a move that runs counter to a state regulation authored by Gov. Kathy Hochul. 
Blakeman's order, signed at a news conference in Mineola with opponents of the state’s mask mandate, argues, without medical evidence, that masking children "may lead to negative health and societal ramifications" and that forcing children to wear facial coverings could inhibit breathing and lead to other long-term medical problems.
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"Parents have a fundamental right to make health care decisions on behalf of their children," said Blakeman, a Republican who took office this week. "Government may not infringe upon these rights without a compelling reason. School boards are comprised of elected officials who make decisions based upon the unique circumstances of each district. They are in the best position to make these decisions, not an autocracy in Albany." 
While language in the order appears to direct school boards to vote this month whether to abide by the mandate, county officials said there is no requirement they conduct a vote at all. 
Hochul, a Democrat, signed an order in August requiring everyone in schools to wear masks, regardless of their vaccination status. The order prompted a host of lawsuits that were ultimately rejected by the courts. 
<h3>Hochul: 'State laws prevail'</h3> 
At a news conference Thursday in New York City, Hochul issued a veiled threat to withhold state education funding to any district that disobeys the state rule. 
Blakeman is "attempting to assert authority with respect to what has already been declared a public health emergency," Hochul said. "People who have more experience in county government would know that state government, state laws prevail. There’s also the issue of the state Education Department, which has direct control over funding of schools. I hope I don’t need to say anything more on that topic." 
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said schools must comply with the mandate. 
"School officers take an oath to obey all legal requirements," Rosa said. "The State Education Department expects school boards will follow all legal requirements, including the face-covering regulation." 
Meanwhile, Jay Worona, deputy executive director and general counsel of the State School Boards Association, contends Blakeman doesn't have authority to implement his order because the state already issued a superseding mandate. 
"This particular directive does not have legal authority behind it," he said. "But, it does place school districts in a very untenable position. … Assuming that one was not a believer in mask mandates, then you would welcome this county executive’s order. But school districts aren’t really free to follow it because the state has already spoken." 

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Blakeman said his order is legal based on the county’s "home rule authority" preventing the state from imposing unreasonable restrictions on parents without a compelling reason. 
"Our county is larger than nine states and we don’t need people in Albany telling us what we should be doing here in Nassau," said Blakeman, adding that county police would no longer enforce the mandate. 
Blakeman signed two other orders Thursday: the first codifying that Nassau will not comply with the state's mask mandate for indoor businesses, and the other allowing county employees to opt out of wearing masks on the job.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50469857" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50469857">Story Widget Link</a>
 
<h3>Amid COVID surge, timing questioned</h3> 
Long Island is seeing among its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases since the early days of the pandemic, with the seven-day average positivity rate Wednesday nearing 27%. At least 10 Long Island school districts temporarily turned to virtual instruction this week because of the high number of cases. 
"Overall this is just not well-advised from a public health perspective," said Martine Hackett, director of public health programs at Hofstra University. "I would wonder where the county executive got his information to say that this was acceptable and safe, especially with the surge in coronavirus positive cases." 
Nassau and State Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs said Blakeman's order "gravely endangers children, teachers, and our population’s most vulnerable. This politically motivated directive will make school closures more likely, leaving middle- and working-class families unable to work or require them to pay for child care. School mask mandates must end, but now is certainly not the time."
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But Margaret Marchand, vice president of the Locust Valley school board and an opponent of the mask mandate, said the order makes sense. 
"Our schools are not the ones spreading this," she said. "Our students are safe. … Children being in masks in school all day long without mask breaks is causing anxiety and depression." 
The issue of masks in schools has set off debate, with some saying face coverings interfere with children’s education while making it hard for them to breathe. Others say masks prevent spread of the virus and potentially hospitalizations and deaths of children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal masking by all students. 
Nassau Health Commissioner Lawrence Eisenstein, who served under two previous county executives — Edward Mangano, a Republican, and most recently Laura Curran, a Democrat — said he supported Blakeman’s policy, calling it a "personal choice" for parents. 
Eisenstein has been a proponent of masks to reduce transmission of the virus but said the science is unclear whether they stop the spread of the omicron variant. 
"School districts have to do what’s best for them," Eisenstein said. "You are starting to see with omicron there are questions of what level of masking is better than other levels. So we are waiting for more clear science." 
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, a Democrat, said he won't sign a similar order, noting that "masks are a common-sense way to help reduce transmission of the virus." 
<h3>School boards in a tight spot</h3> 
Robert Dillon, district superintendent for Nassau BOCES, said he doesn’t foresee any district challenging the state. 
"I don't see any school district disobeying or being defiant to the governor," Dillon said. "They could be removed from the school board. A superintendent that would support this could lose his or her certification. Our job is to follow the law. The law comes from the governor on this issue, not from the county executive." 
But Kerry Wachter, president of the Massapequa school board, left the door open for a challenge. 
"The board will consult with our administrative team, legal counsel, community and staff to ensure that we institute a sound plan that supports the health and safety of our students and personnel," Wachter said. 
Tonie McDonald, president of the Nassau County Council of School Superintendents, said her members "need to discuss the import of this order with our boards of education before making any statement on this issue." 
In a letter Thursday, Michael Kelly, president of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, urged Blakeman to withdraw his order. 
"Counties have no more authority to direct school board matters than do schools to legislate county affairs," Kelly wrote. "The rules of comity are designed to prevent regulatory and legislative chaos." 
Local lawmakers said Blakeman's order puts school boards in an impossible situation. 
The order makes it seem "like the school boards have a choice," said Nassau Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport). "They don't have a choice. They operate under the Department of Education." 
State Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck) said it's dangerous to put the masking burden on school board members. 
"To have them be subjected to more people attacking them, it's throwing a grenade into an already challenging situation," she said.
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Andy Pallotta, president of the New York State United Teachers union, said "now is not the time to do away with mask wearing in schools. Public health experts have been unequivocally clear that masks are an important part of the strategies designed to keep students, educators and our communities safe." 
Meanwhile, Nassau will distribute KN95 masks, on request, to any school district employee who requests one. Blakeman, who is skeptical that masks prevent the spread of COVID-19, said the distribution is not delivering a mixed message. 
"It’s the same message. The wearing of masks is optional," he said. "If you’re comfortable wearing a mask, you should wear a mask. And if you’re not comfortable wearing a mask, you don’t have to wear one."

LIBLAKE220107

Blakeman signs order giving public schools option to mandate masks

Blakeman signs order giving public schools option to mandate masks

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman on Thursday signed an executive order giving local school districts the option to mandate masks for students — a move that runs counter to a state regulation authored by Gov. Kathy Hochul, who responded while at an appearance in Manhattan. Newsday's Cecilia Dowd reports.


In 1993, Nassau County property owners filed 55,000 property tax grievances. Nationally, only 2.9% of property owners in large municipalities grieve, but the tally in Nassau was four times that. 
By 2003, after the first reassessment in 60 years, grievances hit 100,000. And in 2021, after then-County Executive Laura Curran lifted predecessor Edward Mangano’s freeze and again reassessed, grievances hit 261,000. That’s 62% of Nassau properties, more than 30 times the national average. 
Now the system is so broken, and the behaviors of property owners and tax-appeal firms so abnormal and unproductive, that only changes in state law can fix it. Nassau property owners grieve habitually, seduced by endless solicitations for free appeals, fearful of overpaying when neighbors get reductions. 
Former County Comptroller Jack Schnirman released an audit of the county’s assessment system last month showing that much of the savings derived by tax firms goes to those firms, not property owners. And the reductions caused the tax rate in the county to skyrocket 46% from 2012 to 2019, even as actual taxes collected increased 6% for the county and 12% for its municipalities and school districts. 
So a tax firm can "save" a homeowner $1,000 by getting a reduced assessment, take $500 of that $1,000 for itself, and have nothing to say when the tax rate increase caused by 62% of property owners seeking (and almost always getting) lowered values sucks up much of the $500 savings the homeowner might have gotten from the grievance. 
The tax firms made at least $500 million during Mangano’s freeze, all paid by Nassau’s property owners. But with values again frozen and nearly all grievances granted to let the county avoid paying huge refunds for school districts that keep the overpayments, it’s financially foolish not to grieve. 
Bruce Blakeman defeated Curran in part by promising to fix the assessment system. What he can do is assess properties regularly and try to fight specious challenges rather than granting them. But any real fix demands a law that makes Nassau residents, as in other parts of New York, wait three years to file a new grievance after a successful appeal. 
Albany must also end the "county guarantee" that, uniquely, puts the burden of assessing properties and paying refunds exclusively on Nassau County and not the school districts and other municipal entities who keep the overpayment. A "margin of error" law must be adopted, as in many states, that says assessments off by less than 5% don’t generate refunds. And, as in many states, there must be a consequence to frivolous appeals: assessment hikes when properties are found to be undervalued, not just reductions. 
And perhaps tax-appeal firms could offer to pay the overage if a client's bill increases. 
Nassau's state and local lawmakers must finally put the needs of their residents above the profits of the extremely politically generous firms, and fight for these needed changes.

