Candidates for 18th district promise tax program reform

Bill San Antonio

The race for the 18th county legislative district seat pits Democrat Dave Gugerty, the current chief of staff for the Legislature’s Democratic caucus, against Republican Donald MacKenzie, a commissioner of the Village of Oyster Bay Water District. 

The redrawn 18th district covers area as far south as the Village of East Hills and as far north as Bayville, representing the Town of Oyster Bay area north of Jericho Turnpike and extending to the Nassau-Suffolk border. Included in the district are the villages of Brookville, Old Brookville, Upper Brookville, Muttontown, Matinecock, Oyster Bay, Oyster Bay Cove, Lattingtown, Mill Neck, Laurel Hollow, Cove Neck and Centre Island.   

Gugerty, 51, said he feels “uniquely qualified” for the position due to his career in public service. From 1994-2002, Gugerty served as a trustee with the Village of Bayville, was the county Legislature’s chief legal counsel from 2005-09 and has also worked as a civil service commissioner in addition to being an attorney.

MacKenzie, 43, a Village of Oyster Bay resident who works as a civil litigator with Edelman, Kraisin & Jaye, said he is running because he approves the direction Nassau Executive Edward Mangano is taking the county and wants to help the county continue to improve. 

“I see good changes taking place in the county with the direction the Republicans are headed,” MacKenzie said. “I see them holding the line on taxes and lessening the burden on property owners and taxpayers and going toward the private sectors to find solutions there, and that’s a philosophy and direction I like and believe in. We need people who feel the same way to be elected if we want to move Nassau County forwards instead of backwards.”

Gugerty said after his time in Bayville, he made a “conscious decision to stay out of office while my kids were growing up.”

But, Gugerty said, he believed the county has to fix the property tax “assessment mess” and borrowing requests that he said led to three bond downgrades under Mangano and two budget deficits, but not lose sight of the “nitty-gritty issues” like the elimination of county service employees in favor of more costly private firms.

“No one could run their own house like this, and it’s really unsustainable for the county,” Gugerty said.

Gugerty’s daughter Emma was named the valedictorian of Locust Valley High School’s 2013 graduating class, but he said that the way the county is headed fiscally, she will not be able to live in Nassau County after she graduates from the University of Pennsylvania. 

If elected, Gugerty said he would work to develop more affordable housing in Nassau County’s downtown areas for younger residents and seniors.

Gugerty said he’d also work to reinstate “county guarantee” in which the county paid other municipalities for losses incurred in successful tax certorari challenges.

Under Mangano, Gugerty said, the county guarantee was eliminated and burden of paying for court challenges has been shifted to school districts, which has driven up school taxes in areas like Roslyn, Syosset and Locust Valley.

Gugerty said he is also running to help combat public safety and environmental issues, specifically through legislation cracking down on sex offenders and the preservation of the environment.

“I think the reason some of the public safety and environmental laws are important is because I have a track record with some of these things as a trustee, so I’m going to be able to hit the ground running on these issues,” Gugerty said.

MacKenzie said many factors have contributed to the county’s current economic state, but borrowing is not one of them.

“Based on the numbers I’ve seen, it isn’t increased borrowing,” said MacKenzie, 43. “When you take comparisons between the apples to apples of certified county documents, the reviewed documents, it shows that borrowing has been slightly less under Mangano. I think it’s being politicized and it used to be an everyday part of business has become a game of political football like many other things.”

Like Gugerty, MacKenzie said the biggest problem hurting Nassau County is the property tax system, though he said he applauds Mangano for finding “alternatives to raising taxes to raise revenue for the county.”

“What I like going forward is that the Mangano administration and the Republicans are making a point that he answer is no longer going to be to raise taxes going forward, that there are other solutions to the problem, and that’s what I find attractive about their solution,” MacKenzie said.

Part of that solution, he added, is a legislature that can reach bipartisan agreements that will ultimately work to the benefit of Nassau County residents.

“I think it takes people who are willing to compromise, but when I look at the Legislature I notice that if one side says yes, the other side says no, and I don’t think redistricting did that,” MacKenzie said. “There’s been gridlock since before the redistricting map came about.”

While the Democrats have accused Republican leadership in the Legislature of redrawing the district map in an effort to get a supermajority elected, MacKenzie said the map is fair and that he is optimistic that the next group of elected legislators will be able to work together and improve the county. 

“I think it would take a change in elected officials there,” MacKenzie said of the Legislature. “I think there’s a different set of people now and it’s evolving certainly to reasonable people, less combative people there and less partisanship.” 

MacKenzie said he does not think the redistricted map, which divides Roslyn into four legislative districts,  would hurt the area’s representation in the Legislature. 

The four legislators, he said,  would work together to ensure the town’s interests were upheld. 

Though MacKenzie said he has not yet met with East Hills Mayor Michael Koblenz or other village officials, he said he has been campaigning for months by knocking on doors and meeting with potential voters.

Gugerty said he has already met with Koblenz to discuss the issues facing the village, notably the maintenance of sumps and county roadways that Gugerty said has been cast aside by Nassau officials.

“It’s inexcusable that the county has hurt from Republican mismanagement so much that they can’t even cut the grass,” Gugerty said. 

Gugerty said he was also outraged by the consolidation of the Nassau County Police Department precincts, which he added has resulted in less police protection in the East Hills area.

“I would be very pleased and honored to represent East Hills because it reminds me of Laddingtown, where I grew up, and has many of the same issues and concerns as Bayville,” Gugerty said. “I look at East Hills as an essential part of this district, not as an appendage as it appears on the redistricting map, and that’s what I told the mayor, because he raised that concern flat-out when I met with him.”

Gugerty said he and MacKenzie have not met, but said voters should keep in mind MacKenzie is a commissioner for one of “Oyster Bay’s government entities” that state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recently described as being in a “moderate level” of fiscal stress.

“I’d be concerned that if he was a legislator, it’d be more of the same mismanagement and high taxes like they have in Oyster Bay,” Gugerty said. 

But MacKenzie said Gugerty may have mistaken the Village of Oyster Bay with the Town of Oyster Bay, two separate municipalities.

“The water district is for the Village of Oyster Bay, not the Oyster Bay township, so maybe that’s where he has a misunderstanding of what’s taking place,” MacKenzie said. “They’re not one in the same.”

MacKenzie added that politicians like Gugerty are partly to blame for the county’s problems and the strife between the two parties.

“He has been a part of and a political leader for the Democrats and part of the gridlock in Mineola for a long time,” MacKenzie said. “As their chief policy advisor, I think he should bear responsibility for the actions that they take, good or bad, rather than just for the good.”

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