SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Suffolk County Legislature 50 Years Of History

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Before we forget—as most of us sure would like to—about what happened in 2020, notably the start and then spread of the COVID-19 plague—some attention is due in Suffolk County to 2020 having been the 50^th anniversary year of the Suffolk Legislature. 

It was established in 1970 as a result of the judicial affirmation that there should be one-person-one-vote. The prior county governing body was the Suffolk Board of Supervisors made up of the supervisors of each of the 10 towns in the county. Each supervisor had the same vote on the county board whether representing a lightly populated town or one with significant population. 

The Suffolk Legislature is made up of 18 legislators from districts of about equal population, so the vote of each legislator reflects the one-person-one-vote principle.

I’m the only journalist around who covered both the Suffolk Board of Supervisors and the Suffolk Legislature. They were quite different governmental bodies. 

A strength of the board was that each of the supervisors was the executive of his town and thus came to dealing with county business with experience in how governments run. I say “his” town because there was never a woman on the Suffolk Board of Supervisors. 

Until Judith Hope was elected the supervisor of the Town of East Hampton in 1973—after the board dissolved—only men had served as town supervisors in Suffolk. Thus, the Suffolk Board of Supervisors for all its 287 years consisted of only men, only white men at that. 

The Suffolk Legislature, on the other hand, has been diverse. There have been plenty of women legislators. And there have been Blacks and Latinos. 

The thinking in Suffolk politics when the legislature came into being was that the job of legislator would be part-time. This didn’t last very long and it soon became a full-time position.

The chairmen of the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors whom I covered and got to know included some who were, in my judgement, excellent, and I’m speaking especially of Evans K. Griffing of Shelter Island and John V.N. Klein of Smithtown. 

Mr. Klein, who was chairman in the board’s last four years, stepped down from being Smithtown supervisor as the board was getting set to be disbanded and ran for the new legislature. He was then elected the legislature’s first presiding officer. In the intelligent way he conducted himself and in the policies he initiated—for example, the Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program, the first sale-of-development-rights program in the nation—he was as fine a public official as I’ve ever known.

Most, but not all, of those who followed him as presiding officer were excellent. A few were poor. Outstandingly good have been Gregory Blass, William Lindsay, Sondra Bachety (the first female PO), Maxine Postal and DuWayne Gregory (the first African-American). 

The current presiding officer of the legislature is Rob Colarco, elected to the position by fellow legislators in 2020. For Suffolk County government, this was a good thing about 2020.

Mr. Colarco was first elected as a legislator in 2011, voted in as deputy presiding officer in 2016, and last year arrived at the top post, considered the Number 2 position in Suffolk government after county executive. He is self-effacing, dedicated to government service and works well with others. He’s very smart, energetic and focused on solutions. 

A native of upstate Auburn, he came to Suffolk to attend Dowling College in Oakdale, which is now defunct. And that’s a shame. It’s sad that Southampton College and Dowling College, both of which drew lots of talented, bright people to Suffolk, many of whom stayed and enriched this county, closed. 

Mr. Colarco’s official biography provides this picture: “Rob watched his family struggle to make ends meet and contributed to the household with whatever small jobs he could obtain. He learned early the values of hard work and respect for all people. Inspired by his father, who served 34 years in the Auburn Fire Department and led the effort to unionize the department… Rob comes to public service naturally.”

He received a Bachelor’s in political science at Dowling and went on to get a Master’s in public administration at Stony Brook University “at night while working full time,” says the biography. It notes: “Rob lives in Patchogue Village with his wife, Laura and his daughter, Alma Rosa and his two sons, Patrick and Bodhi. They share their home with their dog, Buck. They enjoy walking to the parks and caring for their vegetable garden.”

Next week: accomplishments of the Suffolk Legislature in 2020.

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. 

Suffolk Closeup: LIPA Should Provide Electric Service "Terminate" PSEG

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman 

 The Sacramento Municipal Utility District was a model for the Long Island Power Authority when LIPA was created more than three decades ago. 

SMUD has an elected board of trustees and provides electric service to the Sacramento area of California. It’s a service area with a population comparable to that of LIPA’s. SMUD’s establishment was bitterly opposed by an inept private utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, PG&E, just like LIPA’s formation was bitterly opposed by the inept Long Island Lighting Company. 

For example, faulty PG&E transmission lines were found to be the cause of the 2020 Camp Fire in California. The deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, it burned more than 150,000 acres and killed 85 people. PG&E has now settled with victims’ groups for a total of $25.5 billion, and PG&E has declared bankruptcy.

LIPA since its establishment, instead of itself providing electric service—like SMUD—has contracted with private utilities to do this. Currently, its contract is with Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, a Newark, New Jersey-based company.

LIPA is to decide next month whether to continue this arrangement with PSEG or fire it, as it did the private utility it previously had a service arrangement with, the London, England-based National Grid. 

