NASA executive Bruce Blakeman set to challenge Governor Hochul the obstacles he'll face even though his GOP opponent has dropped out of the race.

Zohran Mamdani's promises to New Yorkers as he starts his historic term as mayor.

License plate readers, facial recognition, just some of the security that NASA executive Blakeman has said he'll put at the Queens border, but at what cost?

And a Newsday investigation into the role that many local hotels and motels are playing in the sex trafficking trade.

♪♪ >> You're watching "Island Insider."

I'm Doug Gede.

We begin with Bruce Blakeman.

He's just started his second term as Nassau County executive, but Blakeman is already campaigning for governor.

Republican rival has stepped aside, what are the roadblocks that could stand in his way?

We haven't raised taxes one penny.

We are the safest county in America.

Just a month after being reelected as Nassau County Executive, Bruce Blakeman is breaking out the campaign ads again.

This time in a bid to become governor.

The good news for Blakeman is that he won't have to face upstate Congresswoman Elise Stefanik in a Republican Party primary.

Stefanik was considered the favorite to win the GOP nomination, but dropped out of the race soon after Blakeman entered it.

The bad news for Blakeman is that any Republican running for statewide office in New York faces an uphill battle.

The Democratic to Republican registration in New York state is 2 to 1.

Mike Dawidziak is a political consultant who's worked on campaigns for local elections all the way up to the White House.

He has to really identify issues that resonate with independent voters.

He needs a large percentage of the independents to vote for him to win this election.

The average person living in Levitown or living up in Schenectady or whatever, they basically want to see some common sense in government.

Pete King represented Long Island in Congress for nearly 30 years.

The Republican from Seaford also ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general in 1986.

King says Blakeman needs to be prepared for the difficulty of a Republican running for statewide office.

It's especially challenging at the beginning when a lot of people don't know who you are.

And you have to explain yourself, introduce yourself, tell them what you stand for.

He's got to get himself out there.

He's got to get his message out.

And the message is that Nassau County, which has many of the same demographics as New York State, and where there's close to 100,000 more Democrats, who's carried it within a year when Republicans were getting wiped out.

President Trump issued a statement endorsing Blakeman, saying in part, "Bruce is MAGA all the way and has been with me from the very beginning."

But analysts say Blakeman's outspoken support of Trump could hurt his race, given the president's low approval rating statewide.

And clearly Governor Hochul will make that a big part of her campaign.

In a statement, the governor wrote, "Donald Trump endorsed Bruce Blakeman for one reason.

He'll put Trump first, New York last, and leave families to foot the bill."

Long Islanders we spoke with gave mixed reactions to Blakeman's bid for governor.

"I'm not a fan."

"More power.

Let me tell you, we need somebody up there that's for us."

And from Nassau County to the city, Zohran Mamdani has begun work as New York City Mayor after his historic inauguration.

I Zohran Kwame Mamdani.

>> I Zohran Kwame Mamdani.

Do solemnly swear.

>> Do solemnly swear.

Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor in New York City history.

After being sworn in by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Mamdani spoke about unifying the city.

He also detailed some of his biggest goals.

We will deliver universal child care for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.

Those in rent stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike because we will freeze the rent.

Getting on a bus without worrying about a fare hike or whether you'll be able to get to your destination on time will no longer be deemed a small miracle because we will make those buses fast and free.

Mamdani says he wants to transform the culture at City Hall and says he'll make no apology for pursuing his ideals as a democratic socialist.

Since his election, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has been talking about beefing up security at the Nassau County border with Queens.

Among the measures he's mentioned, license plate readers, facial recognition, and video cameras.

Newsday's data team found an average 927,000 vehicles cross that border every day.

That number comes from 15 monitored locations, so the actual number is probably much higher.

The Queens border is about 15 and a half miles long.

It cuts across major highways, through residential streets, and even some homes.

So what will it take to put everything in place?

And what do civil rights defenders think about this?

Newsday TV's Joy Brown has that part of the story.

So, what would new security measures along the Queens border do for Long Islanders?

And what would it end up costing us?

That's at the heart of the issue.

Joining me now to discuss the issue is Susan Gottehrer from the New York Civil Liberties Union and Paul Sabatino, who is a municipal attorney and former Suffolk Deputy County Executive.

Thank you for joining us.

We want to start with the civil liberties angle to this story.

Susan, let's start with license plate readers.

They're not unusual.

So first of all, this plan to set up a surveillance border is really straight out of the authoritarian playbook and is bordering on dystopian.

This kind of surveillance is what we refer to as dragnet, where you're scooping up a lot of information at the same time on a lot of people.

And when it comes to facial recognition technology, that's particularly alarming because it has been known to make many mistakes and misidentify people, especially people of color and women and young people.

