From left: County Clerk candidate Lauren Gillen, former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi and former Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, all Democrats, on Tuesday, May 21, 2013.

It’s looking more and more likely that Nassau County voters will have a familiar feeling when they read the candidates names to choose from on election ballots at the polls this fall.

Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs endorsed Tuesday former County Comptroller Howard Weitzman after Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn) bowed out to spare the party a primary in that race—one of two local Democratic primaries Jacobs is trying to avoid.

“As Yogi Bera would say, ‘This is déjà vu all over again,’” Weitzman told reporters at a news conference in Mineola, vowing to unseat Republican Comptroller George Maragos, who won Weitzman’s job nearly four years ago. “I’m really looking forward to running again on a ticket with Tom Suozzi.”

Suozzi, the former Democratic county executive seeking his job back from Republican Ed Mangano, who unseated him in 2009, endorsed Weitzman, saying: “I know he can do it because he’s done it.”

Together with Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, the top of the Democratic ticket may be mostly the same as it was four years ago.

The one clearly new name is Lauren Gillen, a Rockville Centre-based attorney who’s the Democratic candidate running against County Clerk Maureen O’Connell, a Republican who won her job in 2005.

The wild card is Adam Haber, a Roslyn school board member and businessman challenging Suozzi to a primary on the Democratic line in the race against Mangano because he believes it will take an outsider to clean up the county.

Mangano, Maragos and O’Connell are each running for re-election on the GOP line. A Republican challenger to Rice has yet to emerge.

“My overriding goal has always been to have a unified ticket…a primary would be an unnecessary use of resources,” Jacobs said. “We ought to be focused on the Mangano administration.”

Wink, a county legislator representing the 11th district, had decided not to run for his current job after his seat was merged into the district represented by Legis. Judi Bosworth (D-Great Neck) last year. Jacobs alluded to another office Wink may be nominated to run for at the upcoming party convention.

“If there is one that I’ve learned first hand,” Wink said, “the Mangano administration really ran this county into the ground.”

Maragos didn’t waste any time firing back at Weitzman, who repeatedly compared Mangano and Maragos to Suozzi’s Republican predecessor Tom Gulotta, who led the county into near bankruptcy at the turn of the millennium.

“The residents will now have a clear choice between Weitzman, who left the county nearly bankrupt with a $250 million deficit, and Comptroller Maragos who has restored fiscal stability to the county resulting in three years without a property tax increase,” Jostyn Hernandez, Maragos’ spokesman, said in an email.

Princesses: Long Island is set to debut June 2 on Bravo.

Move over Snooki & JWOWW, a new reality series is about to debut following the antics of a half dozen Long Island socialites living with their parents while partying it up in New York City and the Hamptons.

The new docu-series called Princesses: Long Island, which premieres on Bravo in six weeks, follows the college-educated young women who live pampered lifestyles off the comfort of their parent’s bank accounts. It offers a window into their family dynamics and personal lives filled with labels, luxury and love trials.

“These Princesses Know What They Want,” is the tag line for the new show.

The show looks like a mix of MTV’s Jersey Shore and Bravo’s other hit series, The Real Housewives, with all the drama, drunkenness and stereotyping.

Whether it will do better than the short-lived Growing Up Gold Coast reality show that debuted last fall on Lifetime remains to be seen.

The women making up the cast include two Great Neck natives: Amanda Bertoncini, a businesswoman who lives with her mother, and Chanel “Coco” Omari, a blogger and aspiring talk-show host who always knows where the hottest parties are.

Like Omari, Casey Cohen of Jericho lives part time in New York City to feed her passion for art, education and giving back.

Hailing from Old Westbury is Erica Gimbe, who works in event planning and public relations and loves following all things fashion and entertainment.

And rounding out the majority of the Gold Coast natives on the cast is Ashlee White of Roslyn, who has difficulty finding a man because of her high standards but doesn’t have any plans to settle down or move out of her parent’s house.

The lone South Shore princess is Joey Lauren, who lives with her family in Freeport but does not enjoy being financially dependent and would prefer to be on her own.

Princesses: Long Island premieres on Bravo at 9 p.m. on Sunday, June 2. See the trailer for the series premier below:

Nassau lawmakers are concerned about contracts for Sandy recovery work, such as the repairs to the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant and surrounding area that caused this truck to fall into an East Rockaway sinkhole last fall.

Members of a key Nassau County committee debated Monday whether to approve seven-figure contracts to companies hired for Sandy recovery following reports that some are subject to audits and criminal investigation.

