14 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • FEBRUARY 2018 14 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 14 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
COVER STORY
Herstory in the making
Laura Curran shares vision, challenges as LI’s first female county executive
By RUTH BASHINSKY
Last month, in a frigid outdoor
ceremony, Democrat Laura Curran
was sworn in as the first female
Nassau County executive.
During the ceremony, she vowed
to “root out the corruption that
has plagued our county and
give Nassau the fresh start it so
desperately needs.” The former
two-term county legislator from
Baldwin lives by the mantra:
Respect taxpayer dollars and make
government work for those it
serves.
The Press spoke to Curran before
her trip to Albany to talk about
politics and some of her plans for
the county, how she manages it all
while raising three daughters, and
how she feels about being the first
woman in the post. At the end of
our interview, she was still humble
and even funny.
“It may sound corny, but I am
truly honored to be serving as
Nassau County Executive,” she
says. “We all know we have serious
challenges, but we also have
incredible opportunities. And my
team and I are off to a strong start.”
LIP: How bad is the assessment
problem?
LC: It’s bad. We have a serious
financial problem and a serious
assessment problem, and they are a
bit intertwined. We cannot address
one without fixing the other. The
assessments were frozen in 2011,
and since then we had an unfair
shift in the property tax burden,
and we’ve got to address that.
LIP: How bad are the county’s
finances?
LC: For the first time in its 18 years
in existence, the Nassau Interim
Finance Authority has imposed
cuts, cuts to the tune of $18 million,
and the county must report back to
NIFA on the cuts by mid-March.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran taking the oath of office outside the Theodore Roosevelt Executive
& Legislative Building in Mineola on Jan. 1, 2018. (Photo by Bob Giglione)