June 28, 2010 The latest missive out of County Executive Levy’s over-active press machine makes it clear that Mr. Levy still refuses to accept his personal responsibility for the failure of his early retirement pro...
June 2, 2010 By Wendy Tepfer, Director Community Parent Center This Memorial Day holiday paid tribute to the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. It also commenced the time of the year that has c...
June 16, 2010 County Executive Levy has got to stop faulting the County Legislature for doing its due diligence in reviewing his budget ideas. In his latest press release, he paints a false picture of the bid to pu...
| Response from Suffolk County Legislature’s Presiding Officer William J. Lindsay to County Executive’s press release entitled Levy Blasts Legislature’s Continued Inaction on Budget Dilemma |
 |
 |
 |
|
June 16, 2010 County Executive Levy has got to stop faulting the County Legislature for doing its due diligence in reviewing his budget ideas. In his latest press release, he paints a false picture of the bid to purchase the 500 Corporate Court building in Holtsville, the status of the proposed sale of the John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility and a proposal to establish an independent panel of financial experts to examine the county’s fiscal crisis. Let me explain what really happened concerning those three issues. As for the proposed purchase of 500 Corporate Court, Mr. Levy had the opportunity to purchase the building last year using legitimate offsets. However, he scrapped his proposal and instead this year asked the Legislature to pierce the county’s debt cap by waiving the offset requirements. This happened while he was traveling all over the state touting his fiscal conservatism during his failed gubernatorial campaign. He’s always opposed any attempt to pierce the debt cap and now he has somehow transformed piercing the debt cap into smart fiscal conservatism. As for the Foley Skilled Nursing Facility, Mr. Levy has been trying to sell the facility for years and we have no intention of letting him ram the sale down our throats. We will do our homework before moving forward. Once we have our second appraisal and the review of the sale by the Budget Review Office in hand, we will be in position to move forward with the sale—if and only if the sale makes sense for Suffolk County. As for Legislator Romaine’s bill to establish a panel of independent fiscal experts to examine the county’s fiscal problems and suggest new and innovative ways the county might deal with those issues, that makes perfect sense. Or we could just continue to utilize the Levy fiscal model—burn up every one-shot revenue source available to the county and continue to curtail desperately needed services. The County Executive’s self-proclaimed leadership on fiscal conservatism the last six years would not have happened without the cooperation of and leadership by the County Legislature. We here in the County Legislature will continue the well thought out and carefully examined fiscal conservatism that has characterized the Legislature for the last six years. |
