In a town mailing earlier this year, Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray stated, "Taxpayers are hurting and they are looking to officials at all levels to provide real leadership."  I find it very disingenuous then, that one month after her reelection, Murray gave herself a $10,000 raise last week. The Town Board also gave Town Clerk Mark Bonilla a 10 percent raise and all its councilpersons more than a seven percent raise. Yet, the consumer price index is less than one percent and we have an unemployment rate of 10 percent?

Murray doesn't seem to understand the depth in which people are suffering. County workers took a cut in salary this year.  Teacher salaries across Long Island had minimal if any increases this year.  Teachers understand that the people can no longer afford to give them salary increases. Yet town officials still decide to give themselves a raise!

They campaigned as the party of fiscal responsibility and yet the Republican-held towns of Hempstead and Oyster Bay gave their elected officials exorbitant raises right after an election.  The Democratic-run town of North Hempstead has not given their elected officials raises since 2005.  Their supervisor makes $133,000, while Murray makes $150,000.  North Hempstead councilpersons make $40,000, which is in-line with Democratic county legislators who have never voted for a pay increase and have salaries of $39,500.  But Hempstead Town councilpersons seem believe they deserve to make $66,000, 67 percent more than our county legislators and more than any other councilperson in Nassau County. 

The Republican Party cannot claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility when in every branch that they control, the first thing that they do after an election is give themselves raises. The County Presiding Officer-elect Peter Schmitt put in for raises less than a week after winning the November election.  The Oceanside Sanitation Commissioner gave himself a raise to nearly $200,000 a year, again right after his election.   

When I mentioned the raise of the sanitation commissioner to the Hempstead Town Board last week, Murray tried to differentiate the town from its sanitation districts. I pointed out that the town approves the sanitation district's budget. Murray then claimed that the people voted for the budget.  I clarified Murray's statement by saying that actually:  "The people voted for the commissioner.  The commissioner preapred the budget and the town approved the budget."

The people are smart.  Their eyes are wide open.  We are angry at the way the town is governing.  If they have so much money, then why aren't our roads being paved?  Why aren't we getting the stop signs we're asking for?  Why do we have to wait so long for a permit?  Why aren't they relocating those cell antennas?  But most of all, we want them to understand that people are hurting.  They cannot keep taxing us and not providing us with anything in return.  We are in the midst of the biggest financial crisis in my lifetime. Kate Murray must stop bleeding us dry by asking for us to increase her salary.  We simply can't afford it anymore! 

We demand honesty and transparency in government.  That is why I appeared before the town board members last week and asked them that if in 2012 they intended to give themselves raises, would they be willing to clearly state so in their 2012 budget that goes before the board in October?  Then maybe we would really know what we were voting for in November. Murray refused.

So much for honesty and transparency in the Town of Hempstead government.