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Health & Fitness

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Suozzi and Spinello

In the last twenty years, Glen Cove lost a video-game publisher, a major circuit-board manufacturer, and a former worldwide leader in the camera business.  As of this printing, the Glen Cove hospital is downsizing, the city’s credit rating isn’t rising, and the taxpayers are sighing.  The political sides are strategizing but who will truly save Glen Cove from dying?  

Under Mayor Ralph Suozzi, the city’s finances are stressed at concerning levels.  As persons tend to pay more for loans when their credit scores significantly fall, governments follow the same principle when using bonds to borrow money (you ultimately pay more for governmental expenses such as building roads or buying police cars).  In April 2007, the year after Mayor Suozzi’s first election, Moody's Investors Service rated Glen Cove credit at “Aaa.”  This is the highest bond credit rating possible.  As of November 2012, it fell nine ratings lower to “Baa3” (just one step above “junk-bond” status).  The economic downturn in the ensuing years and New York State’s onerous mandates on municipalities are beyond Mayor Suozzi’s control; however, improper budgeting for operating expenses led to increased borrowing.  As of this printing, Glen Cove City taxpayers owe over $66 million in principal and interest on this debt.  

This city needs a clear alternative to the Suozzi administration.  We were hoping for a strong leader with bold ideas--instead we got Reggie Spinello. 

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Mr. Spinello voted to borrow--i.e., increase debt--for  city employee termination pay in 2012.  The New York State Comptroller advised against this practice in an October 2012 report.  He stated, “The 2012 adopted budget did not include an appropriation for an estimated $3.5 million in termination payments for retiring police officers and other retirees.”  Mr. Spinello promises us that he would provide “early retirement incentives for eligible employees” and that these will save taxpayers “tens of thousands of dollars each year.”  Since he has been light on the details of how he would pay for these incentives, perhaps he will follow his voting record of increasing debt.  

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In one of Mr. Spinello’s campaign videos, he stated, “We [Mr. Spinello and “his” Glen Cove Industrial Development Agency] will aggressively attract businesses to Glen Cove and ensure that the businesses that are here stay and grow.”  Yet his vote as a councilman shamelessly contradicts his own words.  He supported Mayor Suozzi’s punitive fee on new businesses that would require more than five parking spaces in Glen Cove’s public garages.  Councilman Tony Gallo was the only person who voted against it. 

Mr. Spinello has made the golf course a key part of his campaign whereas other departments continue to hemorrhage money.  In his Aug. 1 press release, he stated that it “lost $500,000 over the past three years” and could lose $200,000 by the end of 2013; however, the Glen Cove Department of Public Works-Sanitation cost approximately $5.7 million over the past three years and could run a $2.6 million deficit this year.  Maybe Mr. Spinello’s reluctance to engage this problem reveals his timid leadership style or his desire to putt our way to prosperity.

As a self-proclaimed “successful businessman,” why did Mr. Spinello not offer to take the job for one dollar?  This would have been more meaningful than his promise to give 15% of his salary back--a meager $15,000 annually--to three city agencies.  This will not cover the debt payments or deficits incurred by Mayor Suozzi. 

 

Considering Mr. Spinello’s questionable voting record as a city councilman and his weak mayoral platform, the Almanack believes that he will provide no real solutions to Glen Cove’s problems.  His administration would be no different from the current one.  The Almanack endorses no mayoral candidate for this election.  Maybe in two years, the voters will have a clear alternative.


 

 

 

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