VPASSESS220107

Assessments need state fix

LIJOYE210418

Darwin Yanes

The North Hempstead Town Board is expected to approve the appointment of John Chiara, former acting Nassau County attorney, as the new town attorney at its Thursday board meeting. 
Chiara would replace Leonard Kapsalis, 68, who is retiring after three years with the town, officials said. North Hempstead’s 2022 budget lists a $164,084 salary for Kapsalis. Chiara’s appointment would be effective immediately upon the board’s approval and he will be paid $173,000 a year. 
"I’m going to do the same thing I did when I was a legal adviser in Afghanistan or when I was working for [Nassau] County Executive [Laura] Curran, or I was the acting county attorney … the first thing you have to do is to learn the office and understand what you need to make things work better," Chiara told Newsday on Wednesday. "The most important thing about working and running any organization is getting to know the people and how it works." 
Chiara, 43, of Garden City, brings more than 15 years’ experience in public service. As acting county attorney from June 2021 until last month, he helped negotiate multimillion-dollar settlements with large pharmaceutical companies and managed close to 100 people, including attorneys and support staff. 
He joined Curran’s administration as a deputy county executive for compliance in January 2018 until he was appointed as acting county attorney. Chiara said a major accomplishment was creating transparency in the office by changing the way procurements and disclosure forms were tracked and filed. 
"I’ve spent my career since law school working at different levels of government, and I think the thing I’m most proud of, working for County Executive Curran, was that we brought a level of professionalism to procurement and compliance, which I think is incredibly important," Chiara said. 
Chiara is a major in the Army Reserve and a veteran of the Afghanistan War, where he said he was chief legal adviser to a commander. He graduated in 2001 from Columbia University with a degree in political science and in 2006 received his law degree from Hofstra University. 
After law school, Chiara worked as an assistant district attorney for the New York County District Attorney’s office in the trial division and rackets bureau. He also was a special counsel and assistant attorney general in the New York State Attorney General’s office. He later worked as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. 
Chiara said being the town attorney would give him a unique opportunity to make local government work better. He said residents should expect an "honest, hard-working person, who’s going to follow the law."

TOATTY220106

N. Hempstead set to vote on appointing town attorney who worked in Curran administration

N. Hempstead set to vote on appointing town attorney

TOATTY220106_photos

Randi F. Marshall

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman plans to keep Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member David Mack as Nassau’s representative, Blakeman confirmed to The Point Wednesday. 
"I intend to retain David Mack on the MTA board and have made it clear that our top priorities are improving station maintenance, holding the line on fares, improving access to the UBS Arena and obtaining a new parking garage for downtown Hicksville," Blakeman said in a statement. The final choice, however, will be up to Gov. Kathy Hochul. 
The statement came after Mack, 79, who attended Blakeman’s inauguration this week, told The Point that he had spoken to Blakeman since Election Day, and was reassured that the board seat was his to keep. Mack, who first held the board seat more than a decade ago but wasn’t reappointed after he refused to cooperate with then-Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s investigation into the State Police, was newly recommended to his board seat by former County Executive Laura Curran in 2018 and has held the spot since. 
"I look forward to continuing to help Nassau County — and Suffolk, too," Mack told The Point. "It’s always been my goal to maintain on-time service and keep the millennials here." 
Meanwhile, Suffolk County will be losing its board member, Kevin Law, shortly. Law is awaiting his confirmation as chairman of Empire State Development, which could come in a matter of weeks. That timetable would mean that Law might be at the MTA’s January meetings — but could be gone by February. Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone hasn’t said publicly whom he might recommend for the seat, although Mack himself told The Point that Mack is recommending a return for Long Island Builders Institute head and former MTA board member Mitch Pally. 
As for Mack, he said he has no plans to leave the board anytime soon. 
"I’ll be here for another four or eight more years, God willing," Mack said, nodding to the fact that MTA board members’ terms are in line with the appointing official, in this case, Blakeman. 
But that’s not entirely up to Mack or Blakeman, who gets to make three recommendations for the Nassau seat. While Blakeman can unofficially push for the board member he wants, the ultimate decision lies with Hochul.

OPTMACK220105

The Point: Blakeman wants Mack on MTA board

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<h2>Daily Point</h2> 
<h3>Blakeman wants Mack on MTA board</h3> 
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman plans to keep Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member David Mack as Nassau’s representative, Blakeman confirmed to The Point Wednesday. 
"I intend to retain David Mack on the MTA board and have made it clear that our top priorities are improving station maintenance, holding the line on fares, improving access to the UBS Arena and obtaining a new parking garage for downtown Hicksville," Blakeman said in a statement. The final choice, however, will be up to Gov. Kathy Hochul. 
The statement came after Mack, 79, who attended Blakeman’s inauguration this week, told The Point that he had spoken to Blakeman since Election Day, and was reassured that the board seat was his to keep. Mack, who first held the board seat more than a decade ago but wasn’t reappointed after he refused to cooperate with then-Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s investigation into the State Police, was newly recommended to his board seat by former County Executive Laura Curran in 2018 and has held the spot since. 
"I look forward to continuing to help Nassau County — and Suffolk, too," Mack told The Point. "It’s always been my goal to maintain on-time service and keep the millennials here." 
Meanwhile, Suffolk County will be losing its board member, Kevin Law, shortly. Law is awaiting his confirmation as chairman of Empire State Development, which could come in a matter of weeks. That timetable would mean that Law might be at the MTA’s January meetings — but could be gone by February. Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone hasn’t said publicly whom he might recommend for the seat, although Mack himself told The Point that Mack is recommending a return for Long Island Builders Institute head and former MTA board member Mitch Pally. 
As for Mack, he said he has no plans to leave the board anytime soon. 
"I’ll be here for another four or eight more years, God willing," Mack said, nodding to the fact that MTA board members’ terms are in line with the appointing official, in this case, Blakeman. 
But that’s not entirely up to Mack or Blakeman, who gets to make three recommendations for the Nassau seat. While Blakeman can unofficially push for the board member he wants, the ultimate decision lies with Hochul. 
— Randi F. Marshall <a href="https://twitter.com/randimarshall">@RandiMarshall</a> 
<h2>Talking Point</h2> 
<h3>Anti-vaxxer plans to run for Congress</h3> 
As hundreds of activists protesting vaccine mandates gathered in Albany Wednesday in the lead-up to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State of the State speech, one made a particular splash. 
Cait Corrigan, a 24-year-old registered Republican who lives in Patchogue, announced her plans to run for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District in a statement that didn’t mention the word vaccine once, instead referencing her desire to "defend medical freedom." 
Referring to GOP incumbent Rep. Andrew Garbarino as "GarbaRINO," a riff on the pejorative "Republican In Name Only" label, Corrigan called herself a "fearless conservative who fights for freedom." 
"A government that restricts the people is no longer a government of the people, for the people and by the people," Corrigan said in her statement. "Such a government is no longer a republic. It is a Communist regime." 
It’s been that kind of week for Garbarino, who was elected in 2020. Besides fending off a fight from the right in his own party, Democrats, in their first pass at redistricting New York’s congressional seats, placed his home in another district. 
Corrigan, who started a group called Students Against Mandates, has trumpeted her own fight for a religious exemption to allow her not to take the COVID-19 vaccine at Earlham College in Indiana, where she was studying for a master’s degree in "Peace &amp; Social Transformation." She has since produced multiple seminars and workshops on how to get a religious exemption. 
— Randi F. Marshall <a href="https://twitter.com/randimarshall">@RandiMarshall</a> 
<h2>Pencil Point</h2> 
<h3>Blowing out the candle</h3>

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For more cartoons, visit <a href="http://www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons" target="_blank">www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons</a> 
<h2>Final Point</h2> 
<h3>Hit-run victim's family hires PR firm</h3> 
When Daniel Campbell was arraigned Wednesday on an indictment charging that he was at the wheel in an August hit-and-run crash in Amagansett that killed 18-year-old Devesh Samtani, the media was well aware the court proceeding was taking place. 
Rubenstein Public Relations, representing the Samtani family, had already pitched numerous media members on the story via a very unusual email. Usually it is the district attorney’s office, not the family of the victim, that alerts the media to court proceedings. 
"I’m writing to invite you to the arraignment for the felony indictment of Daniel Campbell, who is allegedly responsible for an August 10 hit-and-run in Amagansett, NY, which resulted in the death of Devesh Samtani," the note started. 
Samtani is the son of Kishore and Mala Samtani, the entrepreneurs behind "As Seen On TV" gadgets like knives and massagers that have earned them a fortune. Since their son’s death, they have worked to educate people on the life of their son and started a foundation in his name to memorialize their son. 
Asked to discuss the media strategy, and whether the family had any reason to believe the case would not get proper treatment in the press or courts, Rubenstein Public Relations replied with this emailed statement: "The family has a right to representation and wanted to bring attention to the case. Our agency has been working directly with Attorney Omar Almanzar Paramio, and the Devesh Samtani Foundation." 
— Lane Filler <a href="https://twitter.com/lanefiller">@lanefiller</a> 
<h3>Did you miss an issue of The Point? <a href="https://www.newsday.com/opinion/the-point-1.13955009" target="_blank">Browse past newsletters here.</a></h3>

