By Debra Mulé
Nassau County’s Fiscal Year 2025 capital infrastructure plan is being held up by Nassau County Executive Bruce A. Blakeman’s refusal to negotiate with the Democratic Minority on grants for important community projects and funding for first responders in the communities we represent.
Since the start of 2024, County Executive Blakeman and his administration have inexplicably blocked more than $1 million in funding for first responders in Democratic districts — essential, life-saving resources for our firefighters, EMS, and local police.
These grant requests include essential items such as turnout gear to protect firefighters from flames; oxygen tanks to help first responders breathe in dangerous conditions; upgrades to communication equipment for small village police departments; and CPR devices that improve survival rates for heart attack victims. The list goes on – and within Legislative District 6, this includes nearly $170,000 for the Baldwin Fire Department to apply toward the purchase of a new bucket truck.
Meanwhile, during the same time period, the County Executive has signed off on 32 projects and over $2.5 million for Republican-backed projects, which include similar proposals to the ones Democrats have proposed for their first responders and communities. Thirty-two projects for Republicans – none for Democrats.
On Monday, March 24, the Democratic Minority drew a line in the sand.
On that date, the Blakeman administration came to the Legislature seeking authorization to borrow another $428 million to finance capital projects - even though the administration still has $2.1 billion in untapped bond authorization at their fingertips, as confirmed in the official statement Nassau County filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under the County Charter, bond authorizations require a 13-vote supermajority to pass, and the administration needs Democratic support to achieve that threshold. Last September, in good faith, the seven Democratic Legislators agreed to bond $131 million for countywide capital projects and public safety initiatives. Since then, the County Executive has still not processed a single community grant requested by a Democratic member for our first responders.
This outcome and the clear political bias with which he and his administration are demonstrating through their handling of first responder grants show us that we cannot trust him to uphold his commitments to Democratic districts and deliver resources to the communities of Nassau’s 19 legislative districts in a fair manner - even if we authorize him to borrow funds.
Before providing our support for another $428 million in borrowing, we asked the County Executive – at his suggestion - to take the unprecedented step of drafting an agreement that would facilitate the release of the $1 million-plus in withheld first responder funding within three months, and to provide regular, transparent updates tracking capital project progress in all 19 Legislative districts.
He refused, and rather than meeting with our caucus to finalize the capital plan, he has chosen to lash out and attack us for standing up for our first responders – even dismissing our pursuit of potentially life-saving resources for our firefighters, EMS and local police as “pet projects.”
Sir - were these same proposals “pet projects” when you signed off on them in districts represented by our Republican colleagues?
Moreover, he is continuing to claim falsely that, by strategically using the leverage afforded to us under the County Charter to demand fairness for our first responders, we are somehow jeopardizing access to resources for a wide swath of essential County services. At a time when the County Executive has over $2.1 billion in untapped bond authorizations to utilize, it is clear he would rather mislead the public to score political points instead of doing his job.
Let me be clear: My colleagues in the Democratic Minority and I are ready to vote for capital plan borrowing - but the County Executive must come to the table. He must quantify the need for more bonding; agree in writing to advance our projects in a timely manner; and expeditiously release the more than $1 million in first responder grants he has held up for more than a year.
Until there is an agreement that ensures fairness, transparency and results for every community, we have no choice but to apply this form of leverage to force County Executive Blakeman to act.
Debra Mulé, of Freeport, is the Nassau County Legislature’s Alternate Deputy Minority Leader. She was first elected to the Legislature in 2017 and currently represents the Sixth District.