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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we'll meet the new Nassau County Executive, Bruce Blakeman. The 66-year-old South Shore Republican defeated Democrat Laura Curran who was running for re-election in November. Blakeman ran largely on a platform of opposing the Bail Reform Law in New York State and opposing mask mandates. Since taking office last month, he has defied Governor Hochul's statewide masks mandate for schools and other indoor public places, leaving it up to each school district itself and making masks optional inside Nassau County offices.

He did also announce last month additional vaccination sites and distribution by the county of KN95 masks at schools and at home COVID tests to any county resident. On bail reform, Blakeman is having the Nassau County police release daily reports on arrests, case details, and bail status to build a database of whether defendants released with or without bail commit additional crimes.

Some biographical details, some of you will remember that Bruce Blakeman was the presiding officer on the Nassau County Legislature back in the '90s. He was the Republican nominee for New York State Comptroller in 1998 but lost to Carl McCall that year, and he was the Republican nominee for Congress from Nassau County's 4th Congressional District in 2014 but lost to the current member, Democrat Kathleen Rice. Blakeman was serving on the Hempstead Town Council before his election in November. The election in November, of course, made him the County Executive. He's also been a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, so he's got a lot of background in government in politics.

Nassau County, by the way, according to the 2020 census results, has about 1.4 million people. Manhattan, by comparison, has 1.6, not that much more. For those of you who don't do Long Island, Nassau is a very major county. It didn't grow by very much though, over the last 10 years since the 2010 census, which is an issue. Do kids who grew up there find the lifestyles or affordability to keep them there? Nor is it the stereotypical suburb of the 1950s? The census found it's about 60% non-Hispanic white, around 17% Hispanic, 13% Black, 10% Asian American.

County Executive Bruce Blakeman will join us in just a second, we're getting him on the line. We're a little early to this segment because of the way we had to truncate the previous segment and go to the president who went very short. We don't quite have Bruce Blakeman yet. Here's what we're going to do. I see some Nassau County calls are coming in already. Let's talk about Nassau County, and you can talk about the issues that I mentioned in the introduction to the County Executive, the things that he ran on having to do with mask mandate in schools, and bail reform, and crime-fighting.

I wonder if there's anybody listening who's a parent in Nassau County or on a local Nassau County School Board, who wants to talk about whether you took him up on his offer to take local control at the school district level and lift the mask mandate in your school or anything else you want to say. Hello, Nassau County. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

To the deeper issue, how about some older Nassau County parents out there? Are your young adult children staying on Long Island, or do they want to flee to the city? One of the issues we're going to talk about is the urbanization and how much Blakeman supports it or does not of areas particularly around Long Island railroad train stations, that some say is necessary to the further development of Long Island as a place that, A, has some more affordable housing, and B, that young adults of the next generation want to live. How is any of this playing out for you? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll start for the moment with Linda in Nassau County. Linda, you're on WNYC, thank you for calling in.

Linda: Hi, Brian. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine.

Linda: I've lived in Nassau County for 60 years. In the past 5 or 10 years, our real estate taxes have increased by 50%. It's not only implausible for young adults to retain homes here, but also for those who are retired trying to continue to maintain the cost of their homes. It's a problem, but we still love Nassau. We're near the airports, near the city, and we still get a little bit of green.

I'm calling today because of the very alarming and upsetting new policies coming out of Blakeman's administration. It's bad enough that Nassau was high with this COVID rate. Under the previous executive, we had control in some ways of mask mandates. Lots of people in Nassau don't want to wear masks, but many do. With this repudiation of the mask mandate, he confused all of the school districts, he confused just citizens. You go into stores now, you see half the people have masks, half do not. We're really terribly concerned about Blakeman and his conservative anti-science position.

Brian Lehrer: Now, he'll speak for himself once he gets here, but he would say, it's not about science, it's about personal freedom. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he may say something to that effect. What would your response to that be?

Linda: Brian, you and I both know that we are exaggerating personal freedoms at the expense of human health, at the expense of the lives and the welfare of our friends, our neighbors, and our relatives. There's a line beyond which this is taken too far. This is a global pandemic. We have people we know who have gotten very sick or have perished in the hospital. This is New York. We're not some third-world country, and we need to get our act together here, safeguard our friends and neighbors, make sure that people are doing the best and the utmost to stay safe.