OPTPOINT220105

Old Macky stays in town

Republican Bruce Blakeman was sworn in Monday as the 10th Nassau County executive, vowing to change the property tax system, step up policing and push back against state mandates. 
Blakeman, 66, of Atlantic Beach took the oath of office in a 1 p.m. ceremony — where masks and vaccinations were not required — that drew an estimated 400 attendees to the atrium of the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City. His wife, Segal Blakeman, an attorney, administered the oath. 
"Starting today, Nassau is normal again," Blakeman said in his speech. "We have seen the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can no longer be afraid. Yes, we still have challenges, but they are manageable." 
He is the county's seventh Republican to hold the executive office after defeating one-term Democrat Laura Curran by 2,150 votes in the November election. 
Blakeman, an attorney, businessman and former member of the Hempstead Town Council, takes the reins of Nassau County government two years into a pandemic that has disrupted nearly every facet of life. 
Blakeman supports free vaccinations and increased free testing for COVID-19. 
But he questions the efficacy of protective masks and refuses to enforce the state's indoor mask mandate during a surge in virus cases. 
In his speech, Blakeman pledged to manage the pandemic with the "economic, social and mental health consequences" in mind. 
"Government has an important role in giving people options to create a healthier environment," Blakeman said. 
"But government should not act in a heavy-handed way by curtailing important constitutional rights, such as the right of patients and their physicians to make health care decisions," he said. 
Blakeman also promised to join new county Comptroller Elaine Phillips in investigating the Curran administration's countywide property tax assessment system. 
"Keeping county taxes down will be a key priority for my administration," Blakeman said. 
Phillips and county Clerk Maureen O'Connell also took their oaths of office Monday. 
Republican Anne Donnelly is expected to be sworn in as county district attorney on Wednesday in front of the county's new police academy. 
Phillips, 61, a former state senator from Flower Hill who spent 25 years working in finance, is the county's first woman comptroller. 
"As your comptroller, I see my role as being the independent protector of our taxpayers," Phillips said. 
O'Connell, 70, of East Williston is beginning her fifth term as county clerk. 
Former and current lawmakers who attended the inauguration included former Rep. Peter King; former-U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato; Democratic state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli; Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove); Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport); and Town of Hempstead Senior Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby (D-Uniondale). 
In an introductory speech, DiNapoli said Blakeman loves public service. 
"Bruce, we want to make sure you succeed because when you succeed we all succeed," DiNapoli said. 
All 12 members of the Nassau County Legislature's majority Republican caucus also were present. 
Legis. Arnold Drucker (D-Plainview) was the only member of the seven-member minority caucus at the Blakeman inauguration. 
"I'm an eternal optimist and I believe that in our heart of hearts we are going to work together," Drucker told Newsday. 
Drucker said he was willing to start off "with a blank slate," and attended the inaugural because he believes, "in democracy and an orderly transition of government." 
But Drucker said he was, "not pleased that right off the bat that the new county executive is rejecting masking as important and effective." 
Blakeman, Nassau's first Jewish county executive, pledged to, "embrace our diversity and respect all of our residents — Black, white, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, South Asian and all religions. " 
In line with his campaign platform, Blakeman also said he would work for repeal of the state's 2020 bail reform law, which eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes. 
Blakeman in the 1990s served as the first presiding officer of the Nassau County legislature. He also ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, New York City mayor and New York State comptroller. 
"My vision for Nassau County is for us to become the most exciting and vibrant place to live. Not just in America, but in the world. We will dare to be bold. We will leave no community behind," Blakeman said.

poBLAKEMAN220104

Bruce Blakeman takes the reins in Nassau as county executive

Bruce Blakeman takes the reins in Nassau

At his inauguration on Monday, Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman talked about his approach to the pandemic, which includes not enforcing the state mask mandate.


Blakeman: 'Starting today, Nassau is normal again'

Blakeman vows change as he takes reins in Nassau

poBLAKEMAN220104_video

Tax appeal firms representing Nassau County homeowners earned more than $500 million in fees after winning assessment reductions for clients during the eight years county tax rolls were frozen, according to a new county audit obtained by Newsday. 
Comptroller Jack Schnirman’s 204-page audit of the Assessment Review Commission, the Nassau body that reviews all assessment challenges, said the firms collected $506.5 million in client fees between 2012 and 2019. 
The successful appeals shifted $1.1 billion in tax burdens onto other Nassau County homeowners, auditors found. 
During the eight-year time the firms were winning assessment reductions, home values rose by a total of 34%, the auditors found. 
The assessment reductions lowered the tax base so significantly — by a total of $106 million — that tax rates rose by 46% between 2012 and 2019, in part to make up the difference, comptroller officials said. 
The higher rates were paid by all taxpayers, including those who had won reductions. 
The audit also uncovered systemic deficiencies in the county's assessment system. 
A key issue, according to the audit, is that the system is swamped annually with more than 200,000 assessment appeals, many of which are baseless. Staff have difficulty defending against the deluge of appeals, many of which are duplicates, or filed automatically, auditors concluded. 
"That’s a sign of an unhealthy system," Schnirman told Newsday. 
"If essentially you're going to grieve it no matter what, that’s a perpetual grievance culture," said Schnirman, a Democrat who did not seek reelection and left office Dec. 31. 
"It’s like Vegas," he said. "You have to be in it to win it, but the actual effect is it costs everybody money." 
But Shalom Maidenbaum, founder and managing member of the Maidenbaum Property Tax Reduction Group, told Newsday that assessment firms are a critical resource for homeowners in high-tax Nassau. 
"The facts are clear: Nassau homeowners pay some of the highest taxes in America, the assessment system makes mistakes, and firms that represent taxpayers perform an essential service by ensuring homeowners do not pay more than their fair share. That's why the review and assessment challenge process Nassau uses is clearly set forth in state law," he said in statement. 
If homeowners believe their properties are overassessed, they have the right to appeal their values through the Assessment Review Commission. 
After the commission reviews those cases, homeowners whose challenges are rejected have the right to appeal in a judicial process known as small claims assessment review, or SCAR. 
When the county loses cases in SCAR, and after the tax roll is set, it's responsible for refunding homeowners. 
In the 2020-21 tax year, the liability alone was $17.2 million, county officials have estimated. 
What is now a yearly flood of tax appeals was not the status quo nearly 30 years ago in Nassau, which has more than 385,000 residential properties. 
For example, in 1993, there were 55,000 tax challenges in Nassau County, auditors wrote. 
In 2003, a year after the first revaluation of properties in more than 65 years, Nassau received more than 100,000 appeals. 
The figure soared to 261,000 for the 2020-21 tax year, the first year of Nassau County Executive Laura Curran's reassessment program. 
Curran, a Democrat, reassessed all properties for the 2020-21 tax year for the first time in nearly a decade. In the first year of the program, 65% of properties that were underassessed saw school tax increases and 35% had declines. 
Curran froze the tax rolls for the 2022-23 tax year, and assessment officials are considering another freeze for the 2023-24 tax year, to prevent sudden spikes in residential home values caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 
Her predecessor Edward Mangano, a Republican, froze the tax rolls in 2011 in a bid to revise the way Nassau reviews property assessments. The freeze lasted for eight years. 
The new tax roll is to be published Jan. 3, when County Executive-elect Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who defeated Curran, takes office. Blakeman has asked incoming Nassau County Comptroller Elaine Phillips, a Republican, to conduct a review of Curran's reassessment program, which he criticized during the campaign. 
Schnirman's audit explores why the problems with the Nassau assessment system have been so persistent and are likely to remain an enduring problem. 
Auditors noted by the end of the Mangano-ordered freeze in 2019, residential properties on the tax roll created by the Assessment Department had become, "undervalued by almost $100 billion in ... [market value], yet record numbers of [assessment] grievances were filed each of those years claiming overassessment." 
Tax firms, "capitalized on the county’s need to settle, and would aggressively advertise to property owners that their [assessments] were too high, even at a time when actual real estate values were generally rising and were typically higher than the [market values] used in" the county's calculations. 
Auditors found it will take years to calculate and maintain a tax roll that accurately reflects home values. They identified two major issues. 
First is that the Assessment Review Commission applies a lower "level of assessment" to taxpayers who successfully appeal their home values. 
The ratio is lowered in order to give property owners who grieved their assessments as too high the same benefit as those who were underassessed when home values were first assigned. 
Nassau does not assess homes at 100% of the home's market value, but rather a very small percentage of valuation called "full valuation." Dropping the ratio causes reductions in the property owner's final valuation and property burden. 
Auditors said Nassau does not disclose to the public the ratio that is used in appeals cases, and said the practice of using two different levels of assessment produces different property tax rolls for those who grieve and those who don't. 
Second, auditors noted that a state law prohibits the Department of Assessment from increasing assessments by more than 6% annually, or by a total of 20% over 5 years. 
The cap is intended to prevent sudden spikes in tax increases from reassessments. Since the roll was frozen for so long, the cap was a major obstacle to taxing properties at what the Department of Assessment believed to be their new market value. 
The law forces "Nassau County to continue to undervalue properties that appreciate above the cap," auditors said. 
They said the "6 and 20" law will continue to make it difficult for Nassau to value homes precisely. 
"Unless reassessments occur frequently, the application of the 6/20 Rule will cause assessed values to become disparate in appreciating real estate markets, shifting tax burdens … ," the report said. 
In 2020 and 2021, for instance, home prices rose rapidly as New York City buyers sought homes in Nassau and other suburbs, auditors wrote. 
The report faulted the department for failure to maintain adequate staffing levels and other bureaucratic shortcomings. 
Auditors also said the Assessment Review Commission's staff fell by 35% during the period of the assessment freeze, while the number of appeals the agency had to handle doubled. 
SCAR hearings also considered cases in which the homeowner had accepted a settlement from the Assessment Review Commission. 
And there are thousands of duplicate applications submitted each year that overwhelm ARC staff. In 2020, there were 6,966 instances in which a homeowner had submitted more than one application. In many cases, the unresolved duplicates end up in SCAR, clogging the court system, auditors wrote. 
In their response, county officials said they have little control over the excessive number of appeals cases. Jeremy May, acting Assessment Review Commission chair, said: "ARC has no control over grievances filed. Taxpayers in New York State enjoy the right to grieve. However, it must be noted that in all other NYS jurisdictions, other than New York City and Nassau County, if a Property owner successfully grieves their assessment, they may not file consecutive grievances for three years."

