Toback defends his record

To the Editor:

The surest sign that Election Day is right around the corner is a vitriolic letter to the editor bashing Jeff Toback by Republican attack dog Thomas Pellegrino ("Toback's promises don't match his record," Sept. 2-8). This time, Pellegrino attempts to inject his admittedly angry rhetoric into a Democratic primary. Interesting. (Pellegrino says he's "mad," but in third grade at School 8, Mrs. Goldberg taught us, "People get angry, dogs get mad.")

Mr. Pellegrino correctly points out that in my decade in office, county taxes were raised several hundred dollars a year, but he fails to include the perspective that during that same period, his Republican cronies in the Town of Hempstead raised their various tax levies by a similar amount. He also fails to recall — or give me any credit for — the 13 bond rating increases garnered by the county on my watch. Hmmm.

Taxpayers in Nassau County — a well-informed electorate — know that our real tax burden is school taxes. Pellegrino's man in Tuesday’s Democratic Assembly primary, the 21-year incumbent Harvey Weisenberg, candidly admitted last week that he couldn't fix the formula that costs each taxpayer in the 20th Assembly District thousands of dollars a year. My No. 1 priority in Albany will be to fight to fix the state's school aid formula that punishes the residents of Oceanside, Island Park and the surrounding communities thousands of dollars a year.

If I am successful and put a few thousand dollars a year back into Mr. Pellegrino's pocket, maybe he'll stop being so mad.

Jeff Toback

Oceanside