By:Doug Miller
threats to the region's fiscal health and prosperity, and offers the revitalization of the county's
many downtowns as a way of spurring growth.
Referring to it as "downtown Long Island," Suozzi
proposed redeveloping Nassau's "Hub" - the area encompassing Mineola, Roosevelt Field, Eisenhower Park,
the Coliseum, Nassau Community College, Museum Row, Hofstra, downtown Hempstead and Garden City - to
help curb the exodus of young people from the county and save the region from its current destiny of
"higher taxes, lower services and worse traffic."
The area needs better and more effectively
routed public transportation and more affordable housing in order to flourish, Suozzi said.
He
outlined these proposals and reiterated many of the points he made in his State of the County address
during a meeting with the Herald's editorial board last Thursday.
Suozzi is bundling this agenda
of reforms under what he is calling the "New Suburbia." "New Suburbia is marrying the idea of the dream
of suburbia - single-family homes, white picket fences, baseball fields, low crime, low unemployment,
all the things we love about suburbia - with these new ideas of targeted industries in targeted
locations that will expand our tax base and improve our quality of life," he said.
To that end,
Suozzi has started the Nassau County Planning Federation, to get the 62 villages, three towns and two
cities that each have their own zoning authorities to share ideas and determine what should be the
model zoning codes. "We need to get some examples of uniform zoning codes that encourage the
reinvigoration of our downtowns; that encourage affordable housing for young people and senior citizens
and that encourages investment in minority communities," he said.
Albany could help
Suozzi stressed
that little can be accomplished in terms of the county's future growth until elected officials in
Albany fix the way Medicaid is paid for in New York state. The costs of financing Medicaid are
currently borne by the federal government, the state and the county. The federal government pays 50
percent and the state 25 percent, and the state mandates that the county pays 25 percent. Sixty-seven
percent of non-police-allocated Nassau County property taxes go toward paying Medicaid costs.
Suozzi
has called for New York state to cap the amount individual counties have to pay for Medicaid. Nassau
simply cannot afford its share, and neither can other counties, he said. State political leaders must
reduce some of the Medicaid benefits, raise income taxes, or both, but the maximum amount county
residents must pay must be lowered.
Empire zones
Suozzi repeatedly stressed that state
representatives need to provide Nassau County with the empire zones needed to spur industry. Empire
zones are urban or blighted areas that are redeveloped to attract industry. New industries usually
receive subsidies on their property taxes or lease payments.
"There are 72 Empire Zones in New York
in 55 counties," he said. "Suffolk County has three. New York City has 10. Nassau has zero."
Suozzi
pointed to two industries he believes will bring in the revenue and young workers he sees as the key to
the county's growth: high-technology - with the highly paid, skilled workers who can afford the cost of
living here - and tourism.
But the key is making housing more affordable, he said.
In his
State of the County address, Suozzi summarized where he believes the county stands. He said that the
fiscal mess he inherited from the previous administration has largely been straightened out. "We have
balanced every budget we have administered, accumulated surpluses each year and paid off almost $100
million in debt early," he said. Suozzi was proud to say that in 2003, the county was the only
municipality in the country to have received two bond upgrades from both Moody's and Standard and
Poor's. For the first time since the 1990s, Nassau was upgraded by a Wall Street credit-rating agency
to the "A" ranks.
The county executive said there must be three basic reforms to come. "We must
continue to reform our own house, [and have] further streamlined open, honest government and upgraded
county facilities," he said. Second, he encouraged state government to enact "far-reaching, bold
reform" that stops "pushing ever-increasing costs, like Medicaid, down on the local property taxpayer."
Third he called for "dramatic reform on the economic growth rules that were developed in the 1940s and
'50s when suburbia first began, but no longer work today." We must have the ideas and the courage to
create a "new suburbia," Suozzi said.