poASSESS211226

Audit: Tax appeal firms made $500M during past assessment freeze

Audit: Tax appeal firms made $500M during assessment freeze

poASSESS211226_photos

Republican Bruce Blakeman, who takes office as Nassau County executive on Monday, is defending his opposition to indoor mask mandates, which he says are ineffective, as the highly transmissible omicron variant surges across Long Island and New York State. 
"There’s no scientific evidence that it gets the numbers down," Blakeman said when asked why he would not enforce Gov. Kathy Hochul’s indoor mask mandate, which took effect Dec. 13 and runs until Feb. 1. 
"The physicians and health care professionals that I’ve talked to said it’s got to be an N95 mask. And the vast majority of people are not wearing N95 masks; they're wearing these cotton-type masks, paper masks, I think they are not that effective, based on the scientific evidence that I've seen," he told Newsday. 
While he supports vaccinations, and wants to significantly boost access to testing, Blakeman's approach to the mask mandate is at odds with recommendations from health experts and hospital officials, who say mask-wearing is crucial in the winter months to help slow virus transmission. 
His comments, which came in a 45-minute Zoom interview with Newsday, offer a window into his thinking as he takes helm of one of the nation’s wealthiest counties and where he’ll have oversight of Nassau’s Health Department. 
Blakeman also shared his plans to fix other issues facing Nassau, ones that he acknowledges will take a backseat, at least for now, to the immediate pandemic response. They include improving the county's property assessment system and approving new contracts for police officers and Civil Service workers. 
<h2>To mask or not to mask</h2> 
In discussing the pandemic, Blakeman cited "mask fatigue" among county residents and business owners who are tired of policing mask-wearing in their stores. He said he's looking at two bench marks: hospital admissions and ICU bed capacity. "And basically, we are still confident that we are nowhere near a crisis situation at the present time, that we have a sufficient number of hospital beds, that the ICU units are not filling up." 
He said that while N95 masks are the most effective, they ultimately are too expensive to require, and the omicron variant, which first emerged in South Africa and struck the United States several weeks ago, is becoming like a "strong flu," he said a physician told him. 
"So if people are getting sick with the virus, or they're not getting seriously ill, then I would ask you, then why have a mandate? We don't have that for the flu. We don't have that for stomach virus. But why would we do that now?" 
His comments come as Long Island leads New York State in new daily virus cases, with a 7-day positivity rate nearing 19% last week, and with a single-day positivity rate in Nassau of 24%, state health department data shows. 
As of last week, 26% of hospital beds on Long Island were available, the data shows, and 10% is considered limited capacity. 
Blakeman is among several county executives in New York State declining to enforce the mandate. 
Public health experts say mask-wearing significantly reduces viral spread. Experts point out that coronavirus is spread by droplets in the air, or secretions. A stomach virus, or norovirus, is usually spread by touch, including coming into direct contact with an infected person, consuming contaminated water or food, or touching contaminated surfaces and then putting your hands in your mouth. 
Health experts told Newsday that Blakeman and other leaders who defy mask mandates are offering "mixed" or not "consistent" messages by deciding not to enforce it. 
Dr. Bruce Polsky, an infectious disease specialist who is chairman of medicine at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island in Mineola, said: "So, without getting into politics … by their actions, to say they're not enforcing, they're sending a message to the public that they do not view this as important. That sends a message. So now we have a mixed message. We have the Governor, and virtually all public health authorities and experts saying that a mask mandate is a scientifically based, evidence-based way to diminish the risk of transmission of a highly contagious virus." 
He continued, "what it does is send a dangerous message to the public that diminishes the public health message." 
Experts say it's premature to conclude that omicron is a weaker variant than the strains that have come before it, or predict how soon it will recede. It is also too early, experts say, to conclude that future COVID-19 strains will become weaker than earlier versions of the virus. 
"It would seem prudent from a public health standpoint to require masks in indoor settings until we are through this omicron surge at least," Polsky said. 
Experts acknowledge that N95 and KN95 masks are the most protective, but other types of masks are also effective. 
Using higher-quality masks helps, "but it does not mean that a surgical mask or a cloth mask has no value, and with such high spread in the community now, it remains a useful tool," said Dr. David Hirschwerk, infectious disease specialist and medical director of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. 
Blakeman does want people to be vaccinated. He received the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine earlier this year and got a Pfizer booster two weeks ago. He contracted COVID-19 in April, before he was vaccinated. 
"I suggest that people get vaccinated," he told Newsday. "So for the people who are unvaccinated that might get seriously ill, I think that that's a risk that they're taking. But if you are fully vaccinated, why get fully vaccinated and then say you have to wear a mask? I don't understand that." 
Because omicron is so contagious, "it becomes even more critical to try to minimize the risk of transmission, and we know that masking does that," Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in Manhattan, told Newsday. 
<h2>A political comeback</h2> 
Blakeman, 66 of Atlantic Beach, is completing a decadeslong political comeback. He's attempted unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, New York City mayor, and state comptroller since the late 1990s. 
Once criticized as a perennial candidate, he has said he subscribes to a maxim in a 1910 speech from Theodore Roosevelt, commonly referred to as "The Man In The Arena." 
Roosevelt said at the Sorbonne in Paris: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … ." 
Blakeman is finishing his second stint on the Hempstead Town Board, where he's served since 2015. He also has served as a commissioner on the Port Authority board, practiced law, and worked as a business consultant. 
Blakeman crossed members of his own party in 2017 when he endorsed Democrat Laura Gillen in her successful race against Republican Supervisor Anthony Santino. Gillen became the first Democrat to serve as Hempstead Town Supervisor in more than a century, and she selected Blakeman to serve as her deputy supervisor. 
They eventually had a falling out, and he endorsed Republican Donald X. Clavin Jr. two years later in what became a successful campaign to unseat Gillen. 
Blakeman said he has been studying political leadership over the past year. 
He's been reading biographies of world leaders. He's in the middle of one about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and read ones in the last year about Winston Churchill, former heavyweight champion boxer Joe Frazier, and former U.S. Presidents Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson, both Democrats. 
He said he admired Frazier because, "never took a step backward — maybe he should've in some of his fights. But he was always a guy who was always moving forward." 
"I like to read about people who have done great things and people who've had to make important decisions, because I felt that I could potentially learn something from it." 
A father of three, Blakeman is married to attorney Segal Blakeman. His ex-wife, Nancy Shevell, is married to Paul McCartney. 
<h2>Pressing issues</h2> 
As Blakeman re-enters county government, he is returning to some of the same issues that bedeviled his predecessors. 
The administration of County Executive Laura Curran had been working with master developer RXR Realty to build retail, entertainment and other attractions on the 72-acre property known as the Hub. 
Blakeman said he heard from RXR developer Scott Rechler about meeting on the issue, but he cautioned, "I wouldn't say that it's been done expeditiously, because here we are approaching 2022, and there's no final plan yet." 
RXR spokesman David Garten told Newsday the company expects the Hempstead Town Board to vote on the plans in early 2022. 
Blakeman also has been critical of the reassessment program Curran put in place in her first year in office. He blamed the program for causing sudden spikes in property taxes and called out bureaucratic errors in the program's implementation. 
The Curran administration has said the values they assigned were highly accurate. 
Blakeman said he's had conversations with outside consultants about how to fix the way Nassau values properties, but isn't ready to disclose any specific reforms. 
"We've got to get our arms around what went wrong. And so far … we haven't had access to the data and the information," he said. 
Also, Blakeman will have to negotiate new contracts with the Nassau County CSEA, Police Benevolent Association, and Correctional Officers Benevolent Association. Their prior contracts expired at the end of 2017. 
When he takes office on Jan. 1, Blakeman says he will "have a lot of concerns. But obviously, if you got a lot on your plate, the best thing to do is start taking things off your plate." 
"There is a lot to be concerned about," he said. "And I think basically we're up to the task. Everything will be in place by January First, and we will methodically but aggressively tackle all the issues that come before us."

poBLAKEMAN220102

As he prepares to take over, Bruce Blakeman defends stance on masks

As he prepares to take over, Blakeman defends stance on masks

Nassau County Executive-elect Bruce Blakeman spoke about his plans for the county regarding the pandemic once he is sworn in.


