By Norman Gersman

It was after one o'clock in the afternoon and the five women, accompanied by two small children, were still sitting with the patience of Job to make their public comment to the Nassau County Legislature. They had arrived before 10 o'clock in the morning because the legislative session was supposed to start at that time. At 10 AM the legislative chambers was full of people, every seat was taken. Now its 1 PM and they will finally speak, but chamber is empty except for the five women, myself and two other citizens. In fact, almost half of the 19 Nassau County Legislators are missing too.

The women, from Bay Park and East Rockaway, are attending the February 11, 2008 session of the Nassau County Legislature, which has only two sessions per month, to continue their protest against the recent passage of the sewage district consolidation bill.

The Legislative session is supposed to start at 10 AM. At that time the 100 or so seats for the public are usually full because the public arrives when they are supposed to. Instead of starting at 10 AM, the 19 Legislators are not even in the room. Soon the Legislators start walking into and out of the chambers carrying their coffee cups, laughing, talking and all and all having a fine time with each other almost as if the people seating quietly and waiting in their seats did not exist. Around 10:20 AM the assistant presiding officer gets on the microphone and asks everyone to take their seats. He is ignored. Another 15 minutes goes by, finally everyone is seated and the Pledge is recited.

For those of you who have never attended a Legislative session you should know that the first item to be taken care of is public comment. Any person who wishes to speak must fill out a form stating your name and subject. The presiding officer Legislator Diane Yatauro takes the forms and starts calling the names. The five women from Bay Park & East Rockaway mentally prepare themselves because to the average person public speaking is not easy. Ms. Yatauro does not pick these women right away, and we understand that she really does not want to hear what they have to say. The City of Glen Cove is a major issue in the disputed sewage consolidation, and that is her district.

Presiding Officer Yatauro now stops the public comments because in her opinion it was taking too long. She decides that the balance of the public comments will be made after the Legislature finishes with its business. The patient women from Bay Park and East Rockaway understand that they would have to sit and wait at least an hour and a half more before speaking to the Legislature.

One would have thought that the representative of these women, Legislator Jeffrey Toback, who is sitting right next to Ms. Yatauro, would interject at that moment and say that he has five constituents waiting with small children and they should speak now. No, he is totally engrossed in his laptop, and remains so for the entire morning. One would have also thought that Ms. Yatauro who sees that these five women are with children, and knows their comments would not take too long should have let them spoke before the Legislature does its own business. But no...the women are being punished.

And all five sat and waited with the patience of Job.

Now its after 1PM and the legislative chambers is essentially empty of the public, cameras and shockingly...the legislators. They are called to speak. Their representative, Mr. Toback, finally looks up from his laptop. The first woman starts speaking and Mr. Toback interrupts her and become argumentative. He claims that Nassau County conducted environmental studies showing the positive benefits of consolidation and he will soon forward them to her. Minority Leader Republican Peter Schmitt interjects that there is only one engineering study of the proposal and no environmental studies leaving Mr. Toback with nothing to say.

The Democrats are clearly irritated that these women keep showing up at every session and the issue cannot be swept under the rug. The facts are that the Democrats voted and passed this legislation with no financial or environment studies, nor would they tell anyone what the big rush was to take a vote.

The women question why the County will send 2,000,000 gallons of additional sewage per day to the Bay Park Sewage Plant when the odors are already noxious and the bay is essentially lifeless. Where are the planned upgrades for the plant to lower the nitrates being dumped into the bay; or the plans for a ocean outfall pipe that would truly help to clean up the bay. These questions are ignored...the Democrats expected the residents of Bay Park and East Rockaway to be dumped on silently. The women are going to defend their community and charge that the whole consolidation was a financial bailout for the City of Glen Cove which surprise, surprise is run by Mayor Ralph Suozzi, cousin to the County Executive Tom Suozzi.

Now I ask the Legislators: The public is notified that the session starts at 10 AM? Can you all possibly get your acts together and start on time? Have your little coffee parties at 9:30 AM and then you'll be ready at 10 AM.

Can you finish with public comments before going on to your legislative business? Why in the world would you make Nassau residents wait for you....you're being paid by us.

Is it too much to ask that the 19 Legislators ALL stay to listen to public comments? I hope not.

You know, if they cared, they would be there. If the Legislators cared they would work on the issues that these women present. It's all about caring. These five women truly care about their community. They love their community enough to withstand the insulting behavior of some in our Legislature without losing their composure, then look them in the eye and demand that they listen. I hope everyone in Bay Park and East Rockaway read this, give them a pat on the back and a big thanks. Anyone with the patience of Job gets a tip of the hat from me.