New county exec has many issues to tackle

It is at last official: Republican Ed Mangano of Bethpage, a 14-year Nassau County legislator, is our new county executive, having defeated two-term Executive Tom Suozzi by the slimmest of margins.

We congratulate Mangano, and wish him all the best when he takes office in January. He ran a clean, grass-roots campaign that resonated with the people. He got out the vote the old-fashioned way, by walking door to door, shaking hands and talking up the issues. There were no bells and whistles, no multi-million-dollar TV ads, just solid politicking.

Our only concern with Mangano was the lack of specificity in his campaign platform. He campaigned, for example, to repeal a 2.5 percent energy tax, instituted this year by the Suozzi administration, but Mangano said little about how he would make up for the loss in revenue if the tax were axed.

This is what the Herald had to say about Mangano during the campaign season:

“He has a proven record of service to Nassau County. He is, by all accounts, a friendly, intelligent, articulate man. Like so many in the GOP, Mangano is calling for the energy tax to be repealed, but he offers no real plan to make up for the inevitable shortfall in the county budget that would follow if he were to succeed in rescinding it. What he does not want to say, of course, is that services would need to be reduced — big time.”

Now that Mangano is in office, he has a responsibility to the people of Nassau to swiftly offer a plan for filling the multi-million-dollar budget gap that repealing the energy tax would create — which appears increasingly likely, given that Republicans now also control the county Legislature, and have the power to rescind the tax. But do they have the political will to also cut funding for our parks, our social services and, potentially, our police force?

During the election season, Mangano also pledged to overhaul the county’s property-tax assessment system. That’s a tall order. We suggest that he proceed slowly, study the issue and keep the county’s appointed assessor, Thaddeus Jankowski, a highly trained professional, on board and give him the latitude to do his job.

Mangano said he fully supports the Lighthouse project, a sweeping proposal to overhaul Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and its environs in Uniondale, with two skyscrapers, high-end shops and a variety of sports venues. The project is desperately needed to increase tax revenue, put people to work in construction jobs and revitalize the county’s Hub. We hope Mangano will take a leadership role on this issue and encourage the Hempstead Town Board to work quickly to reach a decision on the project, yea or nay.

Finally, Mangano pledged to offer low-interest county loans to homeowners to install renewable-energy systems in their homes, such as solar, wind and even geothermal. In this way, the county would help promote the renewable-energy industry, put people to work installing the systems and help the environment by reducing harmful emissions from natural-gas and especially oil heating systems. We like this idea, and hope Mangano will stay true to his word.

The challenges the county executive-elect and the Republican-controlled Legislature face are enormous. In a month they will be handed the keys to the county. Suozzi helped return it to fiscal stability after a decade of profligate spending under a Republican administration, and for this we owe him a debt of gratitude. It will now be up to Mangano to continue making progress. That will require fiscal restraint and, equally important, bipartisan cooperation.

We believe Mangano is up to the task. Time will tell.