By:John C. O'Connell
Democrats Tom DiNapoli and Tom Suozzi have tenaciously yet diplomatically battled for months for the right to run for county executive, to replace Republican Tom Gulotta who earlier this year announced he will retire. Though the party's convention delegates voted two-to-one in May for DiNapoli, Suozzi and his supporters launched a primary fight, moving the battleground from political club meetings to neighborhoods, television and community forums.
The party's registered voters will decide on Sept. 11 which one will compete against Bruce Bent, the Republican candidate for the county's top job.
There is much on which the two agree. They blame Gulotta, Republican machine politics, one-party rule, patronage, financial mismanagement and a lack of leadership for the county's fiscal mess and poor services.
While there's little difference between the two on what ails the county, each has a plan to restore it to health, strong support from significant portions of the party, and presents his qualifications as the best for treating the afflictions. And they have very different backgrounds, experience and personalities, a fact each uses to help lay claim to the prize.
Who are they?
Both men started their years of public service early.
DiNapoli, 47, has been the state assemblyman for the 16th District in northwest Nassau for 14 years. When he was 18, in 1972, he became the youngest person in New York to hold public office when he was elected as a trustee of the Mineola Board of Education. He served on the school board for 10 years, including two terms as president. Before being elected to the Assembly in 1986, he was employed as a manager for A.T.& T. for 10 years.
DiNapoli was born in Rockville Centre, grew up in Albertson and lives in the Village of Thomaston. He graduated from Mineola High School, holds a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in history and a master's in human resources management from Hofstra University.
Suozzi, who turned 39 on Aug. 31, was the youngest mayor ever elected in Glen Cove eight years ago. He is a graduate of Chaminade High School in Mineola, Boston College and Fordham Law School. An attorney and certified public accountant, he worked for Shearman & Sterling law firm in Manhattan and for Arthur Anderson & Co. as a CPA before being elected mayor on his second try in 1993.
Suozzi comes from a family of Glen Cove politicians. His father, Joseph Suozzi, formerly a State Supreme Court and Appellate judge, was once the city's mayor, as was Tom's uncle, Vincent "Jimmy" Suozzi. He isn't the first in his family to run for county executive, either. Joseph Suozzi ran for the post in 1958 and lost.
What's their plan?
Suozzi has a four-phase proposal he calls his $100 Million Taxpayer Savings Plan. He figures to save $40 million to $54 million in police service civilianization. He plans on saving $10 million to $18.4 million in county real estate consolidation through the expertise of a special advisory board comprised of the county's top real estate and business professionals, including Fred Wilpon, co-owner of the Mets, and Saul Katz, former chairman of North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital System
Phase III calls for saving $10 million to $30 million in employee reductions and the implementation of a performance evaluation system.
Phase IV would save $30 million more by "eliminating the patronage tax." He would rebuild the county's in-house engineering, legal, appraisal, accounting and planning staff, and "stop relying on so many politically connected, outside consultants."
As part of Phase IV, Suozzi pledged to "disqualify political party chairmen from serving in any county position, and party officials from zone leader and above from holding department head or policy making positions in any department other than the Board of Elections." He would hire 100 professionals in-house funded with $10 million that each year would otherwise go to outside contracts, and eliminate an additional $30 million in outside contracts.
DiNapoli has a 10-point plan to reform the tax assessment review process, that would change state law, hire additional staff to process claims quicker, increase technology to expedite reviews and prioritize the order in which the county deals with assessment challenges.
DiNapoli plans to reduce debt by $700 million over 15 years by cutting future borrowing by up to 50 percent, examining new capital projects and ending contracts for the politically connected. He plans to save millions by entering into shared service agreements with towns, villages and cities, "ending wasteful duplication of services such as snow removal and park maintenance," he has said.
DiNapoli plans to "undertake an aggressive plan for his first 100 days to cut wasteful spending, slashing outside contracts by 15 percent or $24 million." His plan calls for instituting a top-to-bottom review of all county departments, implementing performance measurement systems, developing cost-benefit analyses for county programs, providing employee productivity, creativity and innovation incentives and employing private sector management techniques.
The assemblyman also plans to create "economic empowerment zones" to "stimulate economic and family-sustaining jobs for all Nassau's communities."
What have they done?
As the party's chairman for the last county election, DiNapoli helped guide the Democrats to an historic victory in county leadership, a 10-9 majority on the county Legislature. This was considered a major upset to the Republicans, and DiNapoli supporters point to it as an example of their man's strength, resolute leadership and the proven ability to get things done.
In the Assembly, DiNapoli has served as chairman of the Committee on Governmental Operations, Consumer Affairs and Protection, Ethics and Guidance, and the Assembly Task Force on the Long Island Sound. He's chairman of the Committee on Local Governments and co-chair of the Legislative Commission on Water Resource Needs of New York State and Long Island.
According to DiNapoli, he was the first to call for a fiscal watchdog of the county's failing finances in 1992. He introduced legislation in 1999 to provide financial assistance and oversight in response to the fiscal crisis. During the 1999-2000 session, he "helped create bi-partisan support in Albany to help restore responsibility, integrity and stability back to Nassau's finances," the assemblyman said. This law requires the county to begin quarterly budget monitoring and long-term financial planning while providing a mechanism to refinance the county's debt, guaranteeing $5 million in state aid to reduce the backlog of property tax claims, and ensuring direct state funding totaling $105 million over the next five years.