Blakeman talks plans for Nassau County

poBLAKEMAN220102_video

With the omicron variant spreading rapidly across Long Island, thousands of residents started the new year in their vehicles Saturday morning, lined up to receive free rapid COVID-19 testing kits at NYCB Live’s Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, with the first cars arriving at 6 a.m. 
The event, organized by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who took office Saturday, appeared more organized and with fewer traffic backups than a similar event Thursday at nearby Mitchel Field hosted by now-former County Executive Laura Curran, where some residents waited two hours for kits. 
The 77-acre Coliseum property was able to accommodate more vehicles in multiple entrances and exits, with a large staffing contingent moving traffic through the parking lot generally in less than 15 minutes. In total, 23,000 kits supplied by Nassau University Medical Center were distributed in less than five hours. 
"We feel this is a better venue as far as traffic flow is concerned to make sure people don’t have to wait an inordinate amount of time," Blakeman said. "It’s very manageable." 
On Friday, Blakeman said the Coliseum was selected because of its longer ramps and more aisles for cars to enter. The county tripled staffing, with 75 people from the police and health departments and the office of emergency management on hand. 
"People need that sense of security to know that they’re going to be healthy and tested," said Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder, who noted that 10% of the department’s civilian and uniformed workforce is now out with the virus. 
But Saturday’s first-come, first-served event was not without some confusion. 
The kits had one test apiece even as they were advertised to include two. And some county residents told Newsday that they waited nearly 90 minutes on Hempstead Turnpike during the late morning, only to arrive at the arena’s front gate and be told that all of the tests were distributed for the day. 
But those who arrived early had few complaints and said obtaining the kits was essential — even on New Year’s Day. 
"It’s not what we wanted but safety first," said Stacie Lynch of Franklin Square. "We are in the middle of a pandemic." 
Jose Martinez of Uniondale said he was grateful to get the testing kits. 
"It’s a great way to begin the new year," he said. 
Kiara Santos, a volunteer with the South Hempstead Fire Department, was among those distributing the kits in the rain Saturday. 
"I went to bed early and came here bright and early," Santos said. "We like to serve our community." 
The county will distribute another 17,000 kits Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Coliseum parking lot. 
Meanwhile, some Long Island school districts said they will begin distributing rapid test kits Sunday, though testing is not mandated for students to return Monday. 
Each student is entitled to a single COVID-19 antigen at-home kit, containing two tests to be used for one person over two to three days. Parents can pick up the kit at designated locations starting Sunday, at least four districts said. 
In Huntington, a drive-thru pickup will be offered Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Huntington High School, according to Superintendent James Polansky. 
If a student tests positive, Huntington officials said the child should begin isolation immediately and report the results to Suffolk County and the district. 
Parents of Plainview-Old Bethpage students who submit an online request can pick up test kits Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon, with distribution to continue into Monday, according to the district website. 
Bayport-Blue Point parents can pick up tests kits at the district's high school Sunday from noon to 2 p.m. and Monday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
In Syosset, parents must register by completing a form online before they can pick up the kits beginning Sunday. 
Parents are asked to report a positive result to the school so they can begin contact tracing and arrange for quarantine. But if a parent believes the result to be a "false positive," Syosset officials said a subsequent negative PCR test can overturn the rapid test result. 
Syosset schools notified parents that the tests cannot be used to shorten or avoid quarantine for students following COVID-19 exposure, given that Nassau has declined to implement "Test To Stay." 
The program, which Gov. Kathy Hochul has urged counties and districts to adopt, allows students who have been exposed to COVID-19 to continue attending school as long as they test negative for the virus. 
Sean Clouston, an associate professor of public health at Stony Brook University, said testing can help control the spread of the virus. The person who tests positive can then isolate and not infect others at a workplace or other venue, he said. And that person can also inform others who may have been exposed to the virus. 
"If you do test positive, there’s a chain of people you may have come into contact with and you can call and say, ‘I tested positive. You should go and test as well,' ’’ Clouston said. "And then those people may also isolate, even if they don’t have symptoms, or their symptoms are sufficiently mild that they think it’s just allergies or something, and then you’re stopping that onward spread. If you can stop the chain before it jumps to the next person, you’ve really stopped a lot of cases." 
With Dandan Zou, David Olson and Steve Langford

Health

Coronavirus

LITESTS220102

Thousands line up in their cars to get free COVID-19 testing kits

Thousands line up to get free COVID-19 testing kits

Cars lined up Saturday morning to receive free rapid COVID-19 testing kits at NYCB Live's Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale. The event was organized by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. Newsday's Steve Langford reports. 


On New Year's Day, cars line up for free rapid COVID-19 testing kits

In one of her last acts as Nassau County executive, Laura Curran has signed an executive order creating a committee to study whether current county laws promote gender inclusivity. 
The concept of gender inclusivity means not discriminating against a particular sex, gender identity or social gender, according to the United Nations' definition of the term. 
Curran signed the order on Thursday, creating the panel to review the county's charter, administrative code and other regulations, to "ensure that the county’s goals of gender inclusivity are met." 
The committee must provide a full report to the county executive, who would select nine members to serve on it, including a chairman. 
Republican Bruce Blakeman, who defeated Curran in November, becomes county executive at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. 
In a statement, Blakeman said Curran, a Democrat, was resorting to "political tricks" with her last-minute order. He later confirmed through a spokesman that he will not start the committee. 
"Laura Curran had four years to create this committee yet did it upon leaving office as a way to create headlines," Blakeman said. "Rather than disrespect the LGBTQ community by using political tricks, this administration will respect the community by placing important stakeholders on the Human Rights Committee." 
Blakeman referenced the county's 15-member human rights commission chaired by Bobby Kalotee. 
The group is tasked with "improving relations and ensuring equality of opportunity in Nassau County, and to eliminate discrimination in employment, housing, places of public accommodation and education." 
For years, Democratic lawmakers have attempted to add "gender identity" to the list of protected classes under Nassau County's human rights law. The list includes sexual orientation, religion, race and many other classes. 
Republican lawmakers have said they believed gender identity protections are included in state laws. 
In 2019, county legislators added veteran and first responder statuses to the list of protected classes under the county law. 
David Kilmnick, chief executive of the LGBT Network in Hauppauge, praised Curran's order. In an email to Newsday, he said: "Curran is going out the way she came in by ensuring that all Nassau families are represented and I am truly grateful for that. Because of her leadership, Nassau has made monumental strides for the LGBTQ community and we are hopeful that will continue with the next administration." 
Legis. Arnold Drucker (D-Plainview) said in a statement, "Across our nation, members of the transgender community continue to endure elevated levels of poverty, housing discrimination, workplace bias and a risk of suicide and mental health challenges. They are the victims of fatal violence with infuriating frequency. The breadth of the challenges they face are deserving of the focus of a dedicated advisory committee and enshrining county-level protections focused on gender identity in our Human Rights Law." 
He continued: "County Executive-elect Blakeman has spoken frequently of his desire to aid Nassau residents from all walks of life. Following through on the formation of this committee would put the power of action behind his words and bring us one step closer to fulfilling the promise of 'liberty and justice for all’."

poCURRAN220101

Curran signs order creating gender inclusivity commission

Curran signs order creating gender inclusivity panel

<h2>Getting resignations not good for Nassau</h2> 
Nassau County Executive-elect Bruce Blakeman’s transition team requested the resignation of all current Nassau ordinance employees ["Request for resignations," News, Nov. 25]. Four years ago, then-County Executive-elect Laura Curran’s transition team made the same ill-conceived request. 
Deputy county attorneys are Nassau’s largest group of political employees. Four years ago, I was a DCA and submitted my resignation. It was not accepted. The resignations of three attorneys whom I supervised were accepted. All three were rehired in January, after the new county attorney was appointed. Most of the terminated DCAs were quickly rehired. The obvious reason: The county attorney needs knowledgeable, experienced DCAs who know their jobs. This is especially true for litigation DCAs and others who carry a caseload. 
I have heard from friends in the county attorney’s office that Blakeman’s team is continuing to follow the Curran administration’s poor example. Several DCAs have had their resignations accepted, disregarding their acumen and experience and the effect this would have on ongoing matters. 
The incoming county attorney, State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Adams, should know the value of these attorneys. Hopefully, he will prevail upon the transition team to rescind the acceptance of the resignations. 
— Gerald R. Podlesak, New Hyde Park 
The writer is a Republican who retired in 2018 after serving 30 years in the county attorney’s office. 
<h2>Blakeman not in step with rising crisis</h2> 
Nassau County Executive-elect Bruce Blakeman said about COVID-19, "Nassau County is not in crisis" ["County leaders weigh in on mask rules," News, Dec. 14]. Days later, Newsday’s front page stated: "LI’s positivity rate highest in state" [News, Dec. 20]. 
Is he in denial? 
— Joseph Carro, Bohemia

