Pols don't need their names on public signs

After taking office last year, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman ditched a modest reform instituted by predecessor Laura Curran. In 2018, she imposed an explicit policy of keeping her name off signs on public property. Those signs — in parks, for example — would simply tell passersby that Nassau County welcomes them, without space to claim personal credit.

Since Blakeman seems to find this self-indulgence on the public dime too attractive to pass up, the old way of doing things is back. The executive's name is etched on pencils at county golf courses and on posters honoring veterans, and prominently displayed at county-sponsored events. The cost of the policy change hasn’t been made available by his office but should be — even if, as his aides assure us, it proves to be done at minimal cost. As Curran said, it’s the public’s space, not the executive’s.

Some folks surely disliked Blakeman's policy change. But nobody made a big deal of it until a Blakeman sign appeared atop the stage at the Harry Chapin Lakeside Theater at Eisenhower Park, dwarfing a sign below it bearing the singer’s name. Understandably, some musicians scheduled to play at a Chapin tribute concert protested this onstage overreach. They hadn't signed up for a partisan fundraiser.

Of course, Blakeman is far from alone in this sort of self-promotion. In his previous stamping grounds of Hempstead Town government, Supervisor Donald Clavin’s administration, following a half-century-old playbook, also has made signs recognizing his incumbency unavoidable for summer spectators.

At a July 1 "Salute to Veterans" event at Town Park at Point Lookout featuring KC and The Sunshine Band, a very tall sign to the right of the stage touted “Don Clavin, Supervisor” in the largest lettering up top followed by the council’s six members, Town Clerk Kate Murray, and Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll. Other large signs bearing welcomes to the veterans' salute from Clavin and the board were to the left and on the stage itself.

Hempstead Town spokesman Greg Blower said last week: “Concert signage costs are paid for out of concert sponsor funds, and banners are produced internally at nominal cost." He offered no figure to define "nominal."

Concerts embraced by public officials have long been touted all over the region. Remember the July 2021 New York City “homecoming” concert covered live by CNN from Central Park where then-Mayor Bill de Blasio put his physical self on stage? Remember Marty Markowitz, the former borough president of Brooklyn, whose shorefront concert promotions were better known during his years in the State Senate than his presence in the chamber?

Politicians are performers, too. Many get too hammy for the public good. As those elected to govern, Blakeman and his Hempstead peers would better serve themselves and us by ditching the campaign-style promotions on public property.