LIPA recently initiated a $70 million lawsuit against PSEG for its terrible performance this past July during Tropical Storm Isaias accusing PSEG of “corporate mismanagement, misfeasance, incompetence and indifference, rising well beyond the level of simple negligence.” PSEG failures were termed “willful” and “in bad faith.” 

“I agree,” says State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor. PSEG’s “failure resulted in great hardship and great expense to its customers because of its inferior performance,” he says. “The breach of trust exhibited by PSEG cannot be repaired. The model for contracting out LIPA’s responsibilities to a private company is a two-time loser. There is no reason to think it would be different a third time.”

“When LIPA was created,” says Mr. Thiele, “the vision of its sponsors was the creation of a public power company to replace Long Island’s unaccountable, profit-driven private utility, LILCO. We should return to that vision.”

Indeed, the model of SMUD should be returned to.

In 1923, the citizens in the Sacramento area voted to create SMUD as a community-owned public utility. But PG&E fought that for decades. PG&E’s obstruction was finally stopped in 1946 when the California Supreme Court denied its final petition and SMUD was able to begin operations.

“SMUD is owned by its customers who elect a seven-member board of directors,” its website notes. “SMUD was born of this community, and is an integral part of it. More than just a barebones supplier of electricity, SMUD gives back to the community in ways that make life better for all who live and work in the Sacramento area.”

SMUD had an awful experience with nuclear power as we had with the Shoreham nuclear power plant—another parallel. In 1966, the same year that LILCO announced building its Shoreham nuclear power plant, SMUD purchased land for what became the site of its Rancho Seco nuclear power plant. It was a problem-plagued disaster, ran for 14 years, and was shut down. Among other damage it caused: cancer. A study in the journal Biomedicine International by Joseph Mangano and Dr. Janette Sherman of the Radiation and Public Health Project found cancer rates in Sacramento County declined after the shutdown of Rancho Seco with the end of radioactive emissions from the plant cited as a cause. Fortunately, Shoreham never got beyond problem-plagued low-power testing and was closed before inflicting us with nuclear poisons. 

SMUD now focuses on safe, clean, green. renewable energy, with a big emphasis on solar power. 

At long last, LIPA should return to the vision of being like SMUD—serving Long Island itself, not jobbing out service to private utilities that it then has to fire. “We hired PSEG to do a job and they failed to do it,” said LIPA CEO Tom Falcone as it filed the $70 million lawsuit against PSEG. New York State’s Department of Public Service agrees and has recommended LIPA “terminate” PSEG “as LIPA’s service provider.” 

That should happen, LIPA should provide electric service itself, and also—as the law creating LIPA stipulated—have an elected board of trustees like SMUD.

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. 

Suffolk Closeup: Donald Trump, Lee Zeldin And The Mercers

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman 

Suffolk County has not only been the base of one of Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress, Lee Zeldin, but it’s also been the base of an intensely pro-Trump father and daughter combination of billionaire Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer.

Further, in 2019 Donald Trump, Jr. bought a house in Bridgehampton and there has been discussion in political circles about his seeking to run for public office from Suffolk.

“The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind The Trump Presidency” was the heading of an extensive article about Mr. Mercer in The New Yorker magazine in 2017. Mr. Mercer “has funded an array of political projects that helped pave the way for Trump’s rise,” said the article by Jane Mayer. She is chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker. She is the author of the 2016 best-selling book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.

Mr. Mercer, at the time, was co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies of East Setauket. 

He left that post later in 2017 after reporting on his major financial backing of the far right.

The New Yorker article quoted Nick Patterson, a former senior Renaissance executive who recruited Mr. Mercer to work at the company, as saying: “Bob has used his money very effectively. He’s not the first person in history to use money in politics, but in my view Trump wouldn’t be president if not for Bob.”

It cited Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group and ex-chairman of the Federal Election Commission, as “seeing Mercer as emblematic of a major shift in American politics that occurred since 2010, when the Supreme Court made a controversial ruling in Citizens United” that “removed virtually all limits” on corporations spending in election campaigns. “Suddenly, a random billionaire can change politics and public policy,” said Mr. Potter, a Republican.

As to issues, the article related how Mr. Mercer “has argued that the Civil Right Act, in 1964, was a major mistake” and sought to “downplay the dangers posed by nuclear war. Mercer, speaking of the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, argued that, outside of the immediate blast zones, the radiation actually made Japanese citizens healthier.” He is “a proponent of nuclear power” and believes “nuclear accidents weren’t such a big deal.”

