Come next Tuesday 3rd November 2009, Mr. Carrie Solages will be on the ballot for County Clerk of Nassau. This Long Island native is a thirty year old lawyer employed at his family’s law firm (Solages and Solages). He has been described as “the young rising star of the Nassau County Democratic Party”. This description came from none other than Thomas (Tom) R. Suozzi himself: Nassau’s County Executive. Suozzi made this comment last May when he nominated Solages for the post.
Mr. Solages has been a member of the Nassau County Commission on Human Rights since 2007, and was an assistant District Attorney in the Bronx before starting with this law firm. He was born on Long Island to a black immigrant couple from the Caribbean nation of Haiti. If elected he will be the first black person to have ever held this position. Many Caribbean-Americans here (and not just Haitian-Americans) are quite proud of this candidate; expect a bump in turnout in certain parts of the county.
One of the prominent politicians backing Mr. Solages is United States Senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer. Word on the street is that Tom Suozzi himself handpicked Solages for this spot on the county-wide ticket; and some people are saying that we ought to keep an eye on this young and upcoming politician, since he is the real deal.
Other words on the street are that Tom Suozzi will run for the State Attorney General position next year, since the present occupant of that office (Andrew Cuomo) is projected to be running for governor. This could lead to early opportunities for advancement for a young whipper-snapper like Carrie Solages.
As secretary of the “Elmont Coalition for Sustainable Development”, Solages says that this group focuses on community revitalization and overall community development. Apart from this, he is a prominent member of the Tudor Manor Civic Association, the Knights of Columbus of Valley Stream and also the Community Coalition of Civic Associations. He has a strong sense of civic-pride and is an intense community activist.
Beyond all this he is a lector at the St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church in Elmont. A church his family has attended for many years now. He currently sits on the advisory board of the “Haitian-American Family”; a social service agency that helps Haitian-American immigrants acculturate.
Mr. Solages is a graduate of the school of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He later attended Boston College’s Law School where he obtained his law degree. He is currently a vice-president of the NYC- based “Metropolitan Black Bar Association”. With a resume like this I expect he will go far. Come out and vote for him on Election Day: he is deserving.
His platform calls for modernizing the County Clerk’s office, and for bringing Nassau’s residents a higher awareness of what the functions of this office are. He also intends to repair the current mismanagement found by both the county comptroller and the independent auditing accountants. He says that he intends to focus on helping small businesses flourish and thrive in this county. I wish him well.
Stay tuned-in folks.