By Doug Miller
Suozzi faces a challenge in his re-election bid from Republican Greg Peterson, the East Meadow resident and former presiding officer of the old Nassau County Board of Supervisors.
The two candidates are separated by more than just generations. It's North Shore vs. South Shore. Glen Cove vs. Hempstead. Fordham vs. St. John's. And to hear Suozzi tell it, it's a campaign of yesterday vs. tomorrow.
He's not shy about telling his story, which his supporters call the "Mineola Miracle."
In 2001, Nassau County was in deep trouble, up to its neck in debt and facing the same humiliation that claimed its West Coast counterpart, Orange County, Calif., and then county executive Tom Gullotta chose not to seek re-election. It was the first time the Democrats thought they had a shot at the seat, and the blood, as they say, was in the water.
After dispatching the Democratic establishment's preferred candidate, Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli, in a heated primary election that was delayed by the events of Sept. 11, Suozzi made short work of the Republican candidate, Bruce Bent, whom Suozzi tagged as a Gullotta clone. He claims that the government he took over was in even worse shape than he had described during that campaign. The debt exceeded $425 million, he said.
"We were rated the worst-run county in the country by the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University," Suozzi recalled. "We had massive deficits, our bond rating was one step above junk-bond status, the front-page stories were about the county going bankrupt, a state financial control board was put in place, and while the economy was booming throughout the U.S., Nassau County had these massive deficits."
His solution was a five-point plan. "We cut the county's work force to the smallest it was in 30 years," Suozzi said. "We cut out $100 million in waste, fraud and abuse. I sought and achieved concessions from the unions, particularly the police union. ... I cut the county's borrowing in half. And I raised the county's property taxes that first year by 19.4 percent.
"At that time, I pledged I would not raise them again. The result has been we've balanced every budget, had a surplus every year. We paid off $100 million worth of debt early. We have $200 million in rainy-day funds. We have not raised taxes for three years in a row."
For Peterson, the decision to go after Suozzi was one he made cautiously. Content in his retirement from public life, he was enjoying his law practice and emerging from a dark period after the death of his wife in 2001. For a man who has always been a part of the political mix - his first campaign was in 1971 - saying never again is not an option. Of all the names thrown about by the GOP as challengers to Suozzi, his soon rose to the top.
Going after Suozzi seemed foolhardy at first, Peterson said, until he looked at the numbers. "I did it only after I took a poll," he said. "I wanted to make sure I at least had a chance to win. Obviously it showed that Mr. Suozzi had wide support, but that it was rather thin. And once you started to talk about issues, that support really kind of diminished."
And which issues are those? "He came into office obviously facing a very dire financial situation," Peterson said of Suozzi. "The county was overspending, and had actually cut revenue, giving out 2 and 3 percent tax decreases, which I guess is a wise political thing to do, but it led to a shortfall, especially when you don't control your spending.
"Suozzi came in with the promise, 'Give me six months, and I will not raise taxes.' Well, the first thing he did was raise taxes 19.4 percent."
(In the Sept. 6, 2001, issue of the Herald, then candidate Suozzi was quoted as saying, "Right now I don't think we need to raise taxes. I'm not making any pledge that I'm not raising taxes, but based on what I've learned and my $100 million tax saving plan, I don't think we'll need a tax increase.")
Peterson continued: "My attitude is, you really didn't need to hit double-digit tax increases. The political advantage to doing that, of course, is bang the public hard the first year, coast the rest of the time until you're up for re-election and hope the people forget.
"And we are trying to remind everyone, 'No, he did this in the first year,' and I don't think it was appropriate. There was also a tremendous amount of money given to him by [the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority] and the state Legislature. He didn't do it without help."
Any other issues?
"One thing I plan to change when I get into office is that assessment," he said. "The fact that the taxpayer has no chance, from one year to the next, to catch their financial breath. ... The assessment goes up, and even if there is no tax increase, their taxes go up. ... To be fair to the taxpayer, we should make re-assessments every five years. That way, the taxpayer can grieve the assessment, get their money back, so ... the government hasn't spent your money already. I want to teach the county to live within the bounds of the taxes they collect."
