EDITORIAL: Sale of Mitchel Field lease revenue looks like bad bet

Nassau County must be desperate. Officials have called for bids on lease payments from Mitchel Field, the center of the county's commercial hub. The leases are worth $113 million over 30 years, but County Executive Edward Mangano may sell the rights to that income for a one-time payment of $20 million to $40 million.

The proposal is particularly troubling given Mitchel Field's history. The properties were leased by a Republican administration to private owners in sweetheart deals, which called for no rent increases in the final 74 years of 99-year leases. A 1989 investigation by then-District Attorney Denis Dillon estimated that taxpayers lost $2.7 billion from the below-market leases. Now, Mangano could be shortchanging taxpayers again.

Governments have often considered selling public assets for one-shot payments from private investors. In 2007, Gov. Eliot Spitzer eyed the New York Lottery. In New Jersey, Gov. Jon Corzine explored the sale of rights to toll revenue from the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway. Those deals were dashed in the end. There are good reasons that governments keep walking away.

Nassau County is, in fact, desperate. Next month, Mangano must show how he will close a $286.5-million deficit for 2011. Nassau needs fresh ideas, that's for sure. But selling the Mitchel Field leases looks like the same old bad strategy: borrowing from the future to pay today's expenses. hN