POLITICS

19th District battle gets under way

Parties back Rita Kestenbaum and Steve Rhoads

Posted

Dave Denenberg’s resignation from the Nassau County Legislature on Jan. 21, the day that he pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court, set off a scramble to fill the seat he held for 15 years.

On Jan. 22, County Executive Ed Mangano called for a special election on March 10. Within days, the Nassau Democratic and Republican parties named their respective candidates — Rita Kestenbaum and Steve Rhoads.

Kestenbaum, 56, of Bellmore, was a Town of Hempstead councilwoman in 2000 and has advocated for gun control and help for at-risk youths since the 2007 murder of her 20-year-old daughter in Arizona. Rhoads, 46, of Bellmore, is a personal injury attorney and a volunteer firefighter who twice ran unsuccessfully for Denenberg’s legislative seat.

Meet the candidates

Kestenbaum was one of five potential candidates that the Nassau County Democratic Committee interviewed on Jan. 21, Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs said. He cited Kestenbaum’s decades in the community, her time as a councilwoman and her “compelling” work on the issues of gun violence and mental health as reasons that she was selected. 

“I think she will be able to … replicate the very best of what Dave Denenberg brought to that district,” Jacobs said. “I think she’s really dynamic, and I think people, when they meet her, will love her.”

Kestenbaum, a homemaker and former PTA leader, won a four-year term on the Hempstead town board in 1999, but a federal lawsuit challenging the board’s at-large elections forced her to run again in 2000 in a Republican-leaning council district. She lost to Angie Cullin, then the town’s receiver of taxes.

In 2007, Kestenbaum’s daughter, Carol, a sophomore at Arizona State University, was murdered outside her off-campus apartment. A disturbed man shot and killed her and her friend Nicole Schiffman, both 2005 Kennedy High School graduates, before he turned the gun on himself.

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