Members of the Nassau County Legislature’s Minority Caucus joined Legislator Joshua Lafazan (D-Woodbury) to reveal his plan to reduce fines on county red light camera citations.
Debra Mulé (D-Freeport) and Arnold Drucker (D-Plainview) also accompanied Lafazan. His plan includes lowering the driver responsibility fine from red light camera citations from $45 to zero, the mortgage and deed recording fee from $300 to $50 and the tax map verification fee from $355 to $50.
“People need relief and they need it now,” said Lafazan. “Government has a
responsibility to meet this moment. And the very first place to do it is addressing some of the onerous and unjustified fees this county charges.”
The county Legislature has a Republican majority and executive, which means that Democrats would need their cooperation to enact any reforms. Lafazan claimed that Republicans had previously supported these cutbacks and they should support them now.
“If the plan was good enough 12 months ago, it’s certainly good enough right now to enact and the Democratic caucus stands ready to get this plan done,” he said. “Let’s be very clear: It is wrong to use a fee as a backdoor tax increase. It’s the same money coming out of people’s wallets running on a platform of not raising taxes while raising fees is quite simply wrong.”
Lafazan argued that these fees should never have been so expensive and that the money belongs to the taxpayers.