When the COVID rate comes down into something "normal" to endemic levels from pandemic levels, then you can discuss masks, but politicizing this issue very much in the Trumpian way, is a cause for dire concern. If you follow him on Twitter and on social media, many Nassau County residents are speaking out very, very loudly against Blakeman and this new really reactionary anti-science and anti-public health stance.

Brian Lehrer: Linda, thank you for your call, we will definitely get a response from him once the County Executive comes on. Lisa in Nassau County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa. Thank you for calling in.

Lisa: Hi. It's a pleasure to talk to you. I guess I was just saying that I have a third-grader and a sixth-grader, and the day that that ruling was made and the chaos that ensued was so discomforting for parents because it just further deepens what has become political division and so unnecessarily so.

You can't go to a board meeting without these issues that are tearing the communities apart, and people don't communicate like neighbors anymore about it. When leadership just put gas on those fires, it makes it so much worse. Instead of taking these issues and looking at evidence and reasonable plans and community building, all the things that strong leadership does, it just causes further problems.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask as a parent how this has played out in your child's school because what Blakeman did, as I understand it, is different from what, say, Ron DeSantis, the Republican Governor of Florida did. DeSantis prevents any school district from having a mask mandate in class, prevents any private business from having a mask mandate on their premises. My understanding is, Blakeman doesn't go that far. He wants the school districts to be able to decide it at the school district level, not be dictated to by the state, and same thing with private businesses. How's it playing out in your school? We've certainly seen on television, if nothing else, protests by parents who don't want the mask mandate. Do you have that kind of conversation going on among the parents in your school?

Lisa: Oh, absolutely. There are strong protests, there are parents who are very, very adamant that, no, kids should not be masked. I don't know that there is that same sentiment that kids should be masked. However, we're following the recommendations of science and waiting for leadership. In terms of how it's played out in schools, it depends on the district, of course. I feel like they're mostly following the Department of Health and the Nassau County Department of Health, and this governor's mandate is overriding the Nassau Blakeman commandments. It depends on the district. There are those who have tried and failed and tried legal measures to unmask their kids in public schools and failed because they risk their funding.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Hochul made that threat.

Lisa: It's just like neighbor against neighbor, you thought breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding was drama, this is like times a bajillion. Like you're a bad parent, you're a good parent. It has nothing to do with who's a good and bad parent, it's just we're living through a pandemic and we're trying to make the best choices.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you. Thank you very much for your call. I really appreciate it. Now, we do have the new Nassau County Executive, Bruce Blakeman. County Executive, thank you for joining us. Welcome to WNYC today.

Bruce Blakeman: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: As we have been doing here with a number of different newly elected officials, at least newly elected to their offices, can we start with a little on your bio, like where you grew up, and what first inspired you to go into politics?

Bruce Blakeman: Well, I grew up in Valley Stream. That's on the border of Queens. It's probably the middle of Nassau County on the westernmost border of Queens. Graduated from Valley Stream Central High School, graduated from Arizona State University, got my law degree from California Western University Law School, and then moved back from California to Long Island, practiced law, became a councilman, Port Authority Commissioner, presiding officer in Nassau County Legislature, ran for other offices a couple of times, lived in the city for a period of time, and now elected county executive. I was also a bartender, a busboy, a dishwasher, I worked on the back of a garbage truck. I have to include that in my resume as well.

Brian Lehrer: Let me do a Republican or Conservative.

Bruce Blakeman: I believe that there should be limitations on government power. I believe in a smaller government. I believe in a strong national defense. I believe in law and order and supporting law enforcement and homeland security. I think those are all Republican principles. Basically, Ronald Reagan was a hero to me. I thought that he was a very good leader and someone who had a clear vision of what America should be, and I shared that vision.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about the mask mandate. A couple of callers, as we were getting you on the line, wanted to bring that up right away. I went over a little of the background of what your position is on it. I will say that an increasing number of experts like Dr. Leana Wen, who's going to be our next guest next hour, are now saying ease up for kids in school. You're getting some support there, but you are defying the state mask mandate a month ago when it seemed like everyone was getting Omicron. Why was that respectful enough in your view of the safety of your neighbors, to paraphrase one of the callers we had a minute ago?

