SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Schneiderman "Probably" To Challenge Kennedy For County Comptroller

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Jay Schneiderman, the Southampton Town supervisor, told me last week he “probably” will be running this November for Suffolk County comptroller.  A Democrat, he would be facing Republican incumbent John A. Kennedy, Jr.

It’s an important position: Suffolk County government’s chief fiscal watchdog.

Both men have long experience in Suffolk government. Mr. Schneiderman was first elected a county legislator in 2003. Between 1991 and 1996 he was a member and then chairman of the Town of East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals, was elected East Hampton supervisor in 1999 and from there went to the legislature. He served five two-year terms as a legislator before being term-limited under the panel’s rules. So, in 2015, he ran for and was elected supervisor of Southampton Town, having moved from Montauk to Southampton. He is the only person in county history to be supervisor of two of Suffolk’s 10 towns. 

He has long been interested in being Suffolk County comptroller. In 2014, while a legislator, Mr. Schneiderman spoke about running for the position saying: “I think I’d make a good comptroller. I’m a numbers guy.” However, the Democratic Party nominated instead James Gaughran of Huntington, then and now chairman of the Suffolk County Water Authority, who was defeated by Mr. Kennedy

Mr. Kennedy, of the Smithtown community of Nesconset, started working for the county in 1986 under County Executive Peter Cohalan in the executive’s Office for the Aging. He went on to serve a succession of county executives, two Republicans and Patrick Halpin, a Democrat, before becoming an official in the county clerk’s office in 1995. He ran for the Suffolk Legislature in 2003. Between 2012 and 2014, he was its GOP minority leader. He was also term-limited after five two-year terms.

In running for comptroller, Mr. Kennedy, an attorney, stressed how he “streamlined” operations in the clerk’s office where he was official examiner of title.

There would be a geographical issue in a Schneiderman-Kennedy race. Although well- known in East Hampton and Southampton towns—and in the somewhat wider area covered by the legislative district he represented including Shelter Island after it was added to the district in 2014—how would Mr. Schneiderman fare in a countywide race? Mr. Kennedy is, as is said on Suffolk’s East End, from “up the Island”—where most of the county’s 1.5 million people reside. Will Mr. Schneiderman have the name recognition he might need to run a county race decided by voters in western and central Suffolk.

There is a wrinkle to this, however. He has ties to the west. Although Mr. Schneiderman’s folks owned a motel in Montauk, and the family spent summers in Montauk, during most of the rest of the year they lived in Hauppauge. He is a graduate of Hauppauge High School. Interestingly, Ed Romaine, now Brookhaven Town supervisor, was Mr. Schneiderman’s seventh grade social studies teacher in Hauppauge. (Former teacher and student served together on the Suffolk Legislature. Messrs. Schneiderman and Kennedy also served together as legislators.) 

Then there’s classic politics—involving personality, conflict and future plans.

 The current county executive, Democrat Steve Bellone, has had a contentious, sometimes bitter relationship, with Comptroller Kennedy. Meanwhile, Mr. Schneiderman and Mr. Bellone have been friends. It’s personal, not based on some party line allegiance, because Mr. Schneiderman has been on a winding political road. He was a Republican as East Hampton supervisor and Republican, too, for years on the county legislature, but then joined the Independence Party in 2008 and only changed his enrollment to Democrat last year. However, while an Independence Party member he ran for legislator and Southampton Town supervisor endorsed by Democratic Party. 

If Mr. Schneiderman can knock out Mr. Kennedy as comptroller, he would help Mr. Bellone when, as expected, Mr. Bellone runs for re-election to a third four-year term next year.  If Mr. Kennedy is re-elected this year, he’d be a likely Bellone opponent. Mr. Schneiderman does not have to give up his Southampton supervisor’s post to run for county comptroller.

Messrs. Schneiderman and Kennedy have interesting histories before getting into government. Mr. Schneiderman, with a B.A. in chemistry from Ithaca College and an M.A. in education from SUNY at Cortland, was a teacher, and he is an accomplished musician, trained and adept as a drummer. Mr. Kennedy worked at Kings Park Psychiatric Center while attending Stony Brook University, where he received a B.A. in psychology, and after graduation became a counselor and administrator at a State Office of Mental Health outpatient treatment program. Before getting a law degree from St. John’s University School of Law, he received an MBA with a concentration in capital budgeting from Adelphi University.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.