Letters

OPLTR211231

Resignations not good for Nassau, Blakeman not in step

liVIRUS211215_photos

COVID-19 hospitalizations are soaring on Long Island and statewide, and hospitals are reporting fewer employees available to treat those patients, as many call out sick with the virus. 
Amid the rapidly increasing case numbers, long lines persisted Thursday at coronavirus testing sites. 
Hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 on Long Island increased more than 55% in just six days of results, to 1,230 on Wednesday, from 793 on Dec. 24, state data shows. Last year during the same time period, hospitalizations increased just over 18%. 
New York State saw a similar trend: about a 51% increase in those six days this year — to 7,373, from 4,891 — compared with less than 14% last year. 
"The numbers are very concerning," said Sean Clouston, an associate professor of public health at Stony Brook University. "The health system isn’t built for these enormous surges."<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50464296" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50464296">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Meanwhile, the number of new daily COVID-19 cases has nearly doubled Islandwide since Monday. 
In Suffolk, there were 2,811 cases on Monday and 5,772 positives out of 23,372 people tested on Wednesday. The daily positivity rate in Suffolk on Wednesday was 24.7%. 
"We haven’t seen numbers like this since the start of this pandemic," Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said during a COVID-19 update. 
In Nassau, there were 3,523 cases on Monday and 6,861 positives out of 28,597 people tested on Wednesday. Nassau's daily positivity rate on Wednesday stood at 24%. 
Long Island’s seven-day average of coronavirus tests coming back as positive jumped to 18.78%, up from 12.13% a week before. The statewide rate was 16.21%, and it was 16.90% in New York City. 
<h2>Staffing concerns at hospitals, nursing homes</h2> 
Hospital employees are among those becoming infected. Stony Brook Medicine reported 482 positive COVID-19 tests among its employees between Dec. 16 and Dec. 29. Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside says more than 100 employees are out sick, and other medical systems and nursing homes also are reporting big increases in sick employees. 
Hospital officials said they’re able to handle the surge, even with more sick employees, but they’re preparing for the worst. 
Based on the huge increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations are on track to at least double before the current surge is over, Clouston said, if the trajectory of the spread of the virus follows last winter’s pattern. 
Last winter, hospitalizations statewide peaked on Jan. 19. 
"What we don’t know at this point is really what omicron is going to do — if this is all it’s doing and it will recede like last year, or whether it will continue to increase because it’s a different beast," Clouston said. "We don’t really know. If we assume it’s similar to last year, it’s at least a doubling. If we assume it’s worse, it could be worse." 
At Mount Sinai South Nassau, the number of COVID-19 patients more than doubled in the past week, from 32 to 67. 
None of the employees out sick need hospitalization, a reflection of the effectiveness of the vaccines and of the booster shots that the large majority have received, said Dr. Adhi Sharma, president of the hospital. 
But the sick employees — along with lower staffing numbers because of those who were let go or resigned after refusing to get vaccinated, and people who left given the stress of the pandemic — will make it "very challenging to be able to maintain [adequate] staffing if this trend continues," Sharma said. 
He said it appears that most sick employees contracted the virus outside the hospital. 
Even if the staffing crunch worsens significantly, the hospital will be able to provide the same level and quality of emergency services, Sharma said. But, if necessary, some screenings and elective procedures could be rescheduled, he said. 
The surge is causing some patients at Stony Brook to ask for postponements of their elective surgeries, Clouston said. 
"From at least anecdotal evidence, patients are starting to not come in because they’re worried about being infected with COVID," he said. 
At Northwell Health, the state’s largest health care system with 19 hospitals, including 11 on Long Island, the staff shortages "are causing us to do a lot of juggling," said Dr. David Battinelli, a senior vice president. 
Nursing homes on Long Island and statewide also are struggling with staffing shortages, said Jim Clyne, CEO of LeadingAge New York, which represents nonprofit nursing homes and other facilities for older adults. 
Gurwin Healthcare System, which includes Gurwin Jewish Nursing &amp; Rehabilitation Center in Commack and Island Nursing and Rehab Center in Holtsville, has 40 employees out sick with COVID-19, said Stuart Almer, the system's president and CEO. 
Even so, "we are starting to get a reach-out from area hospitals asking us about our capacity and ability to take in residents because they’re feeling that crush of increase in [hospital] census," he said. 
Gurwin will only take them in if it has enough staffing, he said. 
As of Wednesday, 26% of Long Island hospital beds remained available, state health department data shows. The state defines limited capacity as below 10% staffed bed capacity, or as determined by the state health department. 
Although hospitalizations are spiking, a smaller percentage of people are ending up in intensive care compared with previous surges, Battinelli said. Studies have indicated that on average, omicron causes less severe illness. 
"We have a much lower percentage of [COVID-19] people in the ICU — about a 50% decrease," he said. 
In addition, the rapid spread of omicron throughout Long Island means that a higher percentage of people with COVID-19 in area hospitals were admitted to the hospital for reasons other than COVID-19 compared with a few weeks ago, hospital officials said. 
At Northwell, 20% to 40% of patients with COVID-19 were admitted for conditions like heart failure, abdominal pain or stroke and later tested positive for the virus, Battinelli said. 
At NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island in Mineola, a majority of COVID-19 patients initially were admitted for something else, said chief medical officer Dr. Marc Adler. 
New York had 74,207 positive test results on Wednesday, about an 82% increase over the 40,780 on Monday and yet another record. Experts say case numbers likely were higher early in the pandemic, when testing was scarce. 
Four Nassau residents and seven Suffolk residents died of COVID-19 complications on Wednesday, the state reported. They were among 76 deaths statewide. 
Bellone reiterated that Suffolk would not fine businesses for violating Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mandate requiring masks or proof of vaccination in indoor public places. The focus would remain outreach and education, he said. 
<h2>Traffic backs up for miles at Uniondale test-distribution site</h2> 
Demand for tests remained high, at urgent-care centers and at government-run sites. Traffic backed up for miles on Charles Lindbergh Boulevard Thursday morning as cars lined up to receive free state-supplied rapid tests at a site at Mitchel Field in Uniondale set up by Nassau County. Some people waited hours. 
"People are desperate and we’re seeing it now and we’re working as efficiently as possible to get tests to them," Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said after a news conference. "There’s such scarcity and it is like a bread line. As many as the state can give us, we will take them." 
The county expected to give away 20,000 boxes containing 40,000 tests. Each car received six tests. 
In Suffolk, Bellone said county-operated COVID-19 testing sites will be able to administer about 5,500 tests a week by next week, and that the county already has distributed 7,600 rapid at-home test kits to 86 first-responder agencies. 
Curran said residents are scouring drugstores and Amazon looking for tests that are sold out and on back order. 
Jenna Summer, 20, of Hicksville, who waited with her mother at Mitchel Field for about an hour and 20 minutes, said she works in a bakery where half the staff was sick with COVID-19. 
Her mother, Cynthia Summer, is a teacher and vaccinated but doesn’t know if she’ll have to test before returning from winter break. 
"We are dropping like flies," Cynthia Summer said. "I’m happy we have them and hope they all come back negative, if and when we have to use them." 
Wilson Walker, 72, of Uniondale said he wanted to get tested because he was feeling sick. 
"I want to make sure I’m OK," Walker said. "It does scare me a little bit. I had COVID before and this variant is not as bad, but it’s still very scary." 
He and his wife were both hospitalized for a week last year with COVID-19. 
At nursing homes, "it’s difficult to find tests," Clyne said. "But I have not heard of anybody saying we can’t get the test." 
LeadingAge has been "scrambling to help them find tests" and then connects vendors with nursing homes, he said. 
Sign up to get text alerts about COVID-19 and other topics at <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/sign-up-for-breaking-news-text-alerts-1.44425669?utm_source=subtext">newsday.com/text</a>.

liRATES211231

Statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations increase more than 50% in five-day span

Data: LI COVID-19 hospitalizations up more than 55% in six-day span

As COVID-19 hospitalizations increase more than 50% in a five-day span statewide and Long Islanders are desperate for COVID tests, Nassau County on Thursday handed out free at-home tests in Uniondale. Newsday's Cecilia Dowd reports.


Nassau County hands out thousands of free at-home COVID tests

Nassau County hands out free at-home COVID tests

liRATES211231_video

Erin Serpico

<h2>Data: NY COVID-19 hospitalizations up more than 50% in five-day span</h2>

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Hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 have increased more than 50% statewide in just five days, to 7,373 on Wednesday, from 4,891 on Dec. 24. Last year during the same time period, hospitalizations increased less than 14%. 
"People are desperate and we’re seeing it now and we’re working as efficiently as possible to get tests to them," outgoing Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said after a news conference at Mitchel Field in Uniondale, where cars lined up for hours this morning to receive at-home rapid tests. "There’s such scarcity and it is like a bread line. As many as the state can give us, we will take them." 
Meanwhile, many hospital employees are out sick: Stony Brook Medicine reported 482 positive COVID-19 tests among its employees between Dec. 16 and Dec. 29, Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside says more than 100 employees are out sick, and other medical systems and nursing homes also are reporting big increases in sick employees. 
Hospital officials said they’re able to handle the surge, even with more employees calling in sick, but they’re preparing for the worst. <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-hospitalizations-new-york-long-island-1.50464132">Read more in this story</a> by Newsday's David Olson and John Asbury. 
Plus, schools are preparing for students to return: Some school district leaders across Long Island informed parents they <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/schools-covid-testing-kits-students-1.50463650">would not be sending COVID-19 rapid tests home</a> with kids after they return from holiday break, noting distribution plans are still in the works, reports Newsday's Joie Tyrrell and Dandan Zou. Long Island is <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/schools-and-testing-for-covid-1.50461953">expected to get about 420,000 tests for schoolchildren</a>. 
Earlier this week, the CDC updated<a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-19-isolation-quarantine-cdc-guidelines-1.50461818"> its guidance</a> for people who test positive, cutting isolation recommendations and shortening the time close contacts need to quarantine. <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-quarantine-cdc-asymptomatic-1.50462526">Read our FAQ </a>on the latest recommendations. 
And if you're seeking COVID-19 testing and wondering what your options are for finding one on Long Island, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-test-appointments-omicron-long-island-1.50463281">here's a roundup of some resources</a> to try to make an appointment or get a test. 
The number of new positives reported today: 6,861 in Nassau, 5,772 in Suffolk, 43,985 in New York City and 74,207 statewide. 
This map shows the concentration of cases in communities around Long Island in recent days.
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<a href="https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/tracking-the-coronavirus-on-long-island/">Search that map of new cases and view charts</a> showing the latest local trends in vaccinations, testing, hospitalizations, deaths and more. 
See more coronavirus headlines below.