So we have many worries on the civil liberties front.

So what is it you're going to be looking for?

What's going to raise it up in your head?

-We want to make sure that the technology, if it is actually going to be working the way the county wants it to work, it really creates a situation where everybody's getting scooped up.

Everybody that crosses that border is getting scooped up.

And what this does is it plays really fast and loose with constitutional rights because it gives the county a lot of information about people's movements to the point, especially with automatic license plate readers, you know, I don't want people to get comfortable with just because it's been in use.

It's OK.

Right?

We've all become -- it becomes normalized and legitimized.

And using automatic license plate readers should also be a part of people's radars when it comes to, this is surveillance technology.

This is my information being scooped up by people with power.

So there's been lots of issues with automatic license plate readers, so we don't want to normalize that.

And again, with facial recognition technology, that can be faulty and has been known to misidentify people.

So we'll be looking for all of those things.

Not to mention the fact that what is this saying?

Is this -- they're going to be targeting certain populations, right?

We can already see that happening with ICE.

They're going to be targeting certain populations.

What is the need for this?

What is the reason for this?

Everybody should be asking questions.

Everybody should be asking questions.

Thank you, Susan.

Now, let's get to Paul.

Let's talk a bit about policy.

What needs to happen from a government angle for Blakeman's statements to turn into an actual implementation plan?

From a government standpoint, he's going to have to organize a couple of key components.

The first one obviously is the monetary side of it.

Where do you find the funding?

These kinds of items can be funded through the Capital Budget and Program, which is you bond for it and you pay for it over period of time.

That won't be too problematical.

The county's got fairly secure financing and their capital budget is not out of control.

An alternative is he could try to look at forfeiture funds.

Forfeiture funds are monies that are collected when properties are seized in criminal actions.

I don't know how much money is in the Nassau County forfeiture accounts.

I know in Suffolk County there was always a lot of money.

The key there, though, is that you have to be using the money not to replace some function that you're already engaging in.

It's got to be something that supplants or enhances or goes beyond what you're currently doing.

The second component he's going to have to look at, he has to get his police commissioner to put together a program, identify exactly how this is going to be implemented.

I mean, for example, they're talking about different things.

They're talking about video cameras.

They're talking about, I don't know, the license plate readers.

And also, you have to talk to the county attorney.

There's a couple of key cases here.

The good news for Blakeman is that the Supreme Court has not established a bright line.

There's not a clear cut.

You can do this and you can't do that in terms of using the videos, the surveillance, the license plate readers.

What they said first in 2012 in a Jones case was GPSs can't be attached to a particular person's car to track them all over Nassau County or Suffolk County or all over America because that would be an invasion that would require a warrant under the Fourth Amendment.

Thank you Paul and I also want to thank you Susan for joining us for this discussion.

Alright, well it is a medical safety net for many on Long Island, but there's big concern about its financial health.

We're talking about the Nassau University Medical Center.

Newsday TV's Macy Egeland explores some of the problems plaguing the East Meadow Hospital.

We're getting a closer look at one of the financial challenges facing Nassau University Medical Center.

Last year, more than 85% of patients at the East Meadow Hospital were on Medicaid or Medicare.

That's higher than any other Long Island hospital and is contributing to NUMC's financial issues.

Joining me now to talk about this is Newsday investigative reporter Peter D'Auria, Wendy Darwell, president and CEO of the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State, and Jeffrey Kraut, assistant professor at the Zucker School of Medicine for Health Policy.

We appreciate all of you being here with us.

Thank you so much.

Peter, we want to kick off the conversation with you.

You analyzed the state hospital data from 2024.

Tell us what you found.

Sure.

So we looked at what's called discharge data.

That's when a patient is admitted to a hospital and then discharged from that hospital.

And we compared all the different hospitals on Long Island, both Nassau and Suffolk counties, to one another.

And we found that Nassau University Medical Center treats a greater percentage of patients on public health insurers.

That's Medicaid, which covers low-income people, and Medicare, which generally covers older people.

Nassau University Medical Center has the highest percentage of those patients, those patients on Medicaid and Medicare than any other hospital on Long Island, especially Medicaid.

So in 2024, 57 percent of the hospital's discharges were covered by Medicaid, and then total Medicaid and Medicare, that accounted for 85 percent of the hospital's discharges.

An important hospital for a lot of Long Islanders.

Jeffrey, I want to talk to you about this.

What role does NUMC play in Long Island's healthcare ecosystem, so to speak?

The role that it plays is the same role it's been playing since it was conceived back in 1931, when the enabling legislation, essentially the voters in a 3-1 vote, chose to build a hospital to primarily take care of the indigent and the poor.

Remember, this was a time we didn't have Medicaid, we didn't have Medicare.