Suozzi is proud of his work in Glen Cove during his eight years in office. He inherited a city with massive deficits. "Our bond rating was one step above junk status and today we have the highest bond rating since the 1970s. And in the year 2000 we had a surplus."
When Suozzi became mayor in 1994, he says, he inherited downtown streets with many empty stores, no money to improve facades, few competitive businesses, no new businesses and almost zero greenery that gave an impression of lifelessness. Now, he says, Glen Cove, a city of about 26,000, has won the Main Street Award from the New York State Conference of Mayors for most revitalized downtown.
Though there are still vacant stores, and the streets remain mostly deserted at night, the improvement is undeniable with a business improvement district organization, new restaurants, coffee cafes, weekend jazz concerts, downtown festivals, flea markets, enhanced facades, planters and well maintained adopt-a-spots.
In addition to financial growth and downtown improvements, Suozzi's major project practically since taking office has been to turn a dangerously polluted and almost abandoned section of the city's otherwise enviable Gold Coast waterfront on the Long Island Sound into a self-sustaining, environmentally rejuvenated regional attraction. The cleanup is still going on with the help of federal, state and local funds, thanks largely to his persuasive efforts in bringing usually competing agencies together. Thousands of people from all over Long Island visited the city's America Sail tall ship celebration in 1998 and waterfront festivals in '99 and 2000 staged held off the never-polluted Morgan Park beach.
Who's for them?
Many party faithful remember DiNapoli's service in 1999, and want to support the candidate who helped their party regain credibility and potency. Primary voters may see DiNapoli's ability to lead so many Legislative campaigns to success as evidence of his low-key effectiveness. Add his own seven-time Assembly wins in North Hempstead and voters may fairly reckon he's a proven and electable contender against Bent in November.
Though he didn't get the nod at the May convention, Suozzi did win a third of the delegates, so Suozzi is hardly without support from a significant portion of party loyalists. Suozzi's polished poise and attractive charm, his command of data and his clear articulation of problems and plans have made him an impressive presence in rooms of voters he's visited throughout the county in a ceaseless campaign.
DiNapoli has an extensive list of endorsements from well-known political figures and organizations. The list includes U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, NYS Comptroller H. Carl McCall, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Congressman Gary Ackerman, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, the County Legislature's presiding officer Judy Jacobs, former New York State Assemblywoman Barbara Patton, Alternate Deputy Presiding Officer Legislator Lisanne Altman, Legislators Patrick Williams, Joe Scannell, Craig Johnson, Town of North Hempstead Supervisor May Newburger, North Hempstead Town Councilman Tony D'Urso, Hempstead Town Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby, North Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Ann Galante, North Hempstead Town Clerk Michelle Schimel, Oyster Bay Town Council Martha Offerman, Long Beach City Council President Joel Crystal, Long Beach City Council members Barbara Mosca, Edmund Buscemi, Scott K. Nigro and Denis Kelly.
"I have never made an endorsement before," McCarthy said last week, "and actually made it a policy not to get involved at this level in any election other than my own. However, given the critical nature of this race, given the fact that I have known Tom DiNapoli for over 20 years, and know him to be a man of integrity, honesty and ability, I am comfortable breaking tradition to make this endorsement."
DiNapoli received the Democratic Party's endorsement at the convention, and is also endorsed by the Independence Party, the Working Families Party and the Liberal Party.
DiNapoli is also endorsed by locals of many unions, including the Service Employees International Union, the Civil Service Employees Association, Public Employees Federation, Long Island Federation of Labor, Court Officers Benevolent Association, Transportation Workers Union, Nassau Community College Federation of Teachers, Communications Workers Association, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, the Retail Workers Department Stores Union and the Union of Needle and Industrial Trades Employees.
He is also endorsed by the National Organization for Women Alliance PAC for Long Island, Inc., the Long Island Chapter of the Americans for Democratic Action and the Long Beach Democratic Committee.
Suozzi is not without his own impressive endorsements, but points to DiNapoli's long list as evidence that DiNapoli is the "insider," not the fresh "outsider" needed to change the culture of political patronage.
The Green Party endorses Suozzi, as do locals of the Carpenters Union, The Laborers Union, the League of Conservation Voters, county Legislators Mike Zapson, Brian Muellers, Roger Corbin, Dave Dennenburg and Jeff Toback, and PARC Nassau, a group concerned with parks issues.
What are they like?
The two men's personalities are apparently very different.
Suozzi seems to be the more extraverted of the two, as capable of a quick and winning smile and graceful glad hand as he is of a perturbed and red-faced frown and fast, formidable retort. Though some see him as brash, audacious and egotistical, others find Suozzi's used such aggressive traits not only to his advantage but to Glen Cove's as well. It was his ambitious drive and pushy persistence that not only got him elected mayor four times but also led and coordinated the often intransigent federal, state and local bureaucracies, and businesses, to come together to begin the revitalization of the city's waterfront and improve the downtown business section.
DiNapoli seems more reserved, but has an easy laugh and engaging style. He has an almost ever-present look of determination. People who know him say he's earnest, hard working, serious, soft-spoken, conscientious and friendly. In debates and forums, DiNapoli has displayed a charming demeanor while at the same time expressing his views in an insistent way. Many find his style reflective of one who would conciliate and coordinate rather than being bossy or self-promoting.