LILETT211231

COVID hospitalizations up more than 50% in NY, data shows

The battle to beat back the COVID-19 surge intensified Wednesday, as New York hit new highs in cases, Long Island hospitalizations spiked by the largest single-day total since the pandemic began and Gov. Kathy Hochul said she expects virus rates to grow into January. 
State and Long Island officials are fighting the rapidly spreading virus on several fronts, including opening additional testing sites in Nassau and Suffolk and making testing kits more available, with events such as a distribution at Mitchel Field in Uniondale planned for Thursday. 
But challenges continue. CityMD announced the temporary closure of two more testing sites on Long Island. People continue to wait in lines for hours to get tested. The extremely contagious omicron variant is still spreading, the cold weather isn't going away and New Year's promises to bring more people together and more spread of the virus. 
"We're basically preparing for a January surge. We know it's coming, and it would be naive to think it won't," Hochul said during a news briefing in upstate Plattsburgh on Wednesday. "We do think there's going to be a spike in cases that continues."
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New York saw a new single-day pandemic high of positive cases on Tuesday, officials said. The state had 67,090 new cases, a single-day jump of 26,310 cases from the prior day, according to state figures. 
Tuesday's total exceeds by 17,382 cases the prior single-day high of 49,708, which was set last Friday. 
More than 10,000 of those new cases on Tuesday were on Long Island. <a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50463472" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50463472">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Nassau and Suffolk both saw significant increases. Nassau had 5,968 new cases on Tuesday, up from 3,523 the prior day. The Tuesday number came from 31,373 total tests, for a daily positivity rate of 19%. 
And Suffolk had 4,577 cases, a significant increase from 2,811 the prior day, state figures said. Out of 19,529 total tests, that amounted to a daily positivity rate of 23.4%. 
The seven-day positivity rate reached 17.32% on Long Island. 
<h2>New efforts to distribute tests</h2> 
Meanwhile, Nassau and Suffolk officials unveiled additional efforts Wednesday to help people receive tests for COVID-19. 
Nassau County will distribute 20,000 COVID-19 at-home test kits via a drive-thru event Thursday, and Suffolk County opened a new county-run testing site. 
The Nassau event will occur at Mitchel Field in Uniondale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The kits were provided by New York State. Nassau County residents will receive up to three kits per car on a first-come, first-served basis, free of charge. 
"As omicron continues to spread in our communities and residents continue to see their loved ones for the holidays, the county remains committed to offering reliable COVID-19 testing for residents so we can contain disease spread," Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said in a statement. 
Suffolk County officials said tests began becoming available on a first-come, first-served basis on Wednesday at Heckscher State Park's Field 8 in East Islip. 
The site will be open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., handling about 1,000 tests per day, the county said. 
The new testing site opened Wednesday to a long line of cars. County officials said the drive-thru rapid testing reached capacity by 9 a.m., forcing them to close the line. They noted many of the cars had multiple passengers and more than 1,000 people were tested throughout the day. 
"Unfortunately, these long lines are being felt at testing sites all across the county, as a record number of individuals seek testing," said a Suffolk County spokesperson. 
Also, two previously announced state-operated testing sites opened on Wednesday, at IBEW Local 25 in Hauppauge and Kennedy Memorial Park in Hempstead. Appointments can be scheduled at <a href="https://appointments.bioreference.com/nystatecovidtesting">appointments.bioreference.com/nystatecovidtesting</a>, not by calling the locations. 
COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide increased Tuesday to 6,767 patients, a growth of 594 patients after another large increase Monday of 647 patients, according to state data. 
On Long Island, hospitalizations increased by 105 patients on Tuesday to 1,106 after another large increase of 102 patients Monday. 
The statewide increase on Tuesday of 594 patients is the largest single-day jump in hospitalizations since April 6, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, except for Monday's 647 patients. 
Long Island's increase in hospitalizations on Tuesday is the largest since April 6, 2020, when there were 656 new patients statewide and 128 on Long Island. 
In addition, 97 people died statewide from coronavirus-related illness on Tuesday, a spike of 20 above the day before's total of 77, according to state figures. Three of those deaths were in Nassau and five in Suffolk, figures said. 
The new total in state deaths represents the largest tally since March 28, 2021, when 111 deaths were reported. 
<h2>Long waits on long lines</h2> 
Some Islanders on Wednesday endured long waits on long lines to get tested. 
More than 50 people were lined up around the building at Kennedy Memorial Park in Hempstead. 
By noon, the site had already conducted nearly 250 PCR tests inside the gym of the community center and officials expected to complete a total of 800 tests by Wednesday night. 
Marie Emile of Hempstead waited in line for about three hours Wednesday morning to get tested with her 4-year-old son Matthew. She said a family member tested positive and she wanted to make sure she was healthy. 
"We're glad it opened up, but it's a long wait in line," she said. "It's a comfort I can get tested so I know my status." 
Dana Murphy, 35, of Freeport, wore a mask and said he began coughing and showing other symptoms on Tuesday night. He said he was concerned family members may have been infected at Christmas. 
"I came down to get tested and see if there's anything going on more than a cold," he said. "Hopefully it's not COVID and I don't want to spread it among anyone else." 
<h2>Two more LI CityMD locations close</h2> 
Elsewhere, the CityMD urgent care chain is temporarily shutting locations in Mineola and Patchogue, citing the need to "preserve our ability to staff our sites" amid the coronavirus pandemic surge, the company said Tuesday on its website. 
The two CityMD locations are among 12 additional sites closing temporarily in the metropolitan area, after 19 other closures were announced by the chain last week. 
People hoping to get services at the Mineola site at 292 Herricks Rd. are redirected to CityMD Carle Place at 235 Glen Cove Rd. 
Those looking for the Patchogue location at 129 Sunrise Hwy. are directed to CityMD Sayville at 5600 Sunrise Hwy. 
Last week, CityMD closed locations in Merrick and in Bay Shore because they were inundated with people asking for COVID-19 tests and lacked the staff to keep up, the company said. 
"We don’t have a time frame of reopenings that I can share at this point," Joy Lee-Calio, the director of PR and communications for Summit Health, which owns CityMD, wrote in an email on Wednesday. 
As the cold weather and holidays have brought a spike in COVID-19 positivity and testing demand, Nassau has also partnered with Northwell Health to offer COVID-19 PCR testing at Christopher Morley Park in Roslyn. 
The drive-thru COVID-19 test site is available to all residents at no cost Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Appointments are required and you can make them at <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/coronavirus-covid-19/pcr-testing">northwell.edu/coronavirus-covid-19/pcr-testing</a>. 
A new drive-thru site opened across from Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead on Tuesday as well. 
The rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are self-administered by people in their cars and returned to health officials, who can usually process a result the next day using Northwell’s Lab Gold testing software. 
Red Creek Park in Hampton Bays will provide school-required and community testing on Mondays only, starting next week, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and with a capacity of 500 tests per day. 
In addition, a location at Cathedral Pines County Park in Middle Island will offer tests on Tuesdays and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. That site opens on Jan. 4 and can administer up to 500 tests a day. 
Northwell Health officials said it is administering an average of 20,000 COVID-19 tests a day at its facilities, including community sites, hospitals, doctor's offices and urgent care centers. 
Sign up to get text alerts about COVID-19 and other topics at <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/sign-up-for-breaking-news-text-alerts-1.44425669?utm_source=subtext">newsday.com/text</a>.

liVIRUS211230

Officials announce additional efforts to help people receive COVID-19 tests

Fight against COVID-19 surge intensifies, as NY hits another new high in cases

A COVID-19 testing site opened Wednesday in Hempstead at Kennedy Memorial Park, which Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr said puts the community "ahead of the curve."