Bruce Blakeman: Yes. What I was hearing from various doctors and scientists, they told me in private that, basically, the mask mandate really would not materially affect the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with the Omicron variant, that it was highly contagious, that many people were going to get it, but they weren't going to get seriously ill and they weren't going to die. We've seen that they were correct.

With respect to the masks, they said the only masks that are really working are the N95 and KN95s, which have 80% protection against acquiring the pandemic, the Coronavirus. Basically, if you have an N95 mask or KN95 mask, you should wear it if you're immune-compromised or if you have an underlying health condition, but if you don't, the paper masks that they were handing out simply aren't effective. There was no science behind it.

Since we were in a different variant, these doctors and scientists were telling me that the masks are the least important in battling the pandemic, that it was really the testing, and it was the vaccinations. When I took office, I increased the distribution of free home tests. We gave out in just two weeks 250,000 free test kits. I also reopened the vaccination pod. It's not like I'm not serious about battling this pandemic, I'm very serious, but giving people a false sense of security and pitting neighbor against neighbor is exactly what the governor is doing.

The mask mandate has no basis in law. She did not have the power to do that, it's unconstitutional. The judge has already ruled that, and that's what I was saying all along. Quite frankly, I'm very surprised that people who are on the other side of the ideological spectrum, let's say, on the left-wing, aren't joining me in this, because this is a matter of individual rights, a matter of constitutionality.

Are we going to let a governor declare a mandate without legislative authority? That's what the issue is all about. It's about individual rights. It's about parents' rights. These are important rights. The right to raise your child and make a decision as to whether you want to send your child to school with a mask or not, it's about choice. I'm not anti-mask, I'm pro-option, I'm anti-mandate. Give people the option, they can make intelligent decisions for themselves and for their children.

Brian Lehrer: On the science, as a follow up to what you said, some doctors and scientists told you in private, what most of the scientists and doctors have been saying in public is that a cloth mask is not as protective as they might have thought a year or two ago, but it still gives like 25%, 35% protection against Omicron, something like that, which is significant.

Bruce Blakeman: Yes. Why would you mandate if it only gives 25% protection? Why would you mandate that when, in fact, our schoolchildren are not getting seriously ill, they're not dying, that the chances of a school-aged child getting seriously ill is 0.004%?

Quite frankly, the reason why the doctors and the scientists have been reluctant up until now to voice their opinion is because of the bullying that's going on. The governor of this state threatened to remove school board members who would defy her mask mandate and said she would cut off funding to school districts that defied her mask mandate. There is bullying going on, and that's why these doctors and scientists until now have been very reluctant to come and speak their mind and speak their opinion because of the bullying that's going on.

Brian Lehrer: Well, you're saying that the majority of doctors and scientists, and there's been pretty much a medical consensus that the mass mandate is a good thing. I realized there are some dissenters in that community, but are you asserting that the majority of doctors and scientists, whether, I think it's fair to say there has been majority support for school mass mandates, A, to protect unvaccinated kids because some kids do get sick. There have been four deaths under five of children in New Jersey just this year alone, and of course, they live with older relatives and their immunocompromised people in their life. It's kind of a chain of you talking about personal responsibility or personal choice. I think another conservative value is community responsibility. Some people say, "Okay, this is where your argument breaks down."

Bruce Blakeman: Yes, that's complete nonsense, because first of all, a majority of states do not have a mask mandate. That's number one. Number two, it's nonsense because how many people die in traffic accidents? How many people die of other reasons? Are we just going to stop everything? We're not in a crisis in New York State. Young people are not getting ill. People are not getting seriously ill from the Omicron variant. It's complete nonsense.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let me just jump in on that, County Executive. Back in July, we've been-- [crosstalk]

Bruce Blakeman: Can I finish?

Brian Lehrer: Sure. Sorry. Go ahead.

Bruce Blakeman: If you're using that flimsy evidence to support the governor's mask mandate, are you willing to use that flimsy evidence for any mandate that the government might decide? Is that what our country has become? I think we're on a very slippery slope here, and I think we're talking about individual rights and constitutionality.

In the past, Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, they all share the same value when it came to not letting the government do things like that because we had a constitution and because we had such reverence for individual rights and freedom. I'm very concerned about the precedence in the sense, and I don't think you can use flimsy evidence and isolated examples to promulgate a mandate.

