Delia DeRiggi-Whitton: It’s time for the county executive to do his job

As I enter my 14th year as a Nassau County Legislator and reflect on my time in office, it dawned on me that I have served for all of those years as a member of the Legislature’s minority caucus. While there have been disagreements with county executives and my colleagues in the majority along the way, I have always maintained cordial and productive relationships, and worked with county executives of both parties to get things done for my district and the county’s taxpayers.

Since Bruce Blakeman took office as county executive in 2022, however, progress on crucial initiatives, grants and capital infrastructure proposals has stalled — and minority caucus-represented areas have shouldered a disproportionate impact. To get all areas of the county back on the right track, I urge the Blakeman administration to begin addressing these key priorities:

Finalize a comprehensive, equitable capital plan that invests in the communities of all 19 legislative districts. Per the Nassau County Charter, a capital plan must be adopted by Dec. 15 each year — but the Blakeman administration has achieved this only once in the past three years. The 2025 plan is once again running late, jeopardizing economic growth, good jobs and increased safety and quality of life generated by these projects.

Get the politics out of CRP grants. Since the beginning of 2024, the majority has received more than 30 Community Revitalization Program grants, and the minority has received none. Some grant proposals for volunteer firefighters, village police departments and other first responders in minority districts have been held up for years. These funds need to get out to our communities regardless of legislators’ party affiliation.

Blakeman promised to “fix” the county’s assessment system. He hasn’t — and it’s only gotten worse. His administration has frozen the assessed values of our properties for three consecutive years. With each passing year, the tax rolls become even more unfair and distorted. The administration must live up to its promises and put the people ahead of the big tax-grievance firms that donate heavily to his campaigns and profit handsomely off a broken system. Until then, the best way to protect yourself from overtaxation is to grieve your home’s assessed value, and the deadline to do so is March 3.

We need real solutions to stabilize the future of Nassau University Medical Center. NUMC is an essential part of our regional health care matrix, a Level 1 trauma center with a state-of-the-art burn center and an in-demand drug detox facility. Moreover, it serves as a lifeline for some of the county’s most economically vulnerable patients. The Blakeman administration must stop treating this vital facility like a political football and have a serious conversation with the state about keeping it open.

Distribute the opioid funding the county has been sitting on for years. In the past several years, the county has received nearly $100 million in settlement funds from the distributors, manufacturers and retailers of the addictive opioids that continue to devastate families. But the Blakeman administration has only spent roughly $3.3 million of that money to date. It is infuriating that so many people have died in the past year while settlement funds sat in bank accounts collecting interest, and the ordinance currently making its way through the Legislature to create a grant portal for agencies on the front lines of addiction, treatment, prevention and recovery services is long, long overdue.

Last, but certainly not least, disband the dangerous, illegal militia. Nassau County has one of America’s best-trained police departments, and it is instrumental in making us the safest county of our size year after year. An armed militia with minimal training by the county — regardless of its participants’ previous experience or background — is not something the public or police ever asked for or needed, and Blakeman has no legal authority to marshal such a force. End the militia and allow our outstanding law enforcement professionals to do their jobs without interference.

Blakeman took an oath to serve all of Nassau’s 1.4 million residents, but his hyper-partisan approach and failure to deliver on promises has been evident throughout the past three years. We deserve better, and addressing these key issues would be a step in the right direction for an administration that has routinely focused on matters far beyond its proper jurisdiction or control.

Delia DeRiggi-Whitton represents Nassau County’s 11th Legislative District and is the Legislature’s minority leader