As a mother, educator and community leader Christine Pellegrino directly understands the challenges facing Long Island’s families.
As an elementary school reading teacher for the past twenty five years, Christine has shown leadership by regularly organizing and facilitating team meetings with colleagues and serving as the outreach coordinator for her department. She communicates with various groups throughout the school community, working with those students who are identified as being at-risk for reading below grade level and regularly advocating for their needs in various settings. Her commitment and dedication to our children has been recognized by both colleagues and parents.
No stranger to Albany, as the Political Action Chair, she attends the annual NYSUT sponsored Lobby Days to participate in the direct lobbying of local lawmakers on specific issues facing educators and has also organized and implemented a successful annual tradition of lobbying in Albany by a coalition of various stakeholder groups.
As a leader of the Opt Out movement Christine has advocated and organized against standardization from Albany that harms our children. She has fought for funding for education and believes that Long Island’s families deserve their fair share of dollars from Albany.
A proud mother of two children in middle school, Christine earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education in 1991 and her Master of Science Degree in Education: Reading Specialist in 1998. She also received an Education Professional Diploma, School Supervision & Administration in 2012.
Was a Democrat’s surprise victory in a State Assembly race a referendum on the leadership of President Donald Trump?
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Well, yes, since Democrats and third-party candidates took advantage of traditionally low turnout in special elections to support — with money and manpower — their candidate, Christine Pellegrino, who will be the first Democrat to represent the heavily Republican assembly district.
But the answer also is no, because special election trends often don’t hold up in Nassau or Suffolk general elections, because the stakes for major political parties are higher, and because voters tend to pay the most attention to local issues.
Still, the decisive results in the 9th Assembly District race may be making Nassau’s GOP nervous as the general election for a slew of county and town seats grows near — after a series of county and town corruption scandals.
Republicans in the 9th Assembly district, which covers parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties, are among the most consistent, reliable voters the Nassau County GOP has.
And yet, judging from unofficial results, loyal Republicans saw no reason to replace Assemb. Joseph Saladino — who was appointed Oyster Bay Town supervisor after fellow Republican John Venditto, who has pleaded not guilty to corruption-related charges, stepped down — with Conservative Party candidate Tom Gargiulo, who also had the Republican and Independence lines.
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The race wasn’t even close: Pellegrino won by a margin of 58 to 42 percent.
Nassau accounted for only 40 percent of the overall turnout in the race Tuesday. Will Republicans turn out for Republican candidates in the general election in November, when control of Nassau’s three towns, the county executive’s office, the legislature and all but one countywide office is at stake?
That’s the overarching question looming in light of Tuesday’s results.
Should Republicans stay home, Democrats and third-party candidates once again could gain an edge.
But there’s another scenario for Nassau Republicans: What if reliable Republicans DO turn out to vote — but for the GOP’s opponents.
That happened in 1999, when angry voters wiped away Republican control of the Nassau legislature for the first time in more than 70 years. A year later, voters delivered the county executive’s office into the hands of the Democrats too.
Things changed again in 2009. But this time Democrats’ supporters stayed home, giving Republican Edward Mangano a 300-vote surprise victory over Democratic County Executive Thomas Suozzi.
Will Trump, who had decisive majorities in 9th Assembly District during the presidential election, make a difference in Nassau or Suffolk local races come November?
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