Brian Lehrer: Let me throw one more stat at you, and then we'll move on to some other things. Only because you said, it just isn't a threat to people's health very much, the Omicron variant. Of course, it's not as deadly on average per person as some of the previous variants, but it's so widespread that as you probably know back in July, at the state level, there were only about four people a day, single digits of people a day dying from COVID. Now, in recent weeks, it's been in the 40s of people per day, in the 50s of people per day. How many people have to die before you would premise policy on the notion that it is a significant threat to the lives of New Yorkers?

Bruce Blakeman: I think that basically, the vast majority of healthcare professionals, physicians, and scientists would say that the Omicron variant is about the same as a flu and that it does not pose the times of dangers that the delta variant posed in public health.

Brian Lehrer: You know just on the stats because I follow the stats closely, you know that 2,000 people a day have been dying in this country, this year, from the Omicron variant, because it's so widespread, and then there's that percentage. If that went on for a year, that would be 700,000 deaths. The flu kills nothing like that, even though it does kill tens of thousands of people per year in this country, this is way beyond that, at that rate.

Bruce Blakeman: Not the Omicron variant. Look, you can debate that all you want.

Brian Lehrer: It is currently the Omicron variant that's killing 2,000 Americans every day.

Bruce Blakeman: If you read The Wall Street Journal yesterday, it was reported in The Wall Street Journal yesterday that there was a study in Europe, a very extensive study, I think it was in the UK, where the study disclosed that the closures that were mandated throughout the United States had virtually no effect on controlling COVID-19.

Brian Lehrer: The closure, the closing of businesses and schools?

Bruce Blakeman: Yes. Then we have to look at the collateral damage to our children, we have to look at the collateral damage to adults, the drug use, the depression. The fact that parents have come to me and said, "My kids, their only experience in school is wearing masks. I don't think that's healthy for my kid." [crosstalk] Have you ever had Governor Hochul on your show?

Brian Lehrer: No, actually.

Bruce Blakeman: Well, you should call her up today, and you should ask her, what were the scientific metrics that you use to impose the mandate, and what are the scientific metrics that you're using to decide when to end the mandate? Everybody's talking about science, but I've asked the question for over a month now, and I still haven't gotten an answer.

Brian Lehrer: That's a fair question. I would make a distinction between the two things you just brought up, and let me get your reaction to this. The closures were one thing, but now I think what policymakers from both parties are trying to do here and around the country is not close things anymore.

Despite the death toll from Omicron, they're trying now to live with the virus and manage around the virus. It seems to me that it's different to say, "Don't shut things down again," and to say, "Yes, let's not shut things down again, but let's do the things that will let us live safely with the virus." That would be mask mandates, that would be vaccine mandates, and that would be social distancing in certain cases, specifically to keep things open and now people are even protesting those.

Bruce Blakeman: There was a mask mandate for 18 months in the state of New York. It was the highest level of transmission of COVID-19 during that period. Where's the science?

Brian Lehrer: The science is still there. [crosstalk] Do you disagree that it would be worse if people were not wearing masks?

Bruce Blakeman: Why are we making mummies out of our kids when it didn't work? There's no science to it. The doctors are saying unless it's an N95 or K95 that it's not effective. By the way, if you're wearing an N95 or KN95, which should be your worry, it should be optional. You should be allowed to do that. I'm not arguing that, but it doesn't help you if you're wearing an N95 or KN95 that somebody else is wearing a mask. If you have your mask on, you have 80% protection.

The point is that there's no science behind what the governor is doing. It's a serious infringement on individual rights. It's an infringement on parental rights. I wish the civil libertarians in this day and those who call themselves liberals would join the cause, and say to the governor, "You've gone too far. There's no science to back up your mandate, and we don't want government telling us what to do when we're not in an emergency and when we're not in crisis." Everybody agrees we're not in an emergency and we're not in a crisis. Everybody agrees on that.

Brian Lehrer: Let me pivot a little bit and ask you if there's a place in what you were just saying, where there might be a coalition of Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives in local government around the state, and listeners if you just joining us, my guest is the new County Executive in Nassau County, Republican Bruce Blakeman, who got elected in November.

