Blakeman's battle

Daily Point

Behind the mask

If Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman intended to get a reaction during his first week in office, he succeeded.

But if he was counting on big support or applause for his attempt to allow school districts to override a state masking regulation, he didn’t get it from some local elected officials and education administrators.

The fallout from the executive order Blakeman signed Thursday continued to ripple through the state Friday.

During a news conference, Hochul doubled down on the dismissal of her authority, saying she had "the law of the state of New York behind me."

"Those who underestimate me do so at their own peril, including the county executive of Nassau County," Hochul said.

Ten State Senate and Assembly Democrats issued a statement calling it the "height of irresponsibility" to bypass the state regulation and demanded that Blakeman rescind the "clearly unlawful executive order."

The same demand came from Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association president Michael Kelly, who focused on Blakeman’s demand that all school boards take a vote within the month of January "to determine whether or not parents and children should be granted the constitutional right to reject mask mandates while in the classroom."

The association’s executive director, Lorraine Deller, told The Point Friday that the timing of Blakeman’s order was particularly problematic, given the snowstorm and the existing challenges associated with the pandemic, particularly in terms of staffing.

"For this to be dropped yesterday in the middle of this most stressful comeback time, it was inexplicable," Deller said.

The concern, Deller said, is that some parents and other members of the public would "take what happened yesterday by the county executive to heart," and think they had been given "carte blanche" to ignore the state mask mandate.

"All of that was a sideshow to the fact that he had absolutely no authority to dictate to boards of education," Deller added. "For us as an association, quite frankly, the bottom line is this was an unauthorized attempt to intrude into school board governance … The county has no more authority to dictate to schools than we have to dictate what they should be doing with their departments."

State Education Commissioner Betsy Rosa noted Thursday that schools were required to follow the mandate, and Hochul mentioned that the state had school funding levers at its disposal.

The issue also came up during a town hall Rep. Tom Suozzi held Thursday night as part of his gubernatorial campaign. Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) pointed a finger at Hochul, suggesting that she had to do a better job communicating with local officials.

"The job of a chief executive is to work together with other elected officials to sell an idea to the public," Suozzi said. "It doesn’t work if everybody is going off on their own way."

But Suozzi also said he didn’t think there was a way to "push any kind of mandate on people" because many wouldn’t follow it.

Nonetheless, Suozzi told The Point Friday that he thought Blakeman was wrong "in questioning the validity of mask wearing."

Blakeman doubled down Friday. While he noted in a statement to The Point that the county was providing free testing and vaccination, along with free KN95 masks for teachers and school staff, he also said he wanted to "return personal decision-making to families, and normalcy to students …"

"Everyone has lived under Gov. Hochul’s renewed mask mandate for nearly a month now (and just about a year and a half for children), yet we have the highest case loads ever," Blakeman said in the written statement.

Meanwhile, the county is encouraging residents north of Hempstead Turnpike to head to Eisenhower Park, and those south to go to Tobay Beach for free test distribution this weekend.

And sources told The Point that Blakeman, focused on how his executive order is being perceived, expects to visit a Nassau COVID-19 test distribution site over the weekend, perhaps for a little positive publicity.

Perhaps the only question is whether he’ll wear a mask.

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall and Dan Janison @Danjanison

Talking Point

Snow politics

Snowstorms — whether very serious or fairly weatherable like the one that blanketed the region on Friday — can be make or break moments for local elected officials. That was perhaps most famously true for New York City Mayor John Lindsay, whose administration was unprepared for the big and deadly snowfall of February 1969 that left Queens under drifts for days.

The liberal Republican mayor was booed as a bum across the borough when he tried to tour the scene. But he went on to win another term and his mayoralty has been praised for other attempts to get out among the people, such as walking the streets of Harlem after MLK’s assassination in an attempt to console and quell unrest.

As a new mayor settles in this year, Lindsay provides an interesting comparison. He was physically and somewhat politically similar to the tall, lanky white former mayor Bill de Blasio. Both got some plaudits for trying to address aspects of inequality, and rode racially diverse coalitions to office. But new Mayor Eric Adams might be more likely than his predecessor to follow Lindsay into the city’s streets and cultural events. Adams has already drawn attention for his enjoyment of Manhattan nightlife and freewheeling appearances from subway to hospital to precinct.

For more footage of a mayor out in the streets, there is the documentary "Summer of Soul" that hit theaters last year and is now on Hulu.

It features long-buried footage from the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 and includes shots of Lindsay in the crowd and coming up on stage, looking comfortable at the high-energy event despite his neat suit and tie. The MC describes him as "our blue-eyed soul brother" and jokes that they were planning to sing "He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands" together.

Lindsay, eyes practically twinkling at the chance to win over some voters to his carefully constructed political coalition, says the event is a "glorious festival" in "this great community" of Harlem.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

Midterm twister

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Puzzle Point

In the news

Welcome to this week’s news quiz, based on events that took place this week. As usual, provide the answer for each clue, one letter per blank. The first letter of each answer, taken in order, spells the name of the Washington politician who said this: "January 6th, 2021 was a dark day for Congress and our country … it has been stunning to see some Washington Democrats try to exploit this anniversary to advance partisan policy goals that long predated this event."

A link to the answers appears below.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Students in this Long Island school district are seeking to rename a street that honors a village settler who also was a local Ku Klux Klan leader.

_ _ _ _ Country where U.S. bases were hit with Katyusha rockets apparently fired by an Iran-backed militia group.

_ _ _ _ _ _ Car company that upended GM’s streak of selling the most cars in the U.S. every year since the Great Depression.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ U.S. automaker that announced plans to go all-electric by 2028.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Long Island school district that reassigned a teacher who gave a 17-year-old boy an apparent COVID-19 injection without his parent’s permission.

_ _ _ _ _ _ One of two Long Island colleges that is delaying the start of the spring semester because of COVID-19.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ Major city whose schoolteachers voted to stay home because of rising COVID-19 rates, insisting instead on a return to remote learning.

_ _ _ _ _ _ Last name of the only two Republicans who joined House Democrats for a Jan. 6 memorial.

_ _ _ _ Acronym for the organization that agreed to pump more oil in hopes that demand for fuel will not be affected by the omicron variant.

_ _ _ _ Branch of the U.S. armed forces that was stopped by a federal judge from acting against 35 of its personnel who refused vaccines on religious grounds.

_ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Tennis player stopped from entering Australia to play in the Australian Open because he wasn’t vaccinated.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ Founder of blood testing startup Theranos who was found guilty on four fraud charges at trial.

_ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ City host of the renowned CES tech conference that was forced to scale back because of coronavirus precautions.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ State whose governor posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy, the Black man whose 1892 arrest for refusing to leave a whites-only railroad car led to the Supreme Court’s infamous 1896 decision that cemented "separate but equal" as U.S. law for 58 years.

Click here for the answers to the clued words and to the identity of the mystery politician.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie

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