Democratic lawmakers accused the legislature’s Republican leadership of rushing to approve funds to firms under scrutiny and refusing their request to have County Comptroller George Maragos answer questions from the Rules Committee regarding his probe.

“I’m just wondering if we’re doing the proper investigatory work on our end before we vote yes or no,” Legis. Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury) said while joining calls that Maragos clarify the issue before the vote.

“Until [Maragos] completes his audit and review, we thought that it would be premature for us to consider bringing him before us,” said Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow).

The more than $1 million contract that sparked the debate was to pay Manhattan-based Hazen Sawyer Engineering, one of a dozen firms being audited, for coordinating storm-damage repair work through the end of March. The contract was later approved along party lines.

Lawmakers also expressed concern with a recent Newsday report citing anonymous sources saying that District Attorney Kathleen Rice’s office is investigating whether Huntington-based Looks Great Services Inc. properly paid workers it hired for the county’s Sandy cleanup. A spokesman for Rice was not available for comment.

“The comptroller’s office has sent letters to 12 of the largest contractors requesting information on any sub-contractors employed in the course of county work during and post-Superstorm Sandy, including amounts paid to these subcontractors,” Jostyn Hernandez, a spokesman for Maragos, told the Press. “The comptroller has invited all the legislators to personally review Superstorm Sandy-related claims.”

Balking at that suggestion was Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn), who’s running against former comptroller Howard Weitzman for the Democratic Party line to challenge Maragos, a Republican, in the November elections.

“It’s the difference between having up to 19 private meetings with each and every legislator and one public meeting,” Wink said. “What can be said behind closed doors can be said right here on the record.”

Field audits of Nassau’s contracts are common in cases that involve outside funding—in this case, federal Sandy aid—according to Ken Arnold, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Works, which he said assists in providing documents.

Advocates also spoke out against approving the contracts without more input from Maragos. They included leaders of nonprofits Long Island Jobs with Justice and the Park Advocacy and Recreation Council of Nassau.

Legis. Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) said not approving the contracts would slow the county’s Sandy repairs. “The Sandy recovery effort has to go forward, you can’t stop these contracts,” he said.

During a separate committee meeting later Monday, Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick) called on GOP legislative leaders to hold hearings on the Sandy contracts, saying, “We want to make sure the work that we’ve approved is being done.”

-With Spencer Rumsey

Among the changes in the newly redrawn Nassau County legislative district maps is that the Five Towns area was split up between four districts.

Nassau County legislators approved new district lines despite rowdy critics packing the chamber who accused the Republican majority that drew the map of gerrymandering to protect their power for the next decade.

Lawmakers voted 10-9 along party lines Tuesday in favor of the GOP’s redistricting plan that forces four legislators—two Democrats and two Republicans—into two districts, potentially forcing them to primary each other. Audience members chanted “shame, shame” in unison immediately after the vote.

“This is the best map that we can provide for the citizens of Nassau County,” said Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow), who had adjourned a marathon meeting that ran past midnight last week in order to tweak the lines. “I think we did as best we could under the circumstances.”

Redistricting is required under federal law after the census every 10 years to adjust legislative districts at all levels of government to make up for population shifts. But critics of the process allege that the lines were redrawn to give Republicans a chance to pick up another three seats, which would give them a supermajority.

Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn) and Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove) will be forced to primary one another after their homes were redrawn into one district. The same goes for Legis. Michael Venditto (R-North Massapequa) and Legis. Joseph Belesi (R-Farmingdale), who’s reportedly planning to retire.

“This fight is not over,” said Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Hempstead) after questioning the number of public hearings that were held and urging the public to lobby County Executive Ed Mangano to veto the legislation.

Fred Brewington, a Hempstead-based civil rights attorney, testified before the legislature last week that he intends to challenge the map in court based on alleged Voting Rights Act violations.

Republican legislators bristled at repeated accusations that they are racist based on allegations that the map they drew is intended to disenfranchise minority voters who typically vote for Democrats.

“Nobody is here to cause consternation and unhappiness,” said Frank Moroney, chairman of Nassau’s Temporary Districting Advisory Commission, who defended the map as meeting the constitutional guarantee of “one person, one vote.”

Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick), whose house had been redrawn into a neighboring district to force him to run against Legis. Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin), was relieved when the map was redrawn to not pit the two Democrats against one another, but remained critical of the revision.

“It’s all just a desperate attempt to carve 12 Republican districts out of 19 in a county that is a third Republican at this point,” Denenberg said, referring to a nearly 36,000-enrollment advantage Democrats have over Republicans—368,049 Dems vs. 332,197 GOP out of 960,331 registered voters in Nassau, according to the New York State Board of Elections.

