By Jerry Sharp, Ph.D.

Nassau County - under County Executive Ed Mangano - is offering cutting-edge type initiatives to battle the substance abuse scourge, and try to stem the flow of overdose deaths - but bias in the mainstream media has caused these facts to practically be ignored.

We have not been given any substantial information about the nearly 1,000 mothers, fathers, siblings and other “ordinary citizens” who have been trained by Mangano’s staff on how to save a life, and how they have been equipped with the life-saving instrument to do that.

Do residents even know that Mangano made Nassau the first County in New York to become state-certified, and operate  a program that trains people to administer a life-saving medication called Narcan; this medication saves the life of someone overdosing?

Are  people aware that Nassau has a former Narcotics detective assigned to bring age-appropriate drug education and prevention programs into all the County’s elementary, middle and high schools? Or, that under the current administration, many  drug addicts are being rehabilitated instead of jailed(which is tremendously less expensive for tax payers), and are able to go on and become responsible and productive members of society?

Know it or not, Nassau has been working in a multitude of ways to cut through the denial and shame of family members, and bring critical awareness to these individuals about substance abuse, how to spot it and where to find help for the addict, as well as for the entire familial system.

Nassau is a model for other counties and states throughout the country for its drug abuse prevention efforts.  Nevertheless, most do not even know of this, except  for those who have been informed  from someone who attended one of the panel discussions and/ or training sessions Mangano has facilitated across the County for more than a year now.

Could these efforts have any thing to do with the 19% decrease in fatal opioid overdoses in Nassau County from 2011 to 2012? No one can be certain, however, it is definite that the  numbers are moving in the right direction.

When former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi closed down Nassau’s only 2 county-run drug treatment facilities in 2003,  most were understandably concerned, and angry -  he eliminated 144 treatment slots. As a result, he  eliminated opportunities that would have given hundreds of residents addicted to drugs  a chance to get clean, and be equipped with  ways to maintain recovery. How very unfortunate that Suozzi abolished these programs, which had helped 1000s of addicts, as well as their family members in the 3 decades of their existence.

Additionally, in his second term in office, Suozzi  ended the county’s Students Against Drunk Driving (S.A.D.D.) campaign; hundreds of young people's lives might have taken a different path. Nobody knows how many lives might have been saved, or how many young people might have gone in a different direction or stayed on the path to recovery. Nonetheless, what we do know is that there have been innocent citizens killed during robberies, and more than 925 residents have died of heroin or prescription painkiller overdoses in Nassau County,since those drug centers were closed.

The 2 New York State licensed, highly successful, nationally respected and well established  facilities (both lead by Mr. Kirby Thompson, LCSW, an exceptional Director of Services), provided quality treatment at a relatively low cost. One - Plainview Rehabilitation Center - was self-sustaining by way of Medicaid revenue. The other - Topic House (also in Plainview) - was largely state-funded. 

Suozzi stated at the time that the closures were done to save money, yet as the County Executive, he must have known that millions of dollars in Medicaid revenue and state funding were forever lost by closing the facilities. He also must have been aware that the County was held to retain every civil service employee working at both facilities due to civil service law.

Perhaps his fear of  the negative political and community consequences that  would most likely be attributed to his decision, lead  him to  use what many describe as a machine of propaganda, which spun highly  misleading and severely fraudulent information regarding the Plainview closings; this machine literally lied to the public regarding the necessity for and the success of these 2 facilities. Astonishingly, when people actually did complain, he dismissed their concerns as if they were irrelevant,and reported that he would open 2 new rehabs in the following year (something that never happened).

Fortunately, 2 years later  the public benefit corporation (a Non-County agency) that owns NUMC in East Meadow, did open a  wing for addicts. This was something with which Tom Suozzi had absolutely no involvement, but he misleadingly attempted to take at least partial credit for. Although this wing is obviously crucial, it  only is capable of treating a mere 20 patients at one time--  a miniscule amount compared to the 56 inpatient and 88 residential beds that existed in Plainview prior to 2003.It is simply not large enough to adequately provide for the addicted population. Furthermore, there is a long waiting list to gain admission , and there is a significant number of addicts who do not make it back when a bed does become available.

I hope that people realize the extreme importance of Ed Mangano, with respect to his acts of stepping in, and creating outside-the-box solutions to begin addressing the issue of substance abuse, reducing the number of non-recovering addicts, and consequently, reducing the crimes that they often commit against others.

As a concerned citizen, I – and many others - thank him.

