The Long Island business community is quietly but strategically taking stock of the potential impact of a socialist political agenda descending on neighboring New York City.
There is little debate that the Democrat Party’s primary winner for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, believes he has a mandate to implement an aggressively “progressive” agenda. His stated platform includes “defunding” the police and significantly hiking taxes on people he perceives as wealthy in order to pay for his initiatives. His refusal to recognize Israel’s legitimacy while championing a global intifada should chill Jew and non-Jew alike.
What does all this mean for Long Island?
Plenty.
For starters, a significant New York City middle class has realized that their political landscape is now unrecognizable. For many, Long Island is where they will find safety, stability, and freedom from the policies of a socialist mayor.
The same holds true for companies that had not previously considered Long Island as a base of operations for their back office or headquarters. Executives will not want their employees, or their companies, subjected to a mayor who views capitalism as an inconvenient evil.
That positions the strong law enforcement positions of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Suffolk’s Ed Romaine as creating their bastions of sanity and safety.
Other local elected officials have also begun to recognize the seismic political shift that may be as profound as the arrival of returning World War II GIs who, upon coming home, wanted something better than New York City tenements. Those veterans came to Long Island and, with the cooperation of politicians of the 1950s, invented modern suburbia.
Today, Town officials who direct zoning and county officials who preside over of investment incentives through Industrial Development Agencies have the means to strengthen our region’s future as New York City undergoes convulsions.
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico was prescient when he attended this summer’s ribbon cutting of our latest Sutton Landing complex for those 55 and “better.” He stated, “This is what we need on Long Island. And that’s coming from a person who probably leads this island when it comes to preservation. There is a place for development. B2K never pushes, never looks to over development, they look to become part of the community….”
While this high praise from the Supervisor, and his fellow keynoter Ed Romaine, was welcome indeed, they were both sending a message to the region’s development. Build smart, build in appropriate locations, and build what the region needs and government will approve the proposal.
The challenge will now be how best to craft a strategy that allows Long Island’s public and private sectors to work together, recognizing their respective realities as they respond to the profound political changes to the west.
Jan Burman, Chairman, B2K Development, Jericho
