Blakeman is misusing COVID funds

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is moving to use $10 million in federal coronavirus funds for a series of events in 2024 celebrating the county's 125th anniversary when Nassau's three towns broke off from Queens. Blakeman told Newsday the anniversary events could include concerts, car shows or professional golf tournaments. He asked the GOP-run county legislature to set aside the $10 million. This was approved Dec. 4 by lawmakers on the Finance Committee.

Fortunately for his administration, this choice of spending does not seem to violate the very broad terms of the American Rescue Plan Act, through which the federal government under President Joe Biden awarded the county $385 million. Nassau only needs to specify the purposes of its use by Dec. 31, 2024, and spend it by the end of 2026.

True, the funds for promotional events that will spotlight Blakeman, who is nearing the halfway point in his term, represent only a small portion of the federal aid that helped keep the county's budget afloat through the end of the pandemic. But is this particular allocation needed at all?

Democrats in the minority are right to suggest ahead of next week's vote by the full legislature that the county shouldn't prioritize potential tourism and “economic development” over more urgent needs. Legis. Arnold Drucker said those needs include “treatment of mental health issues, substance abuse, homelessness, veterans, economic difficulties and challenges that our small businesses are experiencing.” Added Drucker: “This is where $10 million should go to.”

Budget officials say those needs will be met and funded elsewhere in the budget. But there's a wider concern. Governance choices that seem to flatter Blakeman are getting to be a theme of his incumbency. For example, the county already has put more than $2 million in COVID-19 aid into a tourism campaign, according to U.S. Treasury Department records. Specifically, $600,000 went to 30-second commercials that aired upstate and in the metropolitan region, as well as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona. Blakeman appears in the commercials, beside the county logo and his name, and proclaims: “Nassau County, golden — coast to coast.”

That's the kind of appearance one might see from a New York governor seeking reelection — a job Blakeman may be aiming for in 2026.

For marking Nassau's anniversary, county officials say Blakeman will scale out a plan next month and solicit advice from legislators. While doing so, he should listen carefully to his critics, reconsider, and shift the money to something more pressing. He should at least explain whether all 125th anniversary events, which are nice and appropriate to hold, could be funded and publicized privately.

Whatever Blakeman's personal ambitions, a change of course in this one instance might assure the suitably skeptical that he's serious about governing with the entire county's priorities in mind. That could bring him positive publicity, of a different kind.