Dr. Sharp is a Nassau County resident;  he counsels persons, most of whom  who have been diagnosed with drug dependency.

What exactly has Tom Suozzi accomplished, either as Glen Cove Mayor, Nassau County Executive or consultant to MSG High School Sports-television initiative?

Nothing.

While Suozzi headed both the City and County for 8 years each:

Glen Cove still doesn’t have a “cool downtown,” like then mayor Suozzi talked about creating in “visioning plans” and press conferences.

Nor have any of the transit-oriented cool downtowns he spoke about creating throughout Nassau materialized.

What’s more, Suozzi’s private sector venture – where Cablevision hired him to direct the company's most recent local television programming initiative, MSG Varsity High School Sports channels – failed miserably.

The MSG Varsity channel isn’t even on television any more -  closed down prior to the 2013-14 school year.

Don’t let Tom Suozzi do to Nassau County what he’s done – or actually not done – in Glen Cove and for MSG. 

By Karl Grossman
Will voter reaction to the U.S. government shutdown impact on Election 2013?
Democrats are lambasting Congressional Republicans for it. Representative Tim Bishop, a Southampton Democrat, last week blasted his GOP colleagues for being “deeply reckless.” National polls show citizen outrage towards the GOP regarding the shutdown.

It’s an off-year election; no federal or state posts are up. Still, might some voters take their frustration out on local Republican candidates?

In back of the shutdown -­ and being especially blamed for it ­- are members of the House of Representative who are supporters of the Tea Party movement. Thus GOP candidates identified as Tea Party supporters might be especially vulnerable.

In New York City, the campaign organization of Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate for mayor, has set up a website titled “Goldwater * Tea Party * Giuliani * Lhota.” It links de Blasio’s Republican opponent, Joseph Lhota, to the Tea Party as well as the late conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and the conservative former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for whom Lhota was a top deputy. The website quoted Lhota as backing the Tea Party. Also, di Blasio charged his Republican rival, Joseph Lhota, as now having “amnesia” about his “support” for the Tea Party.

That came after Lhota tried to distance himself last week from the House GOPers who because of their opposition to the Affordable Care Act, known, too, as Obamacare, blocked passage of a federal budget. 

“The hang-up on Obamacare in this particularly case is wrong,” said Lhota. “Using it as leverage is wrong. Shutting down the government, in this case, is wrong.” He called those GOPers in the House doing this as “flat-out wrong.” Lhota further said: “I think they’re extremists and they’re moving the party in a direction that I think is wrong...There is a role for government in this world. They...basically don’t believe there should be government.”

In neighboring Nassau County on Long Island, the Democratic candidate for county executive this year, Tom Suozzi, is also linking his Republican rival, Ed Mangano, to the Tea Party.

“Ed Mangano, on the eve of the Tea Party shutdown of the federal government, continues to proudly proclaim that he’s a conservative Tea Party Republican,” charged Suozzi in a statement last week. It declared that Mangano “supports the conservative agenda in Washington, and he must be held accountable.”

`The Suozzii statement also criticized Mangano for not supporting the proposal of Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a Mineola Democrat, to toughen background checks for gun buyers, and Democratic New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s SAFE Act banning the sale of high-capacity magazines for guns. 

Brian Nevin, a spokesperson for Mangano, the incumbent county executive, countered that “Suozzi should focus more on his high tax-and-spend policies than his position on a matter that the county has no jurisdiction over.” 

Meanwhile, an October 1st  article in the New York Times reported that Mangano, in an interview, “said he welcomed Tea Party support” and “declined to distance himself from its positions on abortion, immigration and gun control.” The piece was headlined “Rematch for Nassau County Executive Could Be Bellwether of National Trend,

In Suffolk County, Republican leaders have been bullish about the GOP making inroads on the Suffolk County Legislature, the county’s governing body. Democrats now hold 11 seats on the 18-member legislature and Republicans five. The two remaining are held by Jay Schneiderman of Montauk who switched his enrollment from Republican to the Independence Party in 2008 and has been running, too, on the Democratic line, and Kate Browning of Shirley, a Working Families Party member who also runs on the Democratic ticket.

