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Mostly Cloudy Herald Life chats with Bellmore-Merrick’s county legislators
After Nov. 5 election, winners discuss plans for next term
The 2013 election saw the return of two longtime incumbent Nassau County legislators who represent the Bellmore-Merrick area — David Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick, and Norma Gonsalves, a Republican from East Meadow — along with a newcomer — Laura Curran, a Democrat from Baldwin who now represents a small sliver of Merrick on the community’s western border with Freeport.
The Herald Life spoke this past week with the three legislators about what they hope to accomplish in the their upcoming term.
Norma Gonsalves
Gonsalves, the Legislature’s presiding officer and a 15-year legislator, expressed her gratitude to voters for awarding her another term.
“I’m going to continue to serve and do the best I can to meet the needs of my constituents,” Gonsalves said. “And I truly say thank you to them all for maintaining that trust and confidence in me.”
She said that her top priority in office will be working to ensure that the county is fiscally healthy and prosperous.
“The major thing I want to make sure we continue to work at is the fiscal stability of the county,” Gonsalves said. “We have to continue to find every means to keep taxes stable, to create the jobs and make sure that Nassau County continues to be the best place to work and raise a family. That’s what I want to see.”
Predicting strides in these directions in the coming months, Gonsalves said she particularly looks forward to the redevelopment of Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, and “that materializing into a job creator.”
Dave Denenberg
Denenberg captured 55 percent of the vote in the 19th Legislative District to his Republican opponent Steve Rhoads’s 39 percent. He told the Herald Life on Election Night that it was “humbling and gratifying to be re-elected with such a plurality, particularly given the over-the-top negative campaign against me and the registration disadvantage I have in this district.
“I always feel that voters are much smarter than elected officials and campaigns give them credit for,” he continued. “So I stayed positive and worked hard.”
