County News

Nassau Democrats want oversight on awarding contracts

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Nassau County Legislator Laura Curran (D-Baldwin) held a press conference at the Theodore Roosevelt Nassau County Legislative & Executive Building in Mineola on Aug. 23 in hopes of putting an end to what she called “taxation without representation.” Accompanied by two of her Democratic minority colleagues, Carrié Solages (D-Elmont) and Ellen W. Birnbaum (D-Great Neck), Curran urged her fellow legislators to get involved in the approval of large contracts instead of leaving it up to the seven members of the Legislature’s Rules Committee.

The Democratic minority filed a bill that would require all 19 legislators to vote on any contracts put on their agenda that total $3 million or more. Combined, each legislator represents approximately 70,000 residents. The way the system currently operates, the seven members of the Rules Committee speak for only about a third of the 1.3 million residents of Nassau County, Curran, the lead sponsor of the bill, explained.

“These [other] 840,000 residents have no way to hold accountable the legislators who do vote on multimillion-dollar contracts, because they can’t vote for or against them,” Curran said. “That is not democracy. That’s against the founding principles of our representative conglomerate.”

She also stated that the blame cannot be placed on one party, and that political differences must be set aside to make a change that could benefit all residents.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Curran said. “This is the way it’s always been for the Republicans and Democrats, so let’s not point fingers, and let’s begin to restore the people’s trust in government with one step today.”

On average, the Legislature approves more than $300 million in Rules-only contracts, though, recently, larger sums of money — like a 20-year, $1 billion agreement to privatize the county sewer system — have been considered. Members of the Democratic minority say they believe there should be more transparency among Rules Committee members.

“I agree with Legislator Curran, but in essence, only four people in the Rules Committee are approving these multimillion-dollar contracts,” Solages said. “Rather than having four sets of eyes on one contract, I’d rather have 19 sets of eyes on a contract.”

Birnbaum said that reform is needed to improve the way the county government works, and that she also wants to have a say in the contracts that are put forth.

“I for one like to review all of the resolutions that come before the Legislature,” she said. “I sit in at the Rules Committee, and I’m unable to have a vote on these particular items, which are pertinent to the functioning of our everyday government.”

Curran stated that $3 million seemed like a “substantial” amount of money at which to set the bar, because it would not hinder votes on smaller contracts. She said she was willing to be flexible about the amount, but the minority’s goal is to increase transparency and stop corruption.

Curran and Solages referenced the Rules Committee’s lack of oversight when it approved a contract with AbTech Industries, the company at the center of the scandal involving former State Sen. Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, last year. Sen. Skelos was convicted of corruption for meddling with the approval of a $12 million county contract with AbTech, the company that employed Adam.

“We really started looking at this first as a way to help root out corruption,” Curran said. “I think if you have more vetting of contracts and more pairs of eyes on them and more people asking tough questions, the less possibility for this sort of scandal to occur.”