Legislator Bosworth:

PROPOSED POLICE CHANGES NEED PUBLIC HEARING

Legislator Judi Bosworth (D-Great Neck) urges Nassau County Legislature Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt and Public Safety Committee chair Dennis Dunne to hold a public hearing focusing on recent proposals made by County Executive Mangano in his revised 2011 budget which will affect law enforcement across the county.

In a mid-March response to the Nassau Interim Finance Authority (NIFA), Mr. Mangano suggested redeployment of police personnel, a police precinct closing and unspecified layoffs.

"We need to discover exactly what changes the County Executive is planning for the county's police force and how any changes will impact county residents, "Legislator Bosworth stated. "At a public hearing called by the Legislative leadership with witnesses testifying subject to questioning we can best determine what changes the administration foresees and how residents will be affected.”

Legislator Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin) who is the senior Democrat on the Legislature's Public Safety Committee has written the Presiding Officer and the Committee chair requesting such a public hearing. "I fully support Legislator Scannell's call for a public hearing on this critical issue," Legislator Bosworth continued. "We as legislators need to know how any changes in our police department will affect public safety. Our residents need to know how these changes will affect their neighborhoods."

Legislator Bosworth was concerned in 2010 when the notion of merging the 6th precinct, which begins at the New York City border, and the 2nd precinct, which ends at the Suffolk County border, was first introduced. She believed such a merger would pose a serious threat to the quality of police protection enjoyed by area residents. “Any elimination or merger of precincts that would compromise in the slightest degree any community’s public safety is unacceptable,” Legislator Bosworth stressed.” It breaks the most important contract that government has with its citizens – and that is to insure and protect public safety.”