He has worked together with his “ardently conservative daughter, Rebekah.” She chairs the Mercer Family Foundation. Another article in 2017, in The Atlantic magazine, was headed: “What Does the Billionaire Family Backing Donald Trump Really Want? The Mercers are enjoying more influence with their candidate in the White House…”

“Robert Mercer very rarely speaks in public and never to journalists,” reported the British publication, The Guardian, also in 2017, “so to gauge his beliefs you have to look at where he channels his money.” This also includes, it noted, “a climate change denial thinktank, the Heartland Institute.”

The Mercer family’s nerve center in Suffolk is their 66-acre estate in Head of the Harbor, a village in the Town of Smithtown. It was there that Mr. Trump came after his 2016 election win to what has been described as a “lavish costume party” hosted by the Mercers.

And then there is Mr. Zeldin of Shirley. 

Mr. Zeldin spoke—a few hours after the January 6^th attack by Trump supporters and amid the residue of the mess they made in the very House of Representatives chambers in which he was talking—against Congress approving the Electoral College determination that Trump lost the 2020 election. Then, last week, again on the House floor, Mr. Zeldin fervently opposed impeachment of Mr. Trump for “incitement of insurrection” in the fiery speech he gave in front of The White House to his followers stating, “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue…and we’re going to the Capitol,” adding “You have to be strong.” They then marched on the Capitol engaging in violence to try to undo the election.

Mr. Zeldin was re-elected in November to a fourth two-year term despite being accurately described as a Trump sycophant in that campaign and years before. There are now many demands he resign. He should. And if he won’t, be expelled or voters causing him to go. “Zeldin has tethered himself to Trump from the start,” says says Progressive East End Reformers.. “Now comes the day of reckoning for his radical allegiance.” 

As for Donald Trump, Jr., for $4.5 million he purchased a residence on 3.9 acres in a gated waterfront community in Bridgehampton. Talked about in Suffolk politics has been the possibility he’d run for the House—for Mr. Zeldin’s lst Congressional District seat. The scenario spoken of involved Trump Senior getting a second term and appointing Mr. Zeldin to a position in his administration and Trump Junior running to replace Mr. Zeldin. In 2019 there was discussion of Lara Trump, wife of Mr. Trump’s son Eric, running for the House in the 2^nd C.D., which includes Suffolk and Nassau, but she opted not to. 

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. 

Suffolk Closeup - "Big Protest On January 6th"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“A Single Day Shakes…One Nation to the Core,” said one front-page headline.

As the attack by rioters on the Capitol shook the nation, it also shook this area and this state—hard.

As Rob Colarco, the presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, declared: “I watched with shock and horror as the United States Capitol was stormed by rioters today…This deadly attack on a national institution…is an assault on our country and what we stand for.” .

Governor Andrew Cuomo said: “The cornerstone of our democracy is the peaceful transfer of power. We must call this what it actually is: a failed attempt at a coup. This is the final chapter of an incompetent, cruel, and divisive administration that has trampled on the Constitution and the rule of law at every turn, and we won’t let President Trump, the members of Congress who enable him, or the lawless mob that stormed our nation’s Capitol steal our democracy.”

It was not a surprise. 

Mr. Trump tweeted followers on December 20^th—“Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

And then, in a speech in front of The White House last Wednesday, addressing his backers who had arrived, said: “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue…and we’re going to the Capitol.” He added: “You have to be strong.”

His call was preceded by his lawyer, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, proclaiming “let’s have trial by combat.” Mr. Giuliani represented Mr. Trump in many courts in challenges to his election defeat with claims that judges found untrue.  

At the Capitol, members of the House of Representatives and Senate were getting set to cast ballots in support or opposition to state votes in the Electoral College determining Joe Biden was the winner. 

“Trump Incites Mob,” was the banner headline across the front-page of The New York Times. Below it were photos of rioters getting into the Capitol last week including into the House and Senate chambers. “So this is how it ends,” began one, written by Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the Times and now writing a book on Mr. Trump’s time in office. The Trump presidency, it went on, “rooted from the beginning in anger, division and conspiracy-mongering, comes to a close with a violent mob storming the Capitol at the instigation of a defeated leader trying to hang onto power as if America were just another authoritarian nation. The scenes in Washington would have once been unimaginable: A rampage through the citadel of American democracy.”

After the riot was finally over—and why did it take so many hours for police reinforcements and the National Guard to arrive?—members of the House and Senate ,who had been taken to “secure” locations, returned under guard to discuss and cast ballots on the Electoral College vote. They certified it. 

Two of the three House members representing Suffolk, Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican Andrew Garbarino voted yes. Republican Lee Zeldin, who has been extremely close to Mr. Trump, was among 121 GOPers who voted no to certifying Mr. Biden as the winner. And he issued a statement about the riot saying, “This should never be the scene at the U.S. Capitol.” Mr. Zeldin didn’t mention Mr. Trump or his incitement.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, after the lawmakers reconvened, said he had “never lived through or even imagined an experience like we have just witnessed in this Capitol….the final, terrible, indelible legacy of the 45th president of the United States, undoubtedly our worst.”

