Nassau County Legislator Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury) is running for her 10th term representing the 16th district, but faces a challenger in Louis Imbroto who is nearly half her age in a district whose lines have been significantly altered.
Jacobs currently represents Bethpage, Cove Neck, East Norwich, Jericho, Laurel Hollow, Muttontown, Oyster Bay Cove, Plainview, Syosset and Woodbury, but under the new map she would serve parts of the Village of Roslyn and Roslyn Heights, in addition to Old Westbury and all or part of Jericho, Syosset, Hicksville, Woodbury and Plainview.
“I’ve been in for 18 years,” said Jacobs, 74. “You’re not in for 18 years if people don’t think you’ve done a good job.”
Jacobs ran unsuccessfully for Oyster Bay Town Council in the 1970s, while a teacher in the Elmont School District, but stayed active in the community through various civic groups.
Jacobs returned to politics in 1995, when she became one of only six Democrats elected to the first Nassau County Legislature under then-County Executive Thomas Gulotta.
“I like to think people relate to me because I understand and because I care,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs won re-election in 1997, as the Democrats lost a seat, and again in 1999 when the party won the majority status it would hold for the next decade.
Jacobs calls the period in which the Democrats held the majority the “Camelot years” because of the election of County Executive Thomas Suozzi and the stabilization of a Nassau economy that Jacobs said was “at junk bond status” under Gulotta. From 2000-2007, Jacobs served as the Legislature’s presiding officer.
“Voters are smarter than to stick to something that was put into place by the conniving of a political party, especially if the county is not doing well,” Jacobs said.
Imbroto, 29, ran unsuccessfully for the state’s 13th assembly district last year against Charles Lavine, an area that includes parts of Roslyn.
Imbroto said he is familiar with the voting interests of Roslyn residents but said the splitting of the area into four legislative districts may get confusing for some voters.
“It’s a legitimate concern,” Imbroto said. “When boundaries between who represents who are obscure and people may not know who to turn to, especially for someone who doesn’t pay the closest attention. It could come as a shock.”
But Imbroto said he does not think Roslyn will be any less represented in the Legislature than it was before because it now has four officials working to keep the area’s interests in mind.
He added he would also not turn away a constituent with an issue simply because that person lives in another district, and said he does not think other legislators would, either.
Imbroto studied political science and philosophy at Fordham University and earned his law degree from Brooklyn Law School.
He got his first taste of politics in his junior year at Fordham, when he worked for state Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick.
“It was really exciting to me to see that it was someone’s job to make the laws that impact people’s lives every day,” Imbroto said. “I never thought it as an option up until that point.
Imbroto has worked for the Town of Babylon in code enforcement, for the Nassau District Attorney’s office in prosecuting domestic violence, and for the Nassau County Attorney’s Office in seizing the vehicles of DWI offenders.
Prior to joining Berkman, Henoch, Peterson, Peddy & Fenchel, P.C., where he now works as a real estate lawyer, Imbroto worked as a government relations liaison for the Long Island Contractors’ Association, so that local elected officials would pay attention to the roads and bridges in need of repair.
“You really feel like at the end of the day you’re doing something for the greater good rather than to make someone money,” Imbroto said.
Imbroto said unseating Jacobs on Election Day will be difficult because her 18 years in office makes her a familiar face to Nassau voters.
For Imbroto, the key will be how familiar Nassau voters are with Jacobs’ record as a legislator, which he said includes a history of raising taxes, increasing spending and raising debt.
“When you’re in office for 18 years, you get used to doing things the same way, but someone younger may have a different way of looking at the same issues,” Imbroto said
Jacobs said she long ago made a promise to herself to only be in politics for the right reasons.
Jacobs said her new constituents would be getting a legislator who carries herself with honor and integrity, and who has never compromised in her values.
She added her 18 years in office means she knows the issues that continue to plague Nassau residents – protecting public safety, repairing roads and bridges, honoring and maintaining open space.
“I won’t always be able to move mountains, but I’ll at least get some of the rocks out of the way,” Jacobs said
Imbroto said he is running for the Legislature to reverse the growing trend of people his age moving away from Long Island due to a lack of affordable housing.
Making housing more affordable, Imbroto said, is a two-fold process.
Imbroto said Nassau’s high property tax system hurts young professionals and senior citizens, and is in need of reform.
“I want to make sure Long Island stays a place where middle-class people can raise a family, not just become a place where wealthy people from Manhattan move to when they run out of space there,” Imbroto said.
But Imbroto said the county also needs to continue developing its downtown areas and updating its public transportation systems, to make Nassau a place where people can afford to live and will want to stay.
“If we develop in our downtowns in areas where we traditionally have, places like Garden City for example, we can have a relatively denser downtown area surrounded by the beautiful one-family homes we moved here to enjoy,” Imbroto said.
Jacobs said the trend of the young and old moving away from Long Island is disconcerting and one of the primary issues she is running to fix.
As more people decide to leave, Jacobs said Long Island is losing the experience of the elderly as well as the innovations of the youth.
As a result, Jacobs said, Nassau is losing the social stability and diversity necessary for community growth.
“You can’t sustain that way,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said expanding Nassau’s downtown areas would be one of the best ways to help people stay – by adding affordable housing near business hot spots and public transportation stops.
“This would enable people to feel like they’re not prisoners in their own house and achieve smart economic growth throughout the county, with the knowledge that the endgame is to reverse the trend of the young and old continuing to leave,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said Nassau has to “get out of the practice of bonding ourselves out of existence.”
“I don’t think there’s been an innovative use of county money and haven’t done all we can to grow economically,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said under Suozzi, the county continued to see bond upgrades even as the national economy suffered, but Nassau has suffered three bond downgrades under current County Executive Edward Mangano.
Jacobs said Suozzi left $400 million in bonding for repairs to Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant that went unused by the Republican majority that requested $722 million for the project and had $262 million approved by the Legislature.
The same Republican majority, Jacobs said, eliminated the home energy tax even though it would have brought the county $60 million per year in revenue.
“You have to be smart,” Jacobs said. “You hear the complaints that we never fund road repair, or clean up debris or remove stumps. That would have been the money to do something about it.”
Imbroto said he does not think borrowing and bonding has yet become an issue within the county’s economy, and that borrowing can be a responsible practice if done within the context of a balanced economic plan.
“I don’t think we should rely on borrowing to fix all out problems,” Imbroto said. “You can’t just rack up debt and hope the problems will just fix themselves.”
According to independent audits from Deloitte Consulting Imbroto said he’s reviewed, Imbroto said Suozzi left office with $3.5 billion in county debt, while Mangano has reduced debt to approximately $3.4 billion in his term as county executive.
When Mangano took office in 2009, Imbroto said he was able to find $290 million in budget cuts, including the home energy tax, while still maintaining the quality of the county’s services.
Imbroto said this was possible because Mangano was taking on Nassau County’s budget as a fresh face to county government.
Imbroto said he thinks he can have a similar impact on the legislature if elected.
“Over time, you see issues that you cling to and refuse to cut, but a fresh set of eyes can find $290 million to cut out,” Imbroto said. “It’s not just being a young person, but being a new person to look at the budget in ways it wasn’t seen before.”