COVID-19 testing site opens in Hempstead

New York

Brookhaven Town

North Hempstead Town

Patchogue

Suffolk

Mineola

COViD-19 testing site opens in Hempstead

It was a tumultuous 12 months, dominated by COVID-19 and political change. Take a look back on some of the local and national stories that shaped the year on Long Island.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460316" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460316">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Jan. 6: With Congress ready to certify Joe Biden as the 46th president, President Donald Trump's supporters <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/trump-impeachment-capitol-riot-deaths-mcconnell-liz-cheney-biden-inauguration-security-covid-vaccine-pelosi-pence-25th-amendment-1.50117684">break into the U.S. Capitol</a>. The result is a <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/trump-impeachment-takeaways-1.50152793">second impeachment trial</a>, numerous charges against the participants, but two weeks after the incident, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/biden-inauguration-harris-capitol-washington-1.50125228">Biden is sworn in</a> on those same Capitol steps. 
Jan. 27: 15-year-old Uniondale basketball star Jo-Jo Wright is <a href="https://www.newsday.com/sports/high-school/boys-basketball/jo-jo-wright-1.50133567">killed in an automobile accident</a> on the way to a gym. In November, the family <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/jo-jo-wright-wrongful-death-lawsuit-1.50425462">files a $150 million wrongful death lawsuit</a> against the Town of Hempstead and the three other drivers involved in the crash. 
January: New York Attorney General Letita James <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/james-cuomo-nursing-homes-1.50135805">releases a report criticizing Gov. Andrew Cuomo's handling</a> of nursing homes at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The report finds that the state's Health Department undercounted deaths in nursing homes by half, among other critiques. 
January: As COVID-19 vaccine eligibility expands to the elderly and those with certain conditions, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/distribution-issues-with-vaccine-1.50121263">frustration in trying to get a coveted appointment</a> also grows, with people spending hours online trying to book a dose.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460317" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460317">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Feb. 1: A nor'easter <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/weather/nor-easter-long-island-snow-winter-storm-1.50139355">drops over a foot of snow</a> in parts of Long Island, disrupting the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Nassau and Suffolk counties.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460318" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460318">Story Widget Link</a>
 
March 9: A <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/cuomo-sexual-harassment-1.50174602">probe into allegations</a> that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed former aides begins, with calls for the governor to step down under threats of impeachment. Cuomo fights the accusations for months before finally stepping down in August. 
March 30: The New York State Legislature <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/recreational-marijuana-legalization-state-legislature-1.50199749">legalizes the adult use of marijuana</a>, and the bill is signed into law the next day. However, some towns decide to opt out of allowing marijuana sales in their jurisdictions.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460319" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460319">Story Widget Link</a>
 
April 20: A <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/west-hempstead-shooting-stop-and-shop-1.50221110">shooting at a Stop &amp; Shop</a> on Cherry Valley Avenue in West Hempstead leaves <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/stop-shop-manager-funeral-shooting-1.50230319">a manager dead</a> and two other employees injured. The cart attendant accused of the crime is <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/stop-shop-shoting-west-hempstead-1.50431805">planning a psychiatric defense</a> in court. 
April 25: A TikTok video of <a href="https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/adam-sandler-ihop-1.50231993">Adam Sandler being told of a wait</a> at a Manhasset IHOP goes viral, leaving the comedian to <a href="https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/adam-sandler-ihop-manhasset-1.50236217">joke about the incident</a> on Twitter a week later. Sandler <a href="https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/adam-sandler-ihop-milkshake-monday-1.50243583">visits the location</a> two weeks later to pose for photos with the hostess in the video. 
April: Just over a year into the pandemic, real estate prices on Long Island continue to rise as the inventory falls. As a result, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/business/home-supply-sales-long-island-bidding-wars-1.50222839">4 of 10 home sales are ending</a> in a bidding war as properties sell quickly.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460320" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460320">Story Widget Link</a>
 
May 4: Gov. Andrew Cuomo <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-19-new-york-reopening-long-island-nyc-1.50235143">announces that most capacity restrictions</a> at businesses and institutions will be lifted by the middle of the month, returning most things to normal after over a year of disruption, closures and limited capacity due to COVID-19. 
May 6: A <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/fatal-fire-washington-avenue-garden-city-1.50238355">fire in a Garden City home </a>kills three, including an 18-year-old high school student. A fire official said it was caused potentially by an individual who was smoking, and the house's <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/house-fire-marshal-garden-city-cigarette-1.50254345">two fire detectors were inoperable</a>. 
May 22: A Newsday report finds that <a href="https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/police-hiring/">minority applicants</a> to Nassau and Suffolk County police forces found a much tougher road to hiring, with hurdles disqualifying Black and Hispanic candidates at a higher rate than their white peers.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460321" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460321">Story Widget Link</a>
 
June 12: A <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/state-legislature-long-island-divided-realtor-1.50275680">package of anti-discrimination bills</a> spurred by Newsday's "Long Island Divided" series about real estate practices on Long Island won approval in the State Legislature. The bills <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/hochul-legislation-long-island-divided-1.50457898">were signed into law</a> in December. 
June 27: After issues following Tropical Storm Isaias in 2020, LIPA and PSEG Long Island finally <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/lipa-pseg-cuomo-agreement-1.50290649">reach a contract settlement</a> to keep the New Jersey-based provider in place. The <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/lipa-pseg-contract-performance-standards-1.50416596">agreement for a new four-year deal</a> was made in November.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460322" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460322">Story Widget Link</a>
 
July 9: Tropical Storm Elsa <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/weather/long-island-weather-elsa-1.50300988">moves through Long Island</a>, bringing rain and strong winds, which resulted in flooded streets, toppled trees and downed power lines. 
July 20: A bull <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/escaped-bull-search-mastic-shirley-1.50312336">escapes from a farm</a> in Moriches and is able to elude capture for weeks despite an extensive search. The bull, later nicknamed "Barney," is eventually captured in September and brought to an <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/barney-the-bull-where-is-he-now-1.50411948">animal sanctuary</a> in New Jersey. 
July 24: Five people <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/five-killed-crash-quogue-1.50314852">are killed</a> when a Nissan Maxima <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/fatal-quogue-crash-michael-james-farrell-ryan-kiess-farhan-zahid-1.50384614">traveling at over 100 mph</a> crashes into a Toyota Prius on Montauk Highway in Quogue. 
July 28: Wantagh native Andrew Capobianco and teammate Michael Hixon <a href="https://www.newsday.com/sports/olympics/team-usa-andrew-capobianco-synchro-diving-silver-medal-1.50317994">win the silver medal</a> for men's Synchronized 3m Springboard at the Tokyo Olympics, which was delayed a year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460323" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460323">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Aug. 10: Facing sexual harassment allegations and a potential impeachment, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/cuomo-sexual-harassment-resignation-1.50330752">announces he is resigning</a> from office. Two weeks later, Cuomo steps down and Kathy Hochul <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/kathy-hochul-governor-new-york-1.50342187">becomes the state's first female governor</a>. 
Aug. 10: Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota is <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/spota-mcpartland-corruption-sentencing-burke-1.50330042">sentenced to five years in prison</a> for attempting to conceal and impede the investigation into a 2012 beating of a prisoner in a police precinct.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460324" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460324">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Sept. 11: The family of Blue Point woman Gabby Petito reports her missing, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/missing-long-island-woman-gabby-gabrielle-petito-brian-laundrie-1.50365289">sparking a nationwide hunt</a> for her and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie. Just over a week later, her body is discovered in a Wyoming national forest, and a month later, Laundrie's body is found in a Florida preserve.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460325" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460325">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Oct. 4: Northwell Health <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/covid-vaccine-mandate-news-long-island-new-york-1.50380573">announces it is firing 1,400 employees</a> for not complying with the state mandate for all health workers to be vaccinated, as it and other health care providers complied with the decision. 
Oct. 21: Massapequa-raised actor Alec Baldwin is <a href="https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/alec-baldwin-hilaria-rust-1.50441121">involved in a shooting incident</a> in New Mexico, firing a gun that kills cinematographer Hayla Hutchins during filiming of the movie "Rust." 
Oct. 22: Long Island <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/weather/henri-storm-long-islanders-1.50341062">dodges a bullet</a> as Hurricane Henri, forecast to deliver a direct hit, veers off to the east and spares the island from major damage. However, just over a week later, the remnants of Hurricane Ida <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/weather/long-island-weather-ida-flooding-1.50350227">drop over nine inches</a> of rain on parts of LI, causing flooding issues.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460326" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460326">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Nov. 2: On Election Day, Republican Bruce Blakeman produces the biggest upset of the night, as <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/curran-blakeman-absentee-count-nassau-1.50424414">he defeated</a> Laura Curran for Nassau County Executive in a tight race decided by just over 2,000 votes. 
Nov. 13: Six tornadoes <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/weather/tornadoes-long-island-saturday-storm-1.50423527">touch down across Long Island</a>, causing trees to topple and lifting roofs in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The number is the most for Long Island since 1950, doubling the previous high total of three. 
Nov. 20: The New York Islanders' new home, UBS Arena, <a href="https://www.newsday.com/sports/hockey/islanders/ubs-arena-opener-islanders-flames-1.50429206">opens for fans</a> to see the team take on the Calgary Flames. After years of uncertainty for the franchise's permanent home, the team settled into the arena at Belmont Park next to the race track. 
November: Some Suffolk County motorists are <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/transportation/school-bus-camera-arms-1.50411682">caught by a camera</a> on the side of school buses, with the county using photo taken to identify and fine drivers who pass a stopped bus $250.<a data-onecms-id="contentid/storywidget.1.50460327" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="#/content/contentid/storywidget.1.50460327">Story Widget Link</a>
 
Dec. 10: Gov. Kathy Hochul <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/health/coronavirus/hochul-virus-plan-1.50447823">issues a mask mandate</a> for New York State as COVID-19 numbers surged in the state. Enforcement was uneven, as some counties elected not to enforce the order, while others were more strict as the rapidly spreading omicron variant arrived in the U.S.

Laura Curran

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