Will You Head to the Polls Next Tuesday?

By Christine Insinga

...do you even know why you should?  It's Election Day!!  No, I'm not crazy I know we already have a new President, Congressmen/women, Senators...but the ballots are still out on Fire Commissioners across the Island and your time to vote for them is December 9th.

  Fire districts are one of a handful of so-called 'Special Districts' we have here on Long Island.  There are also Water districts, Sanitation, Library and Park districts--more than 340 of them in total, the majority in Nassau County. 

   I blogged on this topic a few weeks back but thought it bared repeating since a number of the elections are so close (which, by the way, is why we did that 2 part series this week...maybe you caught it?).

  These special districts get millions of our tax dollars every year.  Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman says if you live in an unincorporated area you're probably forking over between $1,000 and $1,500 in special district taxes every year.  Just yesterday I get an email from a woman in Gordon Heights who tells me she pays her fire district $2,400 a year!!  There's a whole other story there.

   A number of stories have been done over the years, focusing on fraud, waste and abuse of your tax dollars in these districts,and the question always is: Who's to blame?  It's a good question and I suppose it depends how you look at it.

   The vast majority of the districts are run by elected commissioners.  If there's waste and/or fraud in your district, it's easy to blame the guys in charge...sure.  They're the ones responsible for managing your money, after all, but remember they're ELECTED--the majority of residents wanted them there, right?  Not necessarily.  According to the Board of Elections, only 2% of eligible voters actually VOTE in their special district elections.  Why?  Some tell me, it's just not something they're interested in.  Must be nice to toss a grand or 2 out the window every year and not care where it's going.  Most, however, say they just have no idea when or where their special district elections are held.  Critics say that is a huge part of the problem.  Most of these elections are scattered all over the calendar...and just try to find out anything about the people running! Difficult does not begin to describe that task!  What ends up happening, according to critics, is that many district heads keep getting re-elected because the only ones who know about the election are their family friends and neighbors.

   I have to say, however, fire districts seem to be the only group of districts that don't have this particular problem.  They are state mandated to hold their elections on the second Tuesday of December--which, like I said, is next Tuesday:)    Want info on the rest of your special district elections??  You can now find all of that on our website: www.news12.com.  Do you have a right to complain if you're not happy with the way things are being run in your special district?  Yes, IF you made a point to vote and now you have no excuse not to!

Thanks for checking in!

  

Comments

[John]

It's a shame that all the towns and counties and other randomly-drawn districts can't agree to all hold their elections at the same time. It could be a special day, when all the elections are held at central locations. They could mail out postcards or something.

I seem to remember my mother telling me about some old-timey system where there was a "Day of Elections." Maybe it was in November...

Actually, I am quite surprised (and I'm not exactly a naive kid, I might add) to find out that elections are hidden around the calendar. It seems pretty shady to run any (non-emergency) election at any time other than Election Day, and I'm only slightly less surprised that the affected parties haven't started pricing out tar and feathers knowing this.

Makes me wonder what I'm missing in my own backyard, too.

[Bob]

Christine,after my town of east meadow built a brand new fire house a few years back evn though we already had 4 firehouses,I started going to the meeting every moonth and was outraged when I tried to ask a question and comm. Welt informed me they were not opening the floor to the public. When I objected to the notion I couldn't question a proposal concerning my tax dollars comm. welt informed me by law they do not have to open the floor to the public. I found this impossible to believe so I looked up the law on open public meetings and sure enough I was not permitted to ask questions if the commissioners chose not to open the floor to the public. The law does suggest in the interest in public trust that fire districts do open the floor but they do not mandate it. I sit there month after month and watch the same 5 commissioners propose and pass every ridiculous expense never does any commissioner oppose any proposal, its 5-0 everytime, yet I am not allowed to ask a question. It's a joke and I am sick of it. I hope every tax payer of every fire district goes out and votes next Tues. and not vote for anyone up for re-election. It's the old boys club and its that simple.