Transcript of full Roger Corbin interview

BY OLIVIA WINSLOW | olivia.winslow@newsday.com

My name is Legislator Roger Corbin. I was born September, 25, 1946. That's right, I'm 61 years old and I feel good. I run 6 miles a dayI was born in Brooklyn, NY I've been in this job for 13 years now, going on my seventh term. The job is really exciting to me because I help people

Q. Start before your legislative career in 1995-96 and talk about your activism.

Corbin: Many years ago, I have grandparents who were immigrants from the Caribbean islands. They were activists here in this country. And they taught us, my mother's kids, and their kids, they taught us to be involved. That led me to be involved, during the '50s, during the civil rights movements, all the activities that were going on in the '60s. They always said to me, because I like torun my mouth, they said, 'You may be our first black president.' I said, 'Oh, I would love that, but I have to learn how to do it.'

And from that a long history of so many former elected officials, such as Shirley Chisholm, Adam Clayton Powell, Councilman, the late Fred Samuels up in Harlem, Percy Sutton, Basil Patterson, Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins and Carl McCall and so many others, Geraldine Daniels.

I worked them religiously every single day of my life before I left New York. And from that, I went into the Air Force and was stationed out in California and also worked with those elected officials, like Willie Brown and even \[George\]Moscone, the mayor unfortunately, who was assassinated in San Francisco. And 1968, I was up in the Fairmount Hotel with Ted Kennedy during that primary in that tragic night when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. So I have a long, long history dealing with the political process.

And by the way, my hero has always been Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers had the audacity to register black folks in Mississippi, and was assassinated in front of his wife and children. And I've always kept that in my heart and said that's one of my heroes, if not the hero in the political process, because I understood what voting meant and what voting means, what it means to a community, what it means to this nation.

And that enabled me to really look at my life and say are you ever going to run. My wife and I, we used to live in LeFrak City, and I remember that day I went to Harlem, I said to Charlie Rangel, I said, 'I'm going back out to Nassau County.' He said, 'Son, we have some positions for you to run for in Queens or here in Harlem or in Brooklyn.' And I remember Charlie, and we laugh about it today, I said, 'Charlie, you guys always fight each other.

Democrats fighting each other. I'm going out to the virgin turf where the Republicans are, and I take my rightful step and fight the Republicans.' And that's what I've done.

It took me awhile. We got out here in 1978 and it wasn't until 17 years later that the new form of government \[The Nassau County Legislature\]was formulated, which I was part of, the charter.

Q. Talk more about what your goals were in Nassau, what you wanted to see change. You said fight the Republicans, but talk about your specific goals. Why be in the legislative process, or the political process in Nassau County?

Corbin: One of the things I recognize is that Long Island is one of the most racially segregated areasin the nation. The only way you can change something is to be in the political process. A lot of the policies, since the Republicans-which I have a lot of good Republican friends-but a lot of the policies in which they were enacting in this Nassau County were detrimental to our community.

We didn't get any services. We had rundown schools. We didn't have the kind of support that we needed from their party, even though they told us in order to get anything you had to become a Republican. The Democratic Party was so inept at the time and we had to build.

So I thought if I'm in the process, the political process, I can enable some change. Some change in this government, some change in the community. And it took a long, long time to do that. And I'm grateful that we were able to do it. There were a lot of little things that had to happen. When \[U.S. District Court Judge Arthur\]Spatt said this form of government, the board of supervisors, does not meet one-person, one vote and demanded that the county come up with a 17-member charter commission to study a feasible way of changing government, and that was in late '93, '94.

I was not originally picked for the charter. \[Commission\] The Democrats didn't want to pick me, I was too much of an activist for them. When one of the charter members, \[Dennis\]Libutti of \[Lido Beach\]passed away and Judge Robinson quit, they were down two commissioners and that particular time

Tom Suozzi had won, he beat Donald DeRiggi, and Lew Yevoli and May Newberger and Bruce Nyman, they represented the Democratic Party, while Greg Petersen and Richard Guardino represented the Republican Party, they had to pick 2 commissioners. Suozzi was given a note by \[former Nassau Democratic Chairman\]Steve Sabbath, \[saying\]'Let bygones be bygones, put Ben Zwirn on the charter.' They took offense to that. What the Republicans said, 'You're going to try to give us Ben, we're going to give you Roger.' That's how I got on it.

Q. How do you consider yourself an activist?

Corbin: Being an activist means you're going to have go against the status quo. I was very good at doing that, and I can say that with some confidence. I challenged the board of supervisors and Joe Mondello and Tom Gulotta and Alfonse D'Amato. I'd come up, to 1 West St.\[the offices of the old Board of Supervisors and now home to the Nassau County Legislature\], and I challenged them, in terms of services in our community versus their community.

I challenged North Hempstead, in terms of services in our community versus their community. And when you go against the status quo, you're not going to make friends. That's why the Democrats never wanted me to be in the leadership position, because of that activism. Because I felt if you don't speak up, then nothing is going to change. And you must, with responsibility, challenge.

And I gave challenges. I was the first to talk about the assessment issue in our community, which was unfair. The tax dollars not coming back to our community.

They thought I was crazy. They thought I didn't know what I was talking about. I was the first one to tell them we have too many governments here. They thought I was out of my mind. Now, in 2008, they're talking about consolidation of all these small governments and lowering the taxes