POLITICS

Mangano: Nassau on right track

County exec focuses on private investment, affordable living

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In his State of the County speech Wednesday night in East Meadow, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano painted a bright picture of Nassau’s present and future, touting his administration’s efforts to attract young people and families to the county, spur growth in the private sector, downsize government and hold down taxes.

Mangano gave the address, which was televised on News12 and FIOS, at Twin Rinks, Eisenhower Park’s new indoor ice skating facility — one of many county projects funded at least in part by private money, which he sought to highlight. (The text of the speech included the words “public-private partnership” 13 times.) He spoke at a podium installed on the ice, with Republican county legislators seated to his right and Democrats to his left. Dozens of county officials and guests sat in the bleachers.

Mangano described the county’s financial state in positive terms, saying, “We’ve improved Nassau’s finances by 60 percent.” He boasted of recruiting companies like the Hain Celestial Group, Dealertrack Technologies and Display Technologies to move their headquarters to Nassau, emphasized growth in the county’s health care industry, claimed a “20 percent reduction in the size of government,” took credit for reducing unemployment — though it has declined nationally — and put a premium on keeping property taxes flat.

“This year is the sixth straight year in which households earning under a half a million dollars annually will not pay a net dime more than they did in 2010,” he said.

In fact, last year Mangano proposed a 3.4 percent property tax levy increase and vetoed legislators’ attempts to block it, despite winning re-election in 2013 on an anti-tax-increase platform. But homeowners in municipalities that stayed below a state property tax cap last year received checks from Albany for the amount their taxes increased.

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