Seth Koslow wears many hats — husband, dad, attorney and legislator in Nassau’ County’s 5th District. This year the Democrat has taken on a new challenge: running for county executive against incumbent Bruce Blakeman. His campaign has focused on values like transparency, common-sense policies and bipartisan communication.
Koslow, 43, grew up in Baldwin, and now lives in Merrick with his wife, three children and their rescue dog, Coco. After college he worked in a variety of sales jobs before returning to law school. He started his career as a prosecutor in the Queens district attorney’s office, and now has his own law practice.
In 2023, he won an open seat in the 5th District, which encompasses Merrick, Freeport and parts of North Bellmore. When the opportunity arose for him to run for county executive, he decided to take it.
“The same way I wanted to make a difference in my district,” he told Herald reporters at a roundtable interview, “I want to make a difference in the county.”
Koslow was critical of the Blakeman administration’s communication with the Legislature’s minority caucus, and he pointed to the Nassau University Medical Center as a “perfect example” of where the county lacks transparency. The public hospital in East Meadow, which serves all patients regardless of their ability to pay for medical care, was taken over by New York state earlier this year.
“Instead of actually working with the state to save the hospital, (Blakeman) fought with them, and now we lost control,” Koslow said.
He said he had similar concerns about the Nassau County Correctional Center, also in East Meadow. The county agreed to a partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is using a portion of the jail to hold detainees. In September, a Honduran national in custody at the jail died, roughly 18 hours after he was detained.
“We don’t know what’s going on with the buildings at the jail, whether ICE is using buildings independently,” Koslow said. “It’s a lack of transparency — it’s a lack of planning for the county.”
With Las Vegas Sands officially stepping away from its casino proposal at the Nassau Coliseum site, Koslow said that while he doesn’t have a real estate background, he is open to partnering with others to find the best path forward for the Nassau Hub. He outlined a vision that includes a convention center, a hotel and housing, elements he believes would support revenue generation, boost tourism and promote development.
Koslow was very critical of Nassau County’s “militia” — a unit of armed volunteer residents that, he said, makes the county “less safe” and raises chain-of-command and liability issues. Koslow said that the Nassau County Police Department does a great job, describing them as “well-trained” and “very responsive,” and he couldn’t picture a situation in which armed volunteers would be necessary.
He also disagreed with the county’s transgender sport ban, which prevents transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams at county-run parks and facilities.
“Let the (local) leagues handle it,” he said. “It’s not a county issue.”
Koslow said that the county needs to return to a “traditional” separation of the branches of government. If elected, he said, he would let legislators “do their jobs.”
“If I don’t necessarily like a law they pass, I have the right not to sign,” he said. “But that also gives me some leverage to negotiate.”
Local government, he said, has to work to support the people. “We’re talking about life and death here,” Koslow said. “We’re talking about your safety. We can’t play games in local politics.”
