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Fog/Mist Mangano speaks at Oceanside Civic meeting
Talks about measures he's taken, answers residents' questions
Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano came to an Oceanside Civic Association meeting on July 23 to speak to residents about what he has done to fix the county’s problems. He also answered audience members’ questions.
About 30 people came to listen to Mangano, barely filling the Knights of Columbus hall where the meeting was held. He gave a presentation on the current state of the county, outlining the problems it is facing and the reforms his administration has made to combat them.
“Reform is a very tough business,” Mangano said. “But it’s necessary to get our fiscal house in order.”
All of the problems that he outlined, including the county’s broken property-assessment system, the high property taxes residents pay and the county’s deficit, come down to how much money the county has, he explained.
Mangano said that he has worked to increase county revenues without hiking taxes. To do so, he reformed the assessment system and made hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts. He cut $200 million in spending and slashed the county work force by nearly 20 percent — 1,976 positions since he took office — to save an additional $150 million.
He also detailed the public-private partnerships he fostered, including bringing in Veolia to run the new NICE bus system instead of the old MTA Long Island Bus, which, he said, would have cost taxpayers more money. The new bus system, Mangano said, saves more than $30 million annually.
He also addressed a subject of ongoing debate, the proposal to bring in a private enterprise to run the county’s sewage treatment plants. “It is something that I am a proponent [of] that we continue to discuss …,” Mangano said. “And if that is not something that the public wants, then obviously it’s not something that we’d go forward with. But it’s something that you need to understand and consider before you summarily dismiss it. Because the other options are much more painful in order to get this system under control. And it needs to be addressed. It’s not something you can just say no to. It’s not going to go away and fix itself.”