It has been playing that role for the past 90 years since it's opened, that it's always been a safety net hospital, if you will, taking care of those that are underinsured, uninsured, new to this country, who have had trouble getting access.

Well, Wendy, NUMC accepts a high number of emergency and psychiatric patients, we know that.

You say other hospitals just don't have the infrastructure to treat those issues.

Why is that?

Well, other hospitals certainly are treating psychiatric patients.

All have emergency rooms.

It's a matter of capacity.

Pneumic, in addition to being a core essential service provider in the county, does provide a very high volume of the psychiatric inpatient stays and very high volume, I think almost 70,000 emergency room visits a year.

So it's essential that they continue to be a strong and growing institution, but it's also essential to the entire community because when you look around the region, it would not be possible to absorb a patient load of that volume for any of the other hospitals in Nassau County.

Peter, you recently reported that NUMC has one of the worst financial positions of any hospital in New York State.

So is there any indication that it can turn things around?

I would say that people are trying really, really hard.

There's been some sort of governance shifts at the hospital recently.

We have an interim CEO right now.

We're getting a new CEO, I believe, at the beginning of the new year.

And everyone has maintained we are going to keep this hospital open and we're going to do what it takes to to keep it open.

So, you know, I'm not in the books of the hospital at this very moment, but I know that, you know, the people running it and the, you know, the community around it are really invested in keeping this place running.

Providing a lot of critical care for a lot of Long Islanders.

An important conversation to have with our guests, so thank you all for being here with us.

As Peter mentioned, a new CEO and president begins in January, so it's something we'll keep an eye on.

My thanks to Peter D'Auria, Wendy Darwell and Jeffrey Kraut for being here with us.

We appreciate it.

You can read more about the story on our website, Newsday.com.

And another big issue that Nassau County government has been trying to deal with is property tax assessments.

Our Joye Brown has been covering that story, a very big headache, right, for years.

Years.

Doug, as you know, problems with the assessment process have actually been around for decades.

But some Long Islanders aren't giving up on trying to make it fair for homeowners.

It discriminates against the middle class ...and the lower income residents of Nassau County.

So then it also helps the rich.

So we felt that we should sue.

A state appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit challenging Nassau County's property tax assessment system and ruled that the case will be tried in Queens.

Critics say the system has long been confusing and difficult for homeowners to understand, and freezing the assessment rolls made things worse.

A series of Newsday reports chronicled inequities as well.

I could see why people are cynical about it.

It's unfair.

It's inscrutable.

Lawrence Levy of Hofstra University says fixing the system carries serious political risk.

It's unlikely that any politician is going to embark on this politically perilous task of revaluating property.

But the reality is it's got to be done, because too many people are paying an unfair share of the burden.

Hall says NASA has faced legal challenges over assessment before and settled.

It happened back in the 90s.

They got sued and being sued they promised they knew it was wrong so they settled right.

I felt we need to to go back and straighten up the county again.

The appeals court ruled that the case be tried in Queens, citing concerns about whether Nassau residents could serve as impartial jurors.

Meanwhile, the county says it will continue to defend the system as the case moves forward.

County executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running for New York State Governor, said Nassau will be ready, no matter the outcome of the case.

I've inherited a lot of things that my predecessors dumped in my lap.

Whatever the future brings to me, I'm just going to take care of business.

I'm Joye Brown for Newsday TV.

All right, now to a very disturbing but enlightening story.

A Newsday investigation into how sex traffickers are using local hotels and motels to make big money.

Some of their victims are as young as 11 years old.

Macy Egeland and investigative reporter Sandra Peddie have more.

[Music] We're following up on our Newsday investigative series, Unprotected.

Today we're focused on sex trafficking at Long Island hotels and motels.

Joining me to talk about it is Newsday investigative reporter Sandra Peddie, who was part of the process in compiling this first ever database documenting sex trafficking and prostitution charges at these hotels and motels across Long Island in both Nassau and Suffolk.

Sandra, tell us about this investigation.

Well, it shows prostitution and sex trafficking have occurred at at least 59 hotels and motels on Long Island, according to records.

It happens at the smaller motels that rent rooms by the hour, but it also happens at high-end national chains, which I think would surprise some people.

And the reason it's happening at so many hotels and motels is that traffickers want to accommodate their customers.

And customers want to go where they feel comfortable.

So you mentioned 59 hotels and motels across Long Island.

How did you find those places?

What data did you look into to get that?

Well, I used police and court records as well as town and county records and Newsday reporting.

The list, however, is not complete because records weren't available by publication date for all of the places where sex trafficking and prostitution have been alleged.

A lot of time and effort has been put into this investigation.

Let's take an in-depth look at what Newsday found.

I think I had a case in almost every major hotel here.

