By Brian Zanzonico
Balboni, a Republican, is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs, which supervises and approves legislation relating to the broad scope of homeland security. Weapons of mass destruction, computer and information technology security, state and local emergency planning, biological and chemical terrorism, agricultural terrorism and other terrorism-related crimes all fall within this committee's purview.
After losing friends in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Balboni said he was driven to make changes in the way the state was protected. In response to the terror attacks, he sponsored the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, which increased penalties for people who commit terrorist acts, make terrorist threats or render assistance to terrorists in the state. When he became chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs in 2003, he supervised the overhaul of state anti-terrorism laws, criminalizing biological and chemical terror acts, setting up security requirements for small airports and instituting procedures for securing chemical plants against terror attacks.
In 2004, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge appointed Balboni to a national task force that investigated how the stream of homeland security dollars flowed from the federal government to local communities. Protecting the state - and his district - from the threat or terrorism is Balboni's top priority, he said. "If bad guys could get their hands on biological or chemical weapons, they would use them," he said. "I believe that."
Hand, a Democrat, works in the inspector's department at the Nassau County Board of Elections. He was a legal aide in the state Assembly in 1997, has served as deputy receiver of taxes in the Town of North Hempstead and is making his first bid for elective office. Running for the state Senate because current legislators "have put a Band-Aid on a wound," Hand said that despite Balboni's work with Homeland Security, the state is not much safer.
"I don't think [Homeland Security has] done a great job," Hand said. "They throw around money, but cargo at ports are still not being checked. They're using money in crazy ways."
Hand said that Balboni secured a $100,000 grant to secure the Williston Park Water District, which he called an example of monetary misuse. "I didn't know we were a target," said Hand, who lives in Williston Park.
School daze
Hand, like many taxpayers, said that school taxes are slowly breaking the backs of the middle class. He suggested what he characterized as simple ways to lessen the tax burden. In lieu of budgeting for snow removal in district spending plans, Hand said, school officials should contact local village and town governments about taking over the job. In addition, he said that school board trustees should be paid. If they received salaries and were given more training on budgeting, they would be more motivated and a better understanding of what can and cannot be trimmed from a spending plan. "Some of these budgets dwarf those of most businesses," he said.
To further pare down school taxes, Hand suggested putting an end to revotes. If a budget failed once, he said, the school district would operate on an austerity budget. "That way, [school officials] would have to find way to cut administrative costs and come up with creative ways to control costs," he said.
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