While noting the recent economic advances of his administration, Maragos said that he would work to reduce the cost of living in Nassau so that the county may compete with the rest of the country in terms of affordable housing.

“What services are you willing to give up if you want to have a reduction?” said Rosalie Norton, President of the West Hempstead Civic Association. “You can’t give up clean water, you can’t say you want a good sewer system, you can’t say you want paved roads or a good police system, unless you’re willing to pay for it.”

In addressing the claims made about his previous record as county executive, Democratic candidate Tom Suozzi said that he did not increase property taxes for six years in a row during his term and instead reduced countywide debt from $3.2 billion to $2.9 billion with eight surpluses. Suozzi also said that he would work to initiate plans to build multi-story apartments and office buildings — complete with restaurants on shops on the ground floor — as a way to generate more sales tax revenue and job opportunities for residents.

“We’re in critical shape with our finances and if we’re not stable as far as our finances go, if we don’t have that foundation, we can’t stand on that foundation and look out to the future and say ‘that’s where we need to go,’” Suozzi said.

Former County Comptroller Howard Weitzman — who is vying to regain his position after falling ill during his 2009 reelection race — also said that the current tax assessment system is broken and encouraged residents to continue challenging its results. “What can the Comptroller’s Office do — not only in Nassau County, but in the school districts and towns — so we can argue over the same set of numbers?” asked Felix Procacci, Franklin Square resident and Democratic candidate for Hempstead Town Supervisor, who also addressed the crowd that night in his first race for political office.