Suffolk Closeup - Edward Romaine The "Didn't Intend To Run" Supervisor

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 Since Edward P. Romaine was elected supervisor of Brookhaven Town in a special election in 2012, he has been re-elected and re-elected by large margins and is now in his eighth year as town supervisor. 

A Republican, he is very popular in Suffolk County’s largest town (bigger than all of Nassau County), not only winning by substantial margins but with him at the top of the town slate, Republicans have been elected to all six town council positions.

Mr. Romaine, a former Suffolk County legislator and Suffolk County clerk, has brought a focus on environmental issues and financial solidity to the town.

Mr. Romaine “didn’t intend” to run for town supervisor. He was happy and highly constructive as a county legislator. In observing the Suffolk Legislature since it was created in 1970, I’d say he was among the finest county legislators in that panel’s now 50-year history.

But tragedy struck. His beloved son, Keith Romaine, a two-term Brookhaven Town councilman, seen as moving up and becoming town supervisor, died at but 36 years of age. The young Romaine, of Moriches, suddenly contracted pneumonia and passed away from complications caused by a virus which attacked his heart. 

A few years later, the incumbent supervisor, Democrat Mark Lesko, decided to step down to become executive director of the Accelerate Long Island high tech project.

And Ed Romaine, when the vacancy occurred, decided to run for supervisor with a mission of doing what his son “might have done.”

“If my son had lived, he would be supervisor,” Mr. Romaine told me last week. 

“Usually, a son will follow in his father’s legacy—but in this situation it is the opposite: the father is following in his son’s legacy.”

There have been many accomplishments in the administration of Mr. Romaine, who just turned 73. He considers “most important saving the Carman’s River” through legislation he introduced during his first year as supervisor. Then comes “getting the town to a triple-bond rating” by his third year. There’s been the large amount of land put in the Pine Barrens preservation program. And there has been “setting a course” for now 50 percent of the power used by town government coming from renewable energy. “We have put up solar panels everywhere. They’re at the town hall, the airport, the composting property in Manorville” and so on. “And vehicles are all-electric or hybrid.” There are his efforts on climate change “and rising sea level. We are in a battle. We are island people and we must deal with climate change.” He has been spearheading the purchase of land threatened by rising waters “to convert it back to wetlands” to soften the impact of storms hitting. The list goes on. 

Ed Romaine has deep background in Suffolk. When he was six months old, his folks moved from Queens to Suffolk. He’s lived in Sayville, Central Islip, Hauppauge and Bayport—and for the past 41 years in Center Moriches. For 10 years he was a history teacher at Hauppauge High School. (Among his students was the current supervisor of Southampton Town, Jay Schneiderman.)

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Adelphi University, received a master’s in history and political science from Long Island University and did post-graduate work in political science at Stony Brook University. He first began working for Brookhaven Town as its first commissioner of housing and community development. 

Then he ran for the Suffolk Legislature and initially was a member for three years. He was a major legislative force in battling and stopping the operation of the Long Island Lighting Company’s Shoreham nuclear power plant. It was a hard and successful fight. Mr. Romaine, however, remains very much annoyed that “when LILCO stock dropped to under $5” it was not bought up and LILCO “seized.” That, which he and fellow county legislators and others advocated, would have been instead of what finally happened. This was the state buying LILCO’s assets, such as its poles and lines, at a far, far higher price than if it would have been  by acquiring the undervalued (because of LILCO’s nuclear undertaking) stock. That big mistake is costing Long Island ratepayers many additional billions of dollars in cost, he declares.

Then Mr. Romaine was elected Suffolk County clerk and served in that post for 16 years. He subsequently returned to the Suffolk Legislature and was a member for six more years—“I loved the legislature,” he comments. Keith died in 2009 and he decided to run for Brookhaven Town supervisor in 2012.

Also, in 2003 he ran for Suffolk County executive. He should have won.

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.