Because one interesting part to me of your mask mandate position is that you're putting a stake in the ground for local community Home Rule, as opposed to state control as a principle. I cited on the show last month, that liberal Democrats also chafe at state control on various things. They don't want state lawmakers from Oswego to have a say in what the New York City rent control laws have to be or how many red-light traffic cameras the city is allowed to have, and whether the mayor of the city gets to preside over city schools. Why does Albany decide on that? Do you think there's a coalition to be heard to take more control back from Albany for a variety of policy things?

Bruce Blakeman: Well, I think both the State Constitution and the United States Constitution talk about Home Rule and how important it is on making decisions regarding the quality of life. Yes, I do think those are important values that we have in the United States. We don't like authoritarian or autocratic, centralized decision-making. That's why we have local government. I believe that the governor in this circumstance has overstepped her authority and that she has not provided any of the scientific evidence that should be the cornerstone of her mandate.

Brian Lehrer: Right. That's on that issue. I'm just curious if you think there are other issues, that maybe you and some of the Democratic county executives might get around to say, "Hey, Albany loosen up beyond this one issue."

Bruce Blakeman: Yes. You're making the exact point. What I'm saying is she had a crisis, the governor had a crisis in Erie County. They didn't have enough hospital beds, the ICU units were filling off. She said, "I'm going to extend the mask mandate," when there's no scientific evidence to say that that would help because how did it get that bad because her mandate was in effect during that time, but let's put that aside for a moment.

In Nassau County, we have world-class health facilities, and a lot of them, we've got Northwell, we've got NYU Langone, we got Mount Sinai, we've got the Catholic Health System, we have New Mec. We have plenty of bed capacity. We have plenty of ICU units available. Why did she take a statewide mandate and not making it regional for Erie County but a relief in Nassau County where there was no problem?

Brian Lehrer: I get it. I'm just asking you if there are other Home Rule issues that you would say.

Bruce Blakeman: Yes, there is. The governor is trying to take local zoning away from villages and towns in New York State. In her budget message, she would like to have a law that basically takes away the rights of towns and villages to regulate how many units they have in the neighborhood. She would allow single family residents to add on additional apartments, all without local home rule.

I'm very concerned, very concerned about this governor and her desire to rule the whole state from the second floor of the state capital and not give towns, villages, and counties the right to make decisions what's best for their communities. It's a big state. There's over 20 million people in the state. Erie County is closer to Toronto and Cleveland than it is to Long Island. I just don't understand the logic. There's no science behind what she's doing. Yes, she is trying to take power away from local government.

Brian Lehrer: We've spent [chuckles] almost our whole time on the masks and Governor Hochul and your policies. We're not going to get into the other big issue right now, bail reform, because we're going to run out of time. Let me--

Bruce Blakeman: I expect to come back if you invite me.

Brian Lehrer: You're invited. Let me just pick up on what you just said for something else that's not a hot button right now, but something else that you just refer to that's a long-term Long Island growth and sustainability issue. I don't mean sustainability in the climate sense but in the population sense. I mentioned this in the intro before you came on.

There's always a concern in Nassau County that the next generation is leaving, that they don't want either that lifestyle or they can't afford that lifestyle. Some people advocate more development of multi-dwelling units, including some affordability requirement around the Long Island Railroad train stations, partly for affordability and partly to keep the next generation interested in living in Nassau County and out in Suffolk. I'm just curious where you are on that and then we're out of time.

Bruce Blakeman: Well, if you look at my record, I created the first transportation-oriented district in probably all of Long Island in my district when I was a town councilman. Basically, I'm a strong believer in transportation-oriented housing. I think that we need to create housing near railroad stations, which is what I did. We have to create housing that is mixed with retail to get people out of their cars, so they shop locally, so they can walk to the pharmacy, walk to the restaurant, walk to the dry cleaners, and not have to get in their car because we've got a big traffic problem. Also, it causes environmental issues.

I'm a big proponent of transportation-oriented housing, and I've done it in my district. It's the first time we did it in the Town of Hempstead, which is America's largest township. I felt that that was a way to attract young people and also to keep our senior citizens who were looking to downsize. I think we have to think about development and we have to do it in a smart way. One of the things I did also was I reserved 10% of all of the new housing to transportation-oriented district to make it affordable and to give preference to people who lived in the community so that they would not be gentrified out of their own communities.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there for today with the new Nassau County Executive, Bruce Blakeman. County Executive, thank you very much for your time today and for engaging. We'll have you back.

Bruce Blakeman: Thank you so much.

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