Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has selected Village of Great Neck Trustee Jeffrey Bass for a seat on the Nassau County Planning Commission.
Brian Nevin, Mangano’s communications director, said Bass – whose appointment is subject to approval by the Nassau County Legislature later this month – would replace planning commission member Marty Glennon.
Nevin said Glennon recently moved from Great Neck to Oyster Bay, violating the county charter’s requirement of having a commission member from the Town of North Hempstead.
“Basically the rules say there has to be representatives from certain parts of the county,” Nevin said. “By living out of the town he was serving against the charter.”
Glennon last year challenged Mangano’s proposal for the county to pay $800,000 for an acre of land in Old Bethpage owned by deputy parks Commissioner Frank Camerlengo, according to a report in Newsday.
Political opposition then mounted, and Mangano ditched the proposal, according to the report.
Bass said that if approved by the Legislature, he would not be required to give up his seat as a Village of Great Neck trustee but would recuse himself from village discussions that had to do with the county planning commission.
He said he was approach by Mangano for the position.
Bass, who is currently the CEO of Executive Strategies Group LLC, a strategic advisor to business owners and executive management, began his career as a transportation planner in New Jersey during the early 1970s. He then returned to New York and became the first district manager appointed by Community Board 11 in Queens where he supervised the delivery of municipal services to the area.
Bass then worked in the Ed Koch administration as the director of the Bureau of Management Analysis in the Department of Sanitation. He is the chairman emeritis of the Long Island Capital Alliance, a member of the Manhasset Bay Protection Committee and on the Board of Governors for the American Jewish Committee.
Bass has also served on the Village of Great Neck Planning Board for two years, and on the Zoning Board of Appeals for five years before being elected as a trustee.
He was a Democrat, but switched parties when he unsuccessfully ran for the town receiver of taxes as a Republican six years ago.
Bass unsuccessfully ran for a town council seat in 2011 against current Councilwoman Anna Kaplan.
During the campaign, Bass said that Kaplan falsely stated she had been endorsed by incumbent Town Councilwoman Maria-Christina Poons and Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman.