Among incumbents the GOP is making a heavy push to unseat is Schneiderman. a former East Hampton Town supervisor. The Republican candidate is Chris Nuzzi of Westhampton Beach, a term-limited Southampton Town board member very close to Suffolk GOP Chairman John Jay LaValle. When LaValle was Brookhaven Town supervisor, Nuzzi was his deputy chief of staff. The district includes Southampton, East Hampton and Shelter Island towns. Another race that GOP consider very competitive is in Huntington Town where freshman Democrat William Spencer of Centerport, a pediatric surgeon­the first doctor to be a member of the legislature­is being challenged by Robert Conte. Conte’s brother, James, was a 24-year veteran of the State Assembly who died last year. He resided in Huntington Station. The Huntington GOP leader, Toni Tepe, says Robert Conte, also of Huntington Station, has a “good shot particularly because of the family history.”

Will this GOP hopefulness be dashed by voters upset by GOP behavior in Congress?
A major GOP figure in the shutdown, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, rejects the possibility that­as CNN’s Candy Crowley asked­his actions have "hurt the Republican Party brand.” In the CNN interview Sunday, Cruz responded: “Not remotely.”

We’ll see.

By Karl Grossman

Some Long Island officials are betting that gambling will provide a big financial boost for the fiscally-pressed county governments of Nassau and Suffolk. Are they right or making a bad bet?

In June, in a surprise move, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo­after months of saying no­suddenly agreed to the call from officials of Nassau and Suffolk to allow the two counties to set up facilities for video slot machines. Each could have a facility with 1,000 video slot machines.

The Cuomo turn-around, according to well-informed sources, was linked to getting the Long Island delegation in the State Legislature to support his plan to turn the Long Island Power Authority into a shell and have a private New Jersey utility, Public Service Electric and Gas, be THE utility on Long Island.

Then votes on a bill expanding gambling in the state that included the video slot plan for Long Island and votes on a bill to drastically alter the utility structure on Long Island were taken in the State Assembly and State Senate­and both passed. “The governor horse-traded his support for the slots for votes to pass his LIPA bill,” said one source.

Long Island had not been included in Cuomo’s original gambling expansion bill.  Right up through early June, it would have authorized three gambling casinos and video slot machines but only upstate. “LI NOT IN GAMBLING PLAN,” was the headline of a June 6th Newsday article. It quoted Assemblyman Phil Boyle of Bay Shore saying “he’s ‘disappointed but not deterred’ by the island’s omission in Cuomo’s plan.” 

A week earlier, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, with the presidents of the two counties’ Off-Track Betting Corporations, had gone to Albany, meeting with state legislators and “doubling down,” said Newsday, in seeking  “potentially lucrative video gaming” on Long Island. But Cuomo still felt this would take away from his desire to assist upstate through gambling. 

Then, a week later, his gambling bill was expanded to allow video slot machines on Long Island and was voted upon simultaneous with Cuomo’s bill to drastically change the Long Island utility structure­which had faced stiff resistance from the Long Island delegation. The “opposition to the bill on LIPA fell apart with the addition of Long Island to the gambling plan,” said another source. “The two were linked.”

Is gambling the fiscal rescue some Long Island officials would believe? Consider the Page 1 story in the New York Times last month headlined: “Crowds Return to Las Vegas, but Gamble Less.” It told of a drop in gambling revenue with a “new influx of tourists, younger and less devoted to gambling.”

Or consider a Times piece a month earlier about gambling in decline in Atlantic City. “Revenues have fallen 40 percent since their peak in 2006 as new casinos in neighboring states have taken away gamblers,” it noted.

The video slot terminals in Nassau and Suffolk would be operated by the Nassau and Suffolk OTB Corporations­huge troughs for political patronage in both counties. And they have been in trouble. Suffolk OTB moved to declare bankruptcy last year (New York City OTB filed for bankruptcy in 2009).

The office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in a 2010 report titled “Financial Condition of New York State Regional Off-Track Betting Corporations” spoke of the “financial condition of the state’s five regional OTB Corporations” having “substantially deteriorated.” It said “various factors account for the significant and continuing downturn in handle including a diminished interest in horseracing” and “competition from unregulated internet gambling sites.” This “general decline” in horseracing is “demonstrated by decreased attendance at most state racetracks.”  There are not only now many casinos all over the United States diluting the gambling industry, but “government-sponsored lotteries,” too, noted the report.        

The lure of winning hundreds of millions of dollars in the Powerball lottery, owned and operated by 33 state lotteries, towers over winning the tiniest fraction of that on a video slot machine.

Meanwhile, Congressman Peter King of Seaford, whose district includes parts of both Nassau and Suffolk, introduced a bill in June that would license online gambling at the federal level, further spreading gambling choices.

Is the pot of government gold from video slot machines a mirage? I bet it is.