Heller Works While Schmitt Dawdles

During last years election season, Schmitt's opponent Craig Heller brought up the issue of high taxes in Nassau related to high school taxes. During the debate on News12, Heller raised the issue or inequities in the state school aid funding and Schmitt dismissed Heller by saying that school taxes is not a legislature issue and wondered is Heller was running for State Assembly.
This is what you get from weak, ineffective career (read: never worked an honest day) politician.
As an elected official, a legislator certainly has a soapbox to speak from and people will listen.
In the meantime, CE Suozzi has been making school taxes a major issue and school districts from around Nassau are meeting to work out plans to solve funding issues. Craig Heller is taking the iniciative as a PRIVATE CITIZEN to get involved.
Who would be a more effective legislator? A pro-active legislator or one who throws his hands up and refuses to get involved?

From the School Aid Meeting
I am writing this letter to advise the community about the important steps being taken by County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi regarding the school taxes.
As some of you are aware, I was the Democratic candidate for Nassau County Legislature in the 12th LD. During my campaign I explained to the community that our major tax problem was primarily the school taxes.
In order to alleviate this problem I indicated that it was imperative that the State Aid formula for Education from Albany had to be modified due to the fact that too much of that formula was based on real property values. Due to this fact, Nassau County receives less state aid for education than any other county, even Suffolk and Westchester counties. I had met with the local school superintendents from Massapequa, Plainedge and Farmingdale to jumpstart a lobbying campaign to change the state aid formula.
The day after the election, the county executive held a press conference with members of local school boards, legislative leaders and County Comptroller Howard Weitzman to call on all of the school districts to join in an effort to commence a lobbying campaign to change the state aid formula. A meeting has been scheduled for December 7 at 7:30 p.m. for all of the school districts to send representatives to attend to commence this effort.
This is an important first step to succeeding in finding a way to lower our school tax burden. As I indicated in my campaign I would pursue this effort whether I won or lost the election. I have every intention of honoring that promise.
Craig S. Heller

From the Dec 18, 2005 New York Times
To the Editor:
In "As Island Home Prices Climb, School Aid Migrates Upstate" (Dec. 11), you hit the nail on the head about the No. 1 issue affecting Long Island today, the inequities of the New York State school aid system that has caused the school taxes to spiral out of control. But I was surprised that there was no mention of the efforts of the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, to correct this wrong.
The day after last month's election, Mr. Suozzi held a press conference with members of local school boards, legislative leaders and the county comptroller, Howard S. Weitzman, to call on all of the county's school districts to join in an effort to commence a lobbying campaign to change the state aid formula. This meeting was held on Dec. 7 and was the important first step to succeeding in finding a way to lower our school tax burden.
Your analysis makes it very clear that this system is extremely inequitable because of the use of real property values in its formula. Therefore, I call on all of the state legislators, particularly those on Long Island, to help in the effort being led by Mr. Suozzi to change the state aid formula for education.
Craig Heller
North Massapequa
The writer was this year's Democratic candidate for the Nassau County Legislature, 12th District.