Maureen Basdavanos: disarming deputy

Deputy Mayor Maureen Basdavanos never imagined she’d be sitting where she is. Born Maureen Moran, she is the daughter of Irish immigrants who came to the U.S. as adolescents.

“We always worked,” she said. “Like many immigrant families, we didn’t have much, and everyone had to contribute what they could. My parents were the only ones in the family who made the trip, so each summer, we’d go to Ireland and work on our family’s farm.”

She said the family would leave “as soon as school was out, and we didn’t come back until the day before it started up again.” As she remembered, that those were good days, as much for the time spent with family as for the feeling of working together.

After graduating from North Shore High School (“No, I’m not a native”), Basdavanos spent a year at the Katherine Gibbs School in Melville in the advanced secretarial program. After that, to work, first for Coca-Cola in Garden City as an executive secretary and administrative assistant.

From there, she moved to Sea Cliff to work as the assistant office manager at the health center. Along the way came marriage and the birth of her son Sean (with the Irish spelling, she said with a smile). This was followed by increasingly responsible positions as office manager, bookkeeper, and assistant to the director at a variety of organizations, including the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation. She was also active in the community as a member of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, and with Glen Cove C.A.R.E.S. – once she moved to Glen Cove.

So, the inevitable question: How did she end up working in the mayor’s office? “I loved working at Smithers,” she said, “and when it ended, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. I knew [former mayor] Ralph Suozzi from my work in the community. And everybody knew him. We’d meet socially from time to time, but I never had any idea of working for him.”

But they kept running into each other, and on one of these occasions he broached the idea of Basdavanos coming on board as his deputy. “At first, I said no,” she said. “I had no experience in politics and no interest, really.” But he asked her every few months, “and my husband gave me a nudge or two, and eventually, I said yes.”

At first, she shied away from the title. “I told him, ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’” she said, “‘but do I have to be called deputy?’” It’s clear that by now, she has grown much more comfortable with the title.

She worked for Suozzi from 2008 to 2013. “I was mostly his deputy in a traditional sense,” she said. “I kept him organized and kept the office running smoothly. I didn’t have anything to do with the projects” that were becoming an increasingly large part of the political as well as physical landscape in Glen Cove. “We were a good team.”

When Suozzi lost his re-election bid to Reginald Spinello in 2013, “I didn’t stay on,” she said, “[Mayor Spinello] had his own deputy in mind, but I don’t think I would have stayed even if I’d been asked. We had different styles.”

Between stints at City Hall, she took some time off. “We had some family stuff, my mother-in-law needed more and more care, until we finally moved her in with us,” she said. When the 2017 campaign came around, then-councilman Tenke asked her to come and work with him. “I thought about turning him down, but my husband told me to do what I wanted to do. So, I said yes.”

In the election, “I did whatever needed to be done,” she said. When Tenke won in a three-vote squeaker he asked her to return.

So, what does a deputy mayor do? “Every mayor is different,” Basdavanos said. With Suozzi, “I mainly just ran the administrative side of things, worked on events and local stuff.” But now, under the new administration, “I’m more involved in the projects,” such as the Garvies Point development. Tenke “wants another pair of eyes on things. He wants another pair of ears in a meeting.” Tenke and Basdavanos have known each other for “10 or 12 years,” she said, or nearly Tenke’s entire career in government.

“What I enjoy most about the job is the ability to make a difference in people’s lives,” Basdavanos said. “I know, that’s kind of the standard answer. But it’s true. I’m in a position to get things done, to be of help. What I like least is the politics. At some point, it becomes toxic. But I know it comes with the job.”