The Hub
Suozzi made headlines with his plans for what he is calling the Nassau County Hub, the trapezoid of land stretching from Eisenhower Park in East Meadow to Old Country Road in Hicksville to downtown Garden City to the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale. The centerpiece is a 60-plus-story mixed-use tower, to be built by Charles Wang, that would not only dwarf every other structure east of the East River but feature a lighthouse on top to boot.
Suozzi's plan for the Hub includes public transportation, an expansion of services in Eisenhower Park, more retail and work force housing. The goal is to make the area an attractive and hip place that will stem the county's so-called Mite Flight, the trend of young people moving to less expensive, and less snowy, parts of the country.
The plan has drawn fire from all corners. There has been predictable, if rather substanceless, criticism from county Republicans. But there have also been concerns expressed by environmental groups, economists and just about every good-government watchdog group, many of whom dismissed the idea as a headline-grabbing stunt.
Suozzi has backed off on some of the proposals - his enthusiasm for an Eisenhower Park petting zoo, for instance, is noticeably cooler - but continues to defend and remain enthusiastic about the project as a whole. The snags it has hit are political, he said.
"Some people don't want things to happen in election years, and some people are sort of immobilized during these periods because they don't want to take any chances," Suozzi said. "If there is one thing that's true about me, it's that I set out a very, very dramatic long-term goal for things. I set out a very aggressive vision for where I want to take things. This is not about this year or next year. It's about five years and 10 years and 50 years."
But Suozzi has heard his share of criticism on the proposal's scope, and his initial reluctance to put the whole thing out to bid. "If you were selling a used car, what would be the first thing you did?" Peterson asked. "You'd check the classifieds to see what it's worth. ... Here they did it by flying by the seat of their pants. They didn't do their homework. There are no environmental studies. There is no idea of the traffic impact of 9,500 cars in that area. But it sounds nice."
He called the whole thing a diversion. "The Trojan horse goes into the area, then what happens? It just becomes a big real estate transaction," Peterson said. "And it's going to make somebody a tremendous amount of money, and it's going to be something we're stuck with for a long time to come."
Crime and police
The county has been plagued by a series of "push-in" burglaries, in which homes are robbed while the residents are home. It's the type of crime that strikes terror in the hearts of average homeowners because it is random, violent and invasive. Avoiding such crime is why people move to the suburbs.
Suozzi has been under attack almost from the day he took office from the Nassau PBA, which has claimed that the concessions Suozzi won from the union were nothing more than layoffs that left the community unprotected. The PBA has endorsed Peterson as a result.
Suozzi seems to enjoy the battle. "There will always be entrenched forces that benefit from the way things currently are," he said. "The PBA has the best contract for a police force in the United States of America. Suffolk's might be better now, since we got some concessions from them. Anyway, I have to oversee 47 departments in the county government and a $2.3 billion budget. That's 47 businesses I have to run, in addition to campaigning, fund-raising and making appearances.
"People say, well, why don't you get concessions from the PBA?" Suozzi continued. "So we did. But that's one thing out of 47 I have to do. Meanwhile, the PBA spends 24 hours a day, seven days a week thinking up ways to keep things the way they are or improve what they have. ... This is a group with $3 million in the bank that wants to fight like hell to keep things the way they are, and will spend a million on TV ads and literature designed to scare people."
Governor Suozzi?
Suozzi has raised millions for this race, in comparison with the thousands Peterson has collected. Peterson shrugged it off, saying that most of the money Suozzi raised will be saved for a future campaign against Attorney General Elliot Spitzer for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2006 governor's race.
Suozzi's reluctance to talk about his future ambitions has thawed to some extent, and he told the Herald this month that while a campaign for governor sounds inviting, it can only stem from continued success in his current job.
"I can't run for higher office unless I do a good job in the job I'm in now," he said. "I'm very flattered by the talk, and I appreciate the attention, but I'm going to keep doing the best I can. I'm not going to rule out a run for higher office in the future, but in order to do so, I have to make sure of a couple of things: one, that my wife and children support me in doing it; two, that I have a good record to run on; and three, that if I run for higher office, I'll be able to do more for the people I currently serve."
Comments about this story? DMiller@ liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
