City Council candidate ‘smeared’

Democratic City Council candidate Scott Mandel was shocked, to say the least, when he left the Latino Civic Association’s awards dinner at the Sands in Lido Beach on Sept. 22 and discovered that his car was “smeared” with feces.

“When I came out, the driver-side mirror of my car was covered with feces and male underwear,” Mandel said, adding that he left the event just before 11 p.m. “I was shocked and disgusted, but I figured it was a prank by kids.”

Mandel, 37, a Long Beach resident and attorney who practices in Roslyn Heights, is running with City Councilman Len Torres and former Library Board Trustee Fran Adelson for a seat on the City Council. Having cleaned his car, he figured the worst was over.

“I let it go,” he said. “We drove home, I washed the car when we got home and we turned out for the night.”

But around midnight, Mandel said, his doorbell rang. “I went outside, and I noticed that there was used kitty litter smeared across our front door and strewn about our walkway,” he said. “In addition, there were feces covering the right-side passenger windshield, splattered all over, and a bag of feces at the foot of the driveway.”

Mandel said he contacted Long Beach police and filed two police reports, and he also called the Nassau County Police Department’s 4th Precinct to report the incident at the Sands.

But the vandalism continued, he said, when, on Sept. 26, he again found feces in front of his home and along his walkway.

The vandalism came on the heels of a Sept. 5 incident at Democratic headquarters on West Park Avenue, in which the front window was smashed, Long Beach Democratic Committee Chairman Mike Zapson said. Additionally, Darlene Tangney, a member of the Board of Education and a Democrat who is running for a seat on the County Legislature, has had five tires damaged outside her home over the past few weeks, Zapson said.

“Certainly they feel as if they’re being targeted,” Zapson said. “Certainly it’s made them more determined to get out their message.”