By Nick Buglione
Calling the mailings -- sent to roughly 250,000 homes in the town starting March 3 -- an irresponsible use of taxpayer money, officials believe its circulation was a political stunt pitting the Republican town supervisor, Kate Murray (R-Levittown), against the Democrat-controlled county.
Murray maintains, however, that the mailing was sent out in protest of a fee that is patently unfair, and that it was not politically motivated. "There's absolutely no political component from my standpoint," said Murray, who is up for election in November after being appointed just six weeks ago to fill the vacancy created when Richard Guardino resigned. "This is a financial issue only."
After media reports surfaced that the county was considering seeking state approval to charge a $25 fee to any homeowner who challenges a future assessment, Murray and Hempstead Town Receiver of Taxes Don Clavin called a Feb. 11 news conference in protest.
"[Clavin] was getting a lot of calls from constituents who were concerned about the $25 fee," Murray said. "He brought this issue to my attention."
Weeks after the news conference, the town sent out a mass mailing to residents informing them of the issue. With Murray and Clavin's pictures prominently featured, the letter urged people to "add your voice to those of friends and neighbors who want the county administration to know just how strongly we oppose this proposed fee."
The letter also asked that residents sign an enclosed petition slip and send it to Hempstead Town Hall. According to officials, they've since received about 5,000 signed slips, with a steady flow still coming in.
Considering that Nassau's assessment system has been rife with error, charging any fee for a challenge seems to "add insult to injury," Murray said. "That's why we felt we had to go out against this issue."
Yet the county doesn't believe Murray is telling the whole story. "This is a political campaign being run out of Hempstead Town Hall," said Bruce Nyman, a spokesman for County Executive Thomas Suozzi.
The town's use of taxpayer money to send out the politically charged material is unethical, Nyman added. "We have received more phone calls and e-mails from people outraged by these letters than anything else," he said, "because they know it's nonsense."
At press time, it was not yet known just how much the mailing cost the town. Peter Ruffner, vice chairman of the Nassau County Democratic Committee, believes the sum is considerable.
"The newly appointed supervisor of Hempstead Town has been wasting, by some estimates, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars with an ill-conceived publicity campaign disguised as governmental public-service literature," Ruffner said. "Murray has been trying to increase her name recognition among the residents of the town. Fortunately for the Democratic Party, all she is doing is associating her name with wasting taxpayers' dollars."
A local political expert, asked by the Herald to review a copy of one of the town letters, also saw problems with it. "There's an aroma here that's troublesome," the expert said, noting that if it simply informed residents of the potential fee and solicited their opinions, there would be no controversy. "It's using taxpayers' money to take a position that not all taxpayers might agree with."
Representatives of the Nassau County Republican Committee declined to comment about any involvement it might have had in the mailings.
Why Murray decided to go public with the issue, instead of first communicating her misgivings to Suozzi, has also raised questions in the county. The county executive "took [the proposal] to the [state] Legislature, and we took it to the residents," Murray said in response, stressing that "this is not a fight between Tom Suozzi and Kate Murray."
But it was the state-appointed Nassau Interim Finance Authority, not Suozzi, that initially came up with the idea of charging $25 for assessment challenges as a way to generate revenue for the county. Insiders believe there's a good chance this fee will never be instituted anyway.
Even if it were, officials said, it wouldn't seem so outrageous a sum considering that the financially strapped county shells out several million dollars a year to conduct assessment-challenge proceedings.
"The grievance process is a county issue, and we have 12 county legislators within the boundary of Hempstead Town to address this matter," Ruffner said.