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, in a piece done right after Election Day 2016, wrote: “The election of Donald Trump…is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism.” There would be “miseries to come.” He warned against an “attempt to normalize” the election of Mr. Trump, “a flim-flam man” with “disdain for democratic norms.” 

Articles I’ve written in this period include “On Trump the Con Man” and “Trump’s Offshore Drilling Plan” on CounterPunch, and TV programs I’ve done include “The Trump Nuclear Push” and “Trump’s Space Force” (www.envirovideo.com) 

CNN anchor Don Lemon of Sag Harbor said after the insurrection at the Capitol ended: “We have never seen a day like today.” He called Mr. Trump “the worst of the worst” of U.S. presidents. Another Sag Harbor resident, Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, said Mr. Trump “will be in our history books as a dark, dark stain unlike any president of the United States.”

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. 

Suffolk Closeup - LIPA's Future Will Be Decided In March

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP 

By Karl Grossman

The Long Island Power Authority will decide in March whether to continue having an outside private company provide electric service—so far it has used KeySpan, National Grid and now PSEG—or become a true public power utility and supply the electricity itself.

Eyed as a model for LIPA when it was established by the Long Island Power Act of 1985 was the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California. SMUD is a well-run true public power utility, the “the nation’s sixth-largest community-owned electric utility,” it notes. It serves 1.6 million customers, a customer base comparable to LIPA’s. And, importantly, it not only provides electric service itself but SMUD has locally-elected trustees in charge.

It’s high time for a return to that original vision of LIPA—to provide electric service itself with elected trustees responsible for its management and the charting of Long Island’s electric future in harmony with the will of Long Islanders.

But after the Long Island Power Act was passed, having the people of Long Island vote for LIPA trustees was pushed aside by then Governor Mario Cuomo and subsequently formally eliminated by his successor, George Pataki. Instead, a scheme was imposed of having the governor, the speaker of the State Assembly and leader of the State Senate—the oft-criticized “three men in a room”—appoint LIPA’s trustees. From Albany, they have had a huge hold over LIPA.

Citizens to Replace LILCO was the key grassroots organization that pushed for creation of LIPA—with strong support of Long Islanders and the island’s government officials.

“THE PROBLEM ISN’T JUST SHOREHAM. THE PROBLEM IS LILCO!” was the headline of a full-page advertisement that Citizens to Replace LILCO placed in many newspapers in the early 1980s. The “Shoreham” in the ad was the nuclear power plant that the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company, LILCO, was building, one of many nuclear power plants it sought to construct on Long Island. 

A state-created Long Island Power Authority, said the ad, “would protect our safety. Here’s the plain fact: LILCO’s life depends on opening Shoreham…And this despite Shoreham’s safety problems. That’s why they’re [LILCO] spending a fortune on propaganda while we put up with terrible service. A Long Island Power Authority would close Shoreham…and supply dependable, safe power.” It continued: “If you’ve had it with incompetence and arrogance…if you’re fed up with one of the country’s worst utilities—join us now.”

The head of Citizens to Replace LILCO, Maurice Barbash, in explaining its strategy, said with creation of LIPA the aim would be to stop the Shoreham plant from going into operation and having “an elected non-partisan board” of LIPA that “would be, unlike LILCO, accountable to the people.”

A Newsday survey at the time found a solid majority of Long Islanders in favor of a public power utility here. The Long Island Power Act began: “The legislature hereby finds and declares that an economic emergency exists in the Long Island Lighting Company service area.” It cited “mismanagement and imprudent decisions by LILCO.” The governmental effort was bipartisan. Mr. Cuomo voiced his backing saying “I very much like the idea of public power” pointing to how it takes the profiteering out of supplying electricity. And he signed the act. 

“This is a movement of the people by the people for the people,” said Leon Campo, a member of the steering committee of Citizens to Replace LILCO and chairman of the Suffolk-based Peoples’ Action Coalition.  

And LILCO, a terribly run private utility, indeed in the 1930s and 1940s on the brink of bankruptcy, was replaced by a Long Island Power Authority. 

But LIPA wasn’t allowed to become a public power utility like SMUD. LIPA’s system of jobbing out electric service has faced enormous criticism—justifiably. Contractor KeySpan was taken over by National Grid based in London, England and National Grid was ousted as a LIPA contractor for its poor performance during Superstorm Sandy. It was replaced by Newark, New Jersey based PSEG which is now facing termination for its poor performance during Tropical Storm Isaias in August. Meanwhile, despite annual efforts by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor to have LIPA’s trustees elected, that hasn’t happened. 

How LIPA can still become a public power utility like SMUD, providing electric service itself and with a board chosen by the votes of Long Islanders—and more on SMUD—next week.

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.