Herald Endorsement

Vote Abrahams in the 1st Legislative District

Posted

Between Kevan Abrahams and Elton McCabe, Jr., the race for L.D. 1 comes down to Abrahams’s deep experience and creativity in his approach to long-term complex issues.

Both Abrahams and McCabe support much greater diversity in the police force, while not holding hostility toward the police as an institution. Abrahams has direct experience of both top police leadership and the rank-and-file officers, an advantage when advocating for his constituents. For his part, McCabe, who has known both biased and unbiased behavior from white police in his lifetime, has a strong sense of how to mediate between police and a wary community. However, Abrahams has energetically developed productive avenues of outreach in his district, and the county needs his experience to keep those avenues progressing.

One of the most distressing coronavirus issues has been that of personal choice, particularly receiving vaccinations. McCabe is convinced that mandates harden resistance against vaccination, and that a better strategy is to penetrate the community with accurate data so people will seek vaccination on their own. Abrahams has not opposed mandates, but has focused his energy and experience on removing barriers to vaccination. He has racked up 18 months of strategies to address the anxieties of the undocumented as well as those who may be suspicious of any new government medical protocol. Abrahams has by far the greater number of connections needed to raise the percentage of the fully vaccinated in the 1st Legislative District from the low 50-something percent to 70 percent.

Both Abrahams and McCabe want infrastructure projects to get as much attention in the district as in wealthier, whiter communities. In the midst of the pandemic, Abrahams and his colleagues have redone Glacken Park in Freeport, accomplished many road-resurfacing projects along Jerusalem Avenue in Uniondale, pushed to upgrade Henry Street Park in Roosevelt and backed the Bay Park Conveyance. McCabe has tirelessly advocated for infrastructure improvements in Uniondale, such as getting streetlights on a dark section of Front Street, but Abrahams is the one who has built a dense record of infrastructure achievement.

The Herald therefore endorses Abrahams in the 1st Legislative District.