Among the changes in the newly redrawn Nassau County legislative district maps is that the Five Towns area was split up between four districts.

The Republican-controlled Nassau County legislature is close to approving redrawn district lines that will force four Democratic incumbents into two districts when they seek re-election this fall despite legal challenges and accusations of gerrymandering.

The new political map will also put two Republicans into the same district as a part of the once-a-decade redistricting process required to ensure legislators represent an equal amount of residents based on 2010 census data. County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican, is expected to sign the new map into law, if it passes as widely anticipated at the legislature’s next meeting on March 4.

“This is not an easy task,” Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) said before adjourning the meeting shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday. She pleaded at times for the audience not disrupt the meeting in the packed legislative chamber of the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola, reminding the crowd that redistricting is legally required “in order to guarantee the constitutional protection of one person, one vote.”

Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick) had his 10-block-wide sliver of his neighborhood lump his house into the neighboring district, pitting him against Legis. Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin). Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove) saw her district merged with that of Legis. Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn). And the district held by newly elected Michael Venditto (R-North Massapequa) absorbed the part of a neighboring district that’s home to Legis. Joseph Belesi (R-Farmingdale), who Newsday reports may be retiring.

Democrats drew the current map when they had the majority in the legislature a decade ago but their proposal to keep the same districts intact was rejected. In 2011, the New York State Court of Appeals threw out an earlier version of the redrawn lines that the Nassau GOP legislative majority rushed through before that year’s elections with little public input.

“Packing and cracking have long been used to gerrymander districts,” said Nancy Rosenthal, co-president of the League of Womens Voters of Nassau County, referring to the practice of redrawing political maps to pack districts with voters registered to the majority party and crack apart areas where members of the opposition party live. “It is demoralizing to see it happening to this extent in Nassau.”

Analysts predict the redrawn map could help Republicans add two seats to their majority, or potentially three seats that could give the GOP a supermajority, according to Brian Paul, research and policy coordinator at Common Cause New York, a nonprofit organization that proposed an alternate map with a coalition of other nonpartisan advocacy groups.

That’s despite the fact that Democrats have a nearly 36,000-enrollment advantage over Republicans—368,049 Dems vs. 332,197 GOP out of 960,331 registered voters in Nassau, according to the latest New York State Board of Elections data. There’s also 212,932 unaffiliated voters, 33,408 Independence Party registrants, 10,249 registered Conservatives, 2,132 Working Family Party members, 1,159 members of the Green Party and 175 listed as “other,” the data shows.

“The only real benefit of moving 360,000-plus people is to shift things around so there is …  incumbent safety or partisan politics advantage,” said Frederick Brewington, a Hempstead-based civil rights attorney who plans to sue the county over the map, if it’s approved. “At some point the question will be asked of you—explain yourself. And in this situation, the concept of this just being a policy decision is not going to cut it.”

Critics also decried the legislative majority for planning to pass a map certain to rack up legal fees the financially strapped county can’t afford over alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act.

Brewington joined others who personally appealed to the legislators, especially Legis. Denise Ford of Long Beach, a registered Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans.

In addition to members of various civic organizations, the dozens of speakers who voiced opposition to the new map before the vote included elected officials from the villages of East Hills and Freeport as well as the Uniondale and Great Neck school districts.

Francis Moroney, chairman of Nassau Temporary Districting Commission, said the panel hired Albany-based Skyline Demographic Consultants to draw the first draft of the map before it was tweaked to address concerns the public raised at a series of hearings.

“Every decision you make flows through and affects someplace else,” said Moroney, likening the process of trying to keep communities with similar interests together to an overflowing bowl of Jell-O. “It doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And it’s certainly not a perfect process.”

Adam Haber, a Roslyn school board member challenging former County Executive Tom Suozzi for the Democratic Party line to run against Mangano in November, doubted the fairness of the redistricting process.

“It’s obvious that the will of the people is against this process and the map,” said Haber, an East Hills resident. “What’s the point of … this hearing if the elected officials don’t listen?”

Denenberg made one last stand before the meeting was adjourned for the fight to continue next month, when another lengthy debate is sure to ensure.

“The only reason for that line is to come after me,” he told Morony, pointing to the sliver of the proposed District 14 that juts into southern Merrick, separating his neighborhood from the rest of the hamlet in proposed District 13. “That line that you drew in Merrick … strangely is two houses from my house.”