By:John C. O'Connell
Gulotta's departure means new political and leadership opportunities
Tom Gulotta's decision not to seek reelection as the county's chief executive has Republican and Democrat Party officials -- and voters -- looking at a new campaign landscape, while Nassau residents continue to hold the hope they've always had: that politics takes a back seat to good governance as the county struggles to ascend from its fiscal pit.
After 24 years in elective office, 14 as county executive, Gulotta said last week that he'd like to "undertake new and exciting challenges."
With the top county job free of a running incumbent, and the entire 19-seat county legislature up for reelection, this year will be full of new and exciting challenges for a lot of political players, and citizens can only wish that no matter who wins, the game goes the people's way.
Gulotta's departure and, more important, the actions he takes as a lame duck for the next nine months, will have political and governmental effects, and both will be bundled this election year more than anyone would want. With the state-created Nassau Interim Finance Authority looking over every financial move made, this is arguably the worst year for political posturing and the distractions of candidate self-promotion.
Politics, not as usual
The political situation now for Republicans is that the lightning rod for attack from Democrats has been eliminated. Republicans have been spared a primary in which their candidate, as yet unnamed even as spring arrived, would have to spend precious campaign dollars defeating the incumbent Gulotta and his reported $2.5 million war chest.
"The Democrats certainly wanted to run against him. They were salivating to run against County Executive Gulotta," Tony Santino, Town of Hempstead councilman and Republican Party spokesperson, said. "Now, that's no longer
an option for them, so I think it certainly levels the playing field."
Without naming them, Santino said that "the Republicans certainly have a
number of first-quality candidates that we're considering running as our county executive standard-bearer. And I think the Democrats have a real record that they have to defend, including a vote for a 15 percent tax hike in Nassau County.
"What the county needs now," Santino said, "is obviously for everybody to put politics and political considerations aside and do what's in the best interests of the people of Nassau County. Whether or not in an election year that is really going to happen, the jury is still out. What the county needs is for politics to play a back burner. I'm not exactly sure that that's exactly what could happen, considering what's at stake this year."
Though the party leaders haven't named their standard-bearer, one Republican isn't waiting to be asked. Bruce Bent, a millionaire financier, wants the Republican nod. "I wasn't intimidated by [Gulotta's] war chest and he knew it." Bent has been quoted as saying. "Nassau County has a need for financial expertise and I'm the best of those who've surfaced to fill that need."
Though Republicans hope as much as say that Gulotta's withdrawal has discombobulated Democrat campaign strategies, the Democrats' situation isn't much changed, at least for now.
At political gatherings across the county, for months, state Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli, endorsed just this week by the Long Beach Democratic Club, and Glen Cove Mayor Thomas Suozzi -- the two Democrats headed for a September primary -- have started their speeches by saying the issue isn't about Gulotta, it's about the dangers of one-party - Republican -- rule.
A new dynamic
Their mantra continued last week in statements made by the two hopefuls and by Larry Aaronson, the party's county chairman.
"This has never been about one person. Everything that was done was done
in coordination between the county executive and the [Republican] county legislators," Aaronson told the Herald. "So it's not an issue of one person, but one party. And I truly do believe that if we're going to break from the past, the way to do it is to change the dynamics of the administration, and it has to be a Democratic administration that will look at things in a different light.
Aaronson said "there's going to be a candidate on the other side who has to run on the record of the Republican Party, not just that 'I'm new and don't look at me.' We're running on what we believe. Just in the last year alone, having the Democratic legislators in the majority, I don't think we'd have a NIFA board without that. And I don't think we'd be looking at serious budgets and four-year projections."
"This was never about one person, it's always been about 30 years of Republican rule in the county," DiNapoli told the Herald. "So I think the dynamic of the race really doesn't change. I think certainly there'll be an opportunity to talk very clearly about competing visions of the future, and that certainly will be different without Mr. Gulotta running for reelection. The basic thrust of why this is a time for change for the county, that really isn't altered."
And so, too, Suozzi repeated what he has said at campaign stops even months before he officially announced his run. "Tom Gulotta is only the face of the problem; the real problem is a culture of machine politics that has dominated this county for decades. Tom Gulotta may be leaving, but Nassau County's fiscal crisis remains."
A bottom line
One man who knows that fiscal crisis from the inside is the county's comptroller, Fred Parola, a Republican frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for the executive position.
"I think the bottom line initially is that it's great news for the Republicans and bad news for the Democrats," Parola said of Gulotta's stepping aside. "His absence eliminates, quite obviously, the CEO, the focal point for the mismanagement and the blame game to some extent. So for the Republicans, I think it helps [them] dramatically prepare a united party to move forward in the future.
"For the Democrats, they are in the middle of what I trust will be a very, very vigorous, very, very negative campaign between the two Toms, and their focus quite obviously will be on who can best represent their party. And they're both outsiders."
As for himself, the comptroller said he'll just wait a while. "For any Republican, having Gulotta out of it does clarify the problem or at least make the problem a little easier to see.
"Having said that, I'm still running for county comptroller, but obviously I deal with budgets, and I deal with the problem. I've criticized the situation that got us here, you know, for five years, and I guess ... at least before the political season starts ... everybody's lauded me for pointing out the problems," he said and was quick to note how he was not in a position to do more about those problems.
"My present feeling is that this just happened. I think that the most important thing is for the dust to settle for public officials and the electorate to get used to the idea that Tom Gulotta is not going to be involved. ... I trust that there'll be some polling, maybe some new people will come forward. Certainly I have not totally slammed the door shut, but I've made a conscious effort to try not to focus on it in terms of a decision yet," Parola said.
Dancing with new partners
Besides politics is governance. "Understand something," Dave Vieser, a former press secretary for Gulotta, said last week. "We've never encountered this type of situation before. There was always that entwining of politics and government, and anyone who thinks they aren't is dreaming. Every time there was a contract to be negotiated, you always had the political ramifications to consider.
"The unions have always been traditionally a major source of support for the elected officials on the countywide level," Vieser said. "The CSEA, the PBA, the corrections officers, they have all been significant contributors to the people who run countywide. So there was always that issue in the back of [politicians'] minds, you didn't want to get these guys too upset with you because they were certainly a significant source of support.
"The opportunity that exists is for labor contracts, at least from the standpoint of the executive branch, to be negotiated between the union and the executive unencumbered by political considerations. The whole dynamics of the political structure can change based on [Gulotta's] announcement. Everybody could be dancing with different partners by the end of the year because of this announcement," Vieser said.
