No lovefest at NIFA-Blakeman meeting

Daily Point

Nassau County executive, NIFA officials have a 'contentious and unproductive' session

There's more trouble brewing between Nassau County and its fiscal watchdog.

Nassau Interim Finance Authority officials met Tuesday with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Chief Deputy County Executive Arthur Walsh and other officials at county headquarters in Mineola.

NIFA has been seeking Blakeman's cooperation with a number of key issues the authority is working on, including its effort to audit the county's assessment system.

"It couldn't have been a more unproductive meeting," a source with knowledge of the gathering told The Point.

A second source called the meeting, which was shorter than anticipated, "contentious and unproductive."

Multiple sources said Blakeman spent most of the unusual meeting emphasizing that there is no longer a control period — a critical distinction that comes into play when the county's finances require extensive oversight. In April, Blakeman unilaterally declared a supposed end to the control period, despite lacking the authority to make that determination. During Tuesday's meeting, Blakeman told NIFA officials they should thank him for correcting past mismanagement and improving the county's finances, and suggested NIFA officials were acting in political ways, multiple sources said.

Blakeman doubled down on that take in a statement to The Point.

"Under Bruce Blakeman's Leadership, Nassau County has had four budgets without tax increases, four budgets with surpluses and has received an unprecedented seven bond upgrades," Blakeman's spokesman Chris Boyle said in a texted statement. "There is no reason why NIFA should have control and oversight of Nassau finances when Kathy Hochul gave over $5 billion to Zohran Mamdani with no strings attached to close the city's multi-billion dollar deficit." 

New NIFA Chairman Mohsin Meghji took the chair position recently, after former chair Richard Kessel moved to lead the Nassau University Medical Center board. Meghji has worked in the private sector as a financial turnaround professional and has never held or run for elected office.

The meeting came about as NIFA sought to require the county's cooperation on a planned audit of the county's assessment system. NIFA chose to hold off on making such an order and enforcing it, in the hopes that direct appeals to Blakeman would be helpful in making progress on the planned audit, sources said. So far, county officials have not met with the third-party auditor or provided necessary documentation and information. And it doesn't seem likely they will soon.

The county has continued to communicate with NIFA on other issues, such as contract approvals, sources confirmed.

NIFA officials declined to comment on the meeting.

"We assume they're going to follow the law and they're going to comply with the law," NIFA spokesman David Chauvin said. "Our job is oversight of the county's finances as per the law. That's what we're doing."

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Final Point

Pushing polls

CD3 voters are getting a lot of attention from pollsters as control of the House of Representatives rests with swing districts like this one mostly in northwest Nassau County that is expected to be bombarded with several million dollars' worth of television ads in the next few months.

A phone and text poll two weeks ago on behalf of Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi sought to take a snapshot of where he stood against GOP challenger Mike LiPetri as well as test what issues were top of mind.

The questions were pretty standard, such as what's your opinion of LiPetri and Suozzi, how would you vote if the election were today, and who you voted for in the last presidential election — Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. And it included queries about testing what messages on the economy or immigration would resonate more. There was no tip of the hand to the voter who was behind the questions.

Last week, another CD3 survey — this one via text — was in the field. There were the basic questions about whether the voter favored Republicans or Democrats and then who the voter blamed more "for inflation & the rising cost of living."

The choices: "President Biden & Democrats in Congress" and "President Trump & Republicans in Congress."

But soon after it became pretty clear where the poll was going.

"All other things being equal, which of the following candidates for Congress would you be MOST likely to vote for? Tom Suozzi the Democratic candidate who refuses to do anything to stop the epidemic of fraud… OR… Mike LiPetri, the Republican candidate who is committed to holding criminals accountable for defrauding taxpayers of billions of dollars," asked one question.

"All other things being equal, which of the following candidates for Congress would you be MOST likely to vote for? Tom Suozzi, the Democrat who refuses to hold health insurers accountable and will just keep lining insurers' pockets with hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars… OR…. Mike LiPetri the Republican, who wants to force big health insurers to publicly disclose their profits, the percentage of claims denied, and average wait times for their patients for routine care," asked another.

Other questions targeted Suozzi for his opposition to legislation that would stop insider trading, and for his "No" vote on the SALT deduction change. The latter question didn't mention that Suozzi's "No" was in response to broader legislation that happened to include the SALT deduction.

The questions also got personal.

"Tom Suozzi used campaign funds to personally enrich himself by using campaign donations to pay rent to a company he is the sole owner of," one question said. "After reading this, would you vote for Tom Suozzi, Democrat, OR Mike LiPetri, Republican, for US Congress?"

Suozzi campaign manager Kim Devlin said in a statement to The Point that the Democrats' polls were balanced.

"The misleading attacks on Congressman Suozzi is what we expect from the self-proclaimed ‘MAGA Warrior' Mike LiPetri because he certainly can't campaign on the thriving economy, affordable healthcare or the protection of our land and water under this administration," Devlin said. "He can run all the misleading polls he wants but he won't fool Suozzi's constituents."

Spokespeople with the Republican National Committee and with the LiPetri campaign said the poll did not come from either organization.

"All eyes are on NY-03 — the socialist surge is spreading coast to coast, so it makes sense that people are looking for a next generation common sense Republican like Mike LiPetri who will stand up and stop the nonsense," LiPetri spokesman Mike Falk said in a texted statement.

Said RNC spokeswoman Kristen Cianci: "This election is heating up, and we'll continue to see Tom Suozzi's self-dealing and record of failing Long Islanders put on full display."

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com, Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

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