>> Hidden in plain sight at hotels and motels across Long Island sex traffickers are doing big business.

>> I think that people are not really aware of the fact of how prevalent it is in our community.

>> We saw that it was going on on almost all of the small hotels.

It's a persistent problem the town of Babylon is actively working to solve.

This hotel in particular is starting to become a very popular one.

So once we saw that we definitely wanted to come down on them a little bit heavier.

Eddie Salas is the lead investigator of Babylon Towns quality of life unit.

He's asked us not to show his face because much of his work is done undercover.

The unit responds to community concerns and cracks down on crime by issuing code violations.

It's actually very powerful because we could actually on certain kinds of issues, some of them person almost every day if we wanted to legally as prostitution and human trafficking has moved off the streets into hotels and motels.

Town employees have forced several establishments to enforce new policies require I.D.

and staff training.

Might be watching now.

Looks like this one is posting that they're... >> Salas responds to online ads within the town.

Hey baby, you here?

Yeah, I'm in the back.

Okay love, I'm in room 204 just knock on my door.

>> Okay.

Once he has evidence, that prostituion is taking place he confronts hotel staff.

We have summonses here for the management for girls that are operating out of the room for prostitution and body massages.

Newsday's investigative reporters have uncovered sex trafficking and prostitution cases at nearly 60 locations across the island and identified hotspots at the center of the issue.

It's a problem we've been covering extensively.

Ever since a teenage girl from Patchogue went missing for weeks, 23 people have been charged with crimes connected to her, including sex trafficking, kidnapping, and drug offenses.

It's not something that is happening once in a while.

It's something that is happening every minute, every second in every neighborhood, in every town, in every hotel, in every motel across the night.

Laura Mullen knows the ins and outs of the lifestyle because she lived it.

She grew up in central Islip in an unstable home and says she was sold to a man at just 12 years old.

Because of what I thought was normal, that's why I went on my life.

I started using and abusing drugs at an early age, which eventually led me into harder things in my late 20s, which led me to the streets and into my trapping situations.

In and out of different homes, hotels and motels, Mullen says she felt there was no way out and complied to survive.

She says the pimp playbook remains the same.

Online platforms are used to advertise hundreds of posts every day.

Newsday found many of them at hotels and motels in places like Islandia, Westbury, Hauppague and Farmingdale.

Have you have one or two men that are buying five rooms that have multiple women in there and they're staying for a week at a time?

I mean, how much money are you bringing in just off of that, right?

There have been recent efforts to combat the issue.

New legislation introduced in Suffolk, which would restrict hourly rates at hotels and motels.

Five hotels have shut down.

Three of them deemed public nuisances.

Law suits have also been filed against some establishments and their owners, accusing them of enabling the criminal behavior.

But often it's fear, keeping many employees from taking action.

You might have a night manager say, you know, I'm not going to mess with that guy, right?

He's got some bad guys he hangs out with.

So I'm just going to turn a blind eye.

And that's very sad because often times these girls are as young as 14, 15, you know, despite efforts to address the problem.

Demand continues to drive the abuse.

Trafficking is not a victimless crime.

I think it's important to look for these things, look for these red flags and all do our part to try to report it.

News day reached out to 59 hotel and motel owners and managers where this type of criminal behavior was documented.

Nearly half responded, either denying it or saying they were working to prevent it.

A problem we're seeing across Long Island, but we can kind of gauge where we're seeing it most often based off of online ads and where they're posted.

So which areas are we seeing this the most right now?

Well now remember we looked at just one online sex ad site.

There's more than one of these online sites and the site we looked at mega personals showed the most ads in Islandia, Hauppague, Farmingdale and Westbury.

But in fact there were ads all across the island from Westbury to the Hamptons.

This was just the most in that short period of time.

Right.

How much can these sex traffickers make doing something like this... Well it's really high profit and low risk.

So for example what they typically do is they go to a hotel and rent a room for $100 or a little more.

And they may rent more than one room because they may have more than one woman.

Then they spend about $25 on drugs to keep the women compliant.

And then they book up to 10 appointments a day through their phones and they can clear a thousand to $2,000 a day and none of that money goes to the women.

Sandra thank you so much for all of your work in this investigation.

We appreciate it.

Also if you know anyone who is a victim of sex trafficking, please call the authorities.

There are resources out there that can help them for people who need it to see that list and also to read our story unprotected go to our website newsday.com.

Alright, you may have seen a very disturbing story but an important one to bring to light.

Well from all of us at Newsday, thank you for joining us for Island Insider as we explore the issues that affect Long Islanders.

I'm Doug Geed for all the stories we've just shown you and much more head to Newsday.com.

[Music] Newsday's investigative reporters ha sex trafficking and prost