Electoral Ideas

An election at any level of government is a barometer that measures the mood and public opinion of a community, city, state—even a country. So perhaps it’s not so much a barometer as it is a thermometer.

There are small elections and bigger ones on the horizon. Next week, we have our annual school board election here in the Five Towns. Veteran trustees Murray Forman and Asher Mansdorf are running for re-election. They should be re-elected easily but they need all of us to come out and vote as an expression of our appreciation for how they’ve stayed the course over the last two decades.

One measure of their success are the improved test scores and the high level of academic achievement of the students. In addition, our real estate taxes (which go toward funding the educational system) have been held steady.

When you compare how greatly property taxes have increased in nearby districts, it’s genuinely difficult to compare. In other districts, like nearby #14, taxes have increased every year. For our community, that means super double tuition. One form is through your real estate taxes, the other is through your yeshiva tuition.

A tuition remedy might be on the way for our community, but that depends on a number of things, including who you elect for governor in November.

Governor Kathy Hochul

County Executive Bruce Blakeman

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is challenging the incumbent, who is also known as the “accidental Governor” Kathy Hochul. Presently, the incumbent is leading in the polls by about 10 points, but for a challenger it’s a good time to be behind in a race of this kind. New York voters just love a “come from behind” victory if they can score one.

Blakeman is the Republican candidate and his close connection to President Trump can hopefully work in his favor, though in New York you never really know. In some areas it’s a good thing; in others, it can work against him.

New York has not had a Republican governor since George Pataki, who served three consecutive terms from 1995 to 2006. So, we haven’t had a Republican in Albany since 2006. And we certainly can use a Republican in New York right now.

The reality is that Bruce Blakeman is only technically running against Kathy Hochul; his true opponent is Mayor Zohran Mamdani. That amounts to a struggle not just for the state of New York but for the soul of New York.

Hochul is running a pantomime sort of campaign where she tends to disagree lightly with some of the Mamdani Islamic radicalism and Jew-hatred. If she sneaks into office—if she’s successful—she will be caving in to every one of Mamdani’s demands to turn New York even more extreme left than ever before.

A combination of Blakeman in Albany and Trump in the White House for two years should be enough to checkmate Mamdani’s insane ideas for New York.

More than anything in this cycle is the need to maintain or increase the Republican majority in both the House and the Senate.

The Congressional District that includes Boca Raton has a fairly decent representative in Jared Moskowitz, who is good in his policy vis-à-vis Israel, but he’s still a Democrat whose primary objective is to undermine President Trump and his policies.

While Moskowitz has a great relationship with the Jewish community he represents in Congress, he has a formidable opponent in former Boca Mayor Scott Singer, who’s running against Moskowitz as a Republican in November. With political district lines redrawn to represent the population properly, Boca Raton community leaders say that there’s a good chance that this time around a Republican like Scott Singer can score a victory.

Back to New York. Here in the Five Towns, Hempstead Town Supervisor John Ferretti is facing a potential challenge from former Lawrence Mayor Marty Oliner. The issue is a massive construction project on the border of the upscale Village of Lawrence where the Heatherwood Construction Company wants to build 400 rental apartments that can change the face of the Five Towns into the future.

Martin Oliner

Hempstead Town Supervisor John Ferretti

Rendering of rental project

The debate over the construction has been bouncing around for years.

If they held a referendum, there’s no doubt the project would be voted down by the community. As it is, the villages of both Lawrence and Cedarhurst are currently surrounded by construction projects. Once completed and occupied, how these homes and apartments will impact on community traffic remains to be seen. But as it presently stands, traffic on the main thoroughfare of Central Avenue is frequently at a standstill.

Oliner’s position is that Ferretti is not moving forward on a final disposition of the building project that borders Lawrence. That’s why he took it upon himself to primary Mr. Ferretti in June almost exclusively on the matter of these wild excessive buildings that literally surround our villages and communities.

The reality is that the thought process behind these massive construction projects near our train stations has become obsolete. The projects made their way onto the agenda before the Covid pandemic, which redefined how people interface with their jobs and workplaces.

It’s no longer imperative that people must live a short distance from their train station so they can walk home with ease. In the aftermath of Covid, a high percentage of people are working from home either full-time or several days a week. So, the commuting dynamic has shifted greatly and the Hempstead board needs to take that into consideration.

As you have seen, earlier this week there was a violent battle on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn where a real estate show was taking place, sponsored by a host of real estate brokers from Israel.

The keffiyeh-wearing pro-Hamas, anti-Israeli mob was out en-masse, seeking to engage in violence against local Jews. Deadly Mayor Mamdani shares some of this ideology (Elise Stefanik called Mamdani a “jihadist”), and that is a terrible thing to have to deal with. From a legal perspective, Governor Kathy Hochul can terminate or fire the mayor. Mamdani is dragging the city down and his foreign policy, while repugnant, is not his function as mayor.

He and his wife have made it clear that they side with the violent terrorists and indeed have indicated that they support terror. Mamdani is unfit to serve as mayor or in any high-profile office. His mayoralty is already an economic failure as are his policies. Let’s hope that as time goes by, President Trump decides to economically freeze out New York and at the end of Mamdani’s term (which cannot happen soon enough), the mayor can get a job that is more suitable for someone of his limited abilities.

President Trump combined with a Governor Blakeman can fire an incompetent mayor like Mamdani. So not only do you have to vote, you have to vote for